We need help finding a canned food for IBD, pancreatitis and hyperthyroidism.

Hello everyone,

I am tying to find a canned cat food that is nutritionally balanced alone that has only the meat, organ and bone components and supplements added.  Any suggestions for raw diets are also welcomed.

NO extras. 

No grains,

no fruits,

no vegetables. 

Buddy is being treated for hyperthyroid, pancreatitis and possible IBD and we need a diet that is free of anything that may irritate his body while we get this under control and his body heals.  If anyone has experience with a food that will fit this bill I would love to hear from you. He is, today, trying the Wysong aus jus chicken, though it is not a complete source of food.  I have to find something that is until I can get him eating the Rad Cat raw, or some other brand. 

He had been on a part Nature's Variety raw and part grain free canned diet for about 5 months prior to all of this starting and I would like to be able to get him back on a partial or complete raw diet if possible, whichever his body allows.  He has paralysis in his hind legs with tail sensation and bowel and bladder control but the nice little poops he has with the raw diet really go a long way to keeping his bottom clean (makes me happy), and his sense of being able to do it himself without mommy helping wipe his butt helps his self esteem (makes Buddy happy). 

I really want to be able to make my own raw at home but after some research and long and honest consideration I just don't think I can do it right now.  I work and go to school and commute for both of those things.  Making your own raw requires quite a bit of work in the beginning to ensure the proper nutritional/supplemental ratios, ingredient sourcing, etc..  I don't have the time with my own studies to put in the required work to do it right and correct.  The last thing I want to do is do it wrong and hurt him or worse.  So for now, at least, making my own will have to wait. I have to get him eating the canned as I transition him back to the raw if possible.

Thank you for any help you can offer,

Janice and Buddy

I like Rad Cat. Commercial raw cat food - if you can find it in your local independent pet food store. Also Feline's Pride is another commercial raw food you can buy online that is excellent. Both of these options are pricey though.

I believe EVO canned has no grains, veggies, or fruit in it.

  You can get ground complete meats from hare-day, mypetcarnivore, raw basicsllc and other places, Vital Essentails has frozen/freeze dried beef, chicken, fish, I think one has kelp but most are veggie free.  FWIW, I feed frankenprey and while it was scary jumping in, even with a lot of research, it's really not that hard.  If you are making a ground diet there's a few programs/websites out there that will help you design balanced diets now. 

Vital Essentials is an excellent company and frankly one that actually gets what a carnivore diet should be. Please be very careful with feeding raw and having pancreatitis! I've had cats on my website get very sick during this time due to the bacteria. Normally I am all for a raw diet but through trial and error we've found that for some reason when the pancreas is overworked like that, they don't do well at all on raw. After he's had a chance to get better and heal you can slowly switch back. Unless he's doing well now, I'm not sure. But just wanted to let you know about that.

I'm assuming the vet did suggest the use of digestive enzymes to help relieve the burden on the pancreas?

And if you're going to feed commercial raw, it's best to use foods without bone. Vital Essentials has ground bone. Rad Cat and Nature's Menu do not, but supplement calcium instead.

If Wysong aus jus doesn't have added vitamin and mineral, isn't that just same as cooked chicken?  I wonder if we can cook chicken or other meat and add vitamin mineral premix to make it a complete diet instead of feeding commercial food when you are not feeding raw..  Does anyone think that is better than commercial canned?

space1101 said:

If Wysong aus jus doesn't have added vitamin and mineral, isn't that just same as cooked chicken?  I wonder if we can cook chicken or other meat and add vitamin mineral premix to make it a complete diet instead of feeding commercial food when you are not feeding raw..  Does anyone think that is better than commercial canned?

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That's a good point.... if you feed only the chicken (I am doing exactly what you are saying with Lucky right now).... But Wysong Aus Jus has a lot of variety..... and it is meat and organs..... That is one advantage...... especially if you want to do a novelty meat....

I'm thinking about doing it, too.  Do you use any vitamin premix?  I wonder where those pet food companies get their premix from....

I'd like to caution against trying to make a processed supplemental food balanced by adding your own supplements. You can't know what the nutrient profile of the supplemental foods is and so can't know what supplements you need to add. The premixes available for adding to raw meats and organs also should not be used because the nutrient profile of raw foods is different from that of cooked foods and so the premixes are not appropriate for use with them.

Thanks mischauer.  I was thinking how to make nutritionally balanced cooked diet.  I don't know how those pet food companies calculate the nutrition profile for their cooked meat.   I wonder if they have real specialists doing that for them or they all buy premix from the same place, 

space1101 said:

Thanks mischauer.  I was thinking how to make nutritionally balanced cooked diet.  I don't know how those pet food companies calculate the nutrition profile for their cooked meat.   I wonder if they have real specialists doing that for them or they all buy premix from the same place, 

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No, they don't use a premix. Each formulation is going to be different depending on what ingredients they use.

I saw on the other thread that there is a product called Call of the wild, which we can add to Wysong au just to make it a balanced diet.  Do you think it's a good idea to add to home made diet?

space1101 said:

I saw on the other thread that there is a product called Call of the wild, which we can add to Wysong au just to make it a balanced diet.  Do you think it's a good idea to add to home made diet?

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Well, first, Call of the Wild is formulated specifically to compliment their Au Jus foods and fresh, not cooked, meats so whether it would produce a balanced diet when used with cooked meats is questionable. Secondly, they don't seem to think using that product to produce an exclusively fed diet is a good idea. From the Call of the Wild product label:

http://www.wysong.net/products/labels/CALLWILD.pdf

For intermittent or supplemental feeding only.

For best results, use in conjunction with the entire Wysong Optimal Health Program[emoji]8482[/emoji] for Animals.

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You can contact Wysong and ask them what they think about using it with cooked meat.

If you really want to try a cooked homemade diet, take a look at this book: