Help selecting a new food

This will be very long if I go really into detail, so long story short my little rescue baby Delilah needs a new food that is chunks or flakes not a pate. She has nose issues and the vet thinks she will do better off pate so she doesn't clog her nose up. She has been eating a/d food to try to get her weight up, she is extremely small for her age. She is between 9-10 weeks and weighs 8.5oz. So whatever food I get needs to be as helpful as possible. I am not really concerned about the price, a can of a/d is almost $2.

here are links to the threads about her with more back info if you want.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/243831/kittens-not-growing

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/244457/kitten-with-sores-where-swelling-is-going-down-pictures-included

Grain-free chunks or shreds in gravy:

Wellness pouches (I don't remember which flavors are grain free, but I think the pouches are marked)
Soulistic
Weruva
Earthborn Holistic

Of these, Earthborn Holistic has the lowest carb content.

Oh, and I think Avoderm has a chunks-in-gravy food.

Unfortunately, the "chunks and gravy" foods aren't calorie-dense.

Do you add kitten formula (powdered or liquid) to her canned food and make it kind of soupy? I always do that for orphan kittens. And, yeah, paté canned foods are more calorie-dense. And I think chunks are hard for babies to chew.

Of those brands Wellness and Avoderm are the only ones that are available to me in the store. What kinda worries me is that she wont even eat the chunks, neither her or her sister will eat solid food yet, even though they are old enough. They will eat some plain cooked chicken but not to much they really have to work at it to chew it, I think their small size plays a role in what they easily can eat.

When they first started doing poorly and I put them on a/d food I mixed it with formula to make it nice and soupy. It made it easier to syringe feed Delilah too. I recently got a blender and I purred some chicken and added the a/d formula blend to that. Over the holiday weekend I was low on a/d food and the vet was closed so I bought some Innova pate and but that the purred chicken, formula and a can of a/d food together in the blender and made a nice smooth mixture. It is not quite soupy but they love it. I was thinking about keeping with a brand of wet food and just keep mixing it with the a/d.

The fact that the chunks and gravy does not have as many calories as the pate. I am also concerned that she will not get what she needs to grow from eating chunks because I don't see her eating as much. The big concern with the pate is that when her messed up nostril gets clogged she cant breath, and her good nostril is slightly compromised from the swelling that is still slightly there. I was having an issue with her breathing recently, and the vet was still a bit concerned about it today. I am "cleaning" her nose out a few times a day now with saline. I almost wonder if I should just keep her on what she is getting and maybe rinse her nose out right afterwards to get any food out that she may have gotten in there.

Is the risk of food clogging her nose worth her possibly not doing as well. She is still a bit boney but she has come a long way from the 3.5 she weighed 2 weeks ago when she was at her worst. I thought I was going to lose her because she dropped half her body weight in 3 days. I worry without the right nutrition she could easily slip backwards again.

I tried chunks with Delilah, she was not impressed. I tried Avoderm and just to see Friskies that I had on hand and she ignored both. She likes her pate.
 

I did get some Blue Buffalo Wilderness because I was given coupons to get some free. I figured it was good considering it is grain free and high in protein.

I was trying to figure out if I should keep feeding her a/d mixed with another brand, just another brand or just a/d only. I want to give her whatever it takes to get her weight up, and work towards her being a healthy kitten. If I am not feeding her chunks is there a brand that would be best for helping her grow? or would feeding her any high quality food help?

Are you opposed to feeding her raw? Dethawed commercial is very much like pate, only extremely high protein and low carb, but fully supplemented so nutritionally complete and balanced. It's nutrition dense, all of it easily digested. Basically, you just feed her as much as she'll eat. But it shouldn't cause problems with her nose the same way pate does, because it's not mushy. :dk: Just a thought.

LDG said:

Are you opposed to feeding her raw? Dethawed commercial is very much like pate, only extremely high protein and low carb, but fully supplemented so nutritionally complete and balanced. It's nutrition dense, all of it easily digested. Basically, you just feed her as much as she'll eat. But it shouldn't cause problems with her nose the same way pate does, because it's not mushy. :dk: Just a thought.

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Oh, this is a good idea! Do you have a Whole Foods in your area? In the freezer meat case, they have frozen pet foods (CountryPet Naturals). . .not quite fully raw because it's heat pasteurized (not cooked though), but it's all meat (plus supplements). I suggest their brand because it has an oddly firm texture, not mushy or soupy at all, but it wouldn't be hard for a kitten to eat either (if you mashed it up for her). My kitties give it 2 paws up . Nature's Variety should work, too, although you might have to pick out the larger bone chips. I'm not sure of the texture of the other brands that are commonly available in stores.

I'm not necessarily opposed to raw. There are just a few factors I would have to look at. I have never seen commercial raw sold anywhere here. As far as pet stores go I have Petsmart and that is it. There is a small pet store but they sell more fish and small pets stuff. There is one tiny little area where they sell cat and dog stuff but the selection is extremely limited, and no raw. With that I would have to figure out cost if I could even find it. I also have other cats and I feel like I would have to feed them raw too if I were to start with Delilah.

No Whole Foods market? I know they're mostly in big cities but you can go to their website and run the store locator to see if one is close by. And the Nature's Variety website also has a dealer locator. . .sometimes it's a groomer or boarding kennel that sells it, not always a pet store. You might be surprised. Most commercial raw products cost the same as/less than a high-quality canned (considering you feed less of it). Almost certainly less than a/d! And you don't have to go all raw--you can just add it to your rotation.

The closet Whole Foods is an hour and a half away, and the same goes for what came up on the Natures Variety locator too. That's just too far to drive on a regular basis, it will cost me about $30-$40 in gas each trip.

If I can find some raw here or very close then I am willing to try it.

Aw, Nature's Variety is the most commonly available, so if nobody has that it's not likely they have anything else . You can order the CountryPet Naturals online with free shipping if you buy an entire case, but of course you wouldn't want to buy that much without knowing if they like it.

One thing I've done to add extra calories is to grind a high-quality kibble to powder in a coffee grinder (you can get a cheap one for about $10) and mix the kibble powder into canned food. It also makes the canned food less goopy. Maybe that would work for her.

Willowy said:

Aw, Nature's Variety is the most commonly available, so if nobody has that it's not likely they have anything else

. You can order the CountryPet Naturals online with free shipping if you buy an entire case, but of course you wouldn't want to buy that much without knowing if they like it.
One thing I've done to add extra calories is to grind a high-quality kibble to powder in a coffee grinder (you can get a cheap one for about $10) and mix the kibble powder into canned food. It also makes the canned food less goopy. Maybe that would work for her.

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Yeah, I would hate to order a bunch without knowing if they will like it. I wish somewhere closer had some.

I actually put dry food in the blender and turned it to powder and added it to the wet food. Neither her or Penelope would eat it until I added water into it to make it liquidity again.

Well, even if you have to make it liquidy it's still higher calories. Might be worth doing until she puts on more weight. Is she still getting food up her nose? Poor baby .

Yeah I can do that again tonight. I bought Innova kitten food mostly because it was the cheapest good quality brand. I was unsure of whether or not they would even eat it, and they wouldn't even try it. I was planning on allowing them to free feed from that between their wet food meals if they wanted. If I grind it up at least it will be ate.

She does still get food up her nose. She sneezes when she eats, but I just squirt saline up it and she sneezes out anything up there. She does eat slowly and probably less because of this, but she is offered food every few hours.

Since I cant find raw anywhere here, I bought some more canned food. I had bee feeding her Innova, but switched to Wellness to see if she would eat it. She is in love with Wellness. I have ever seen her so excited to eat as she is when I get her a plate of Wellness. I still have some a/d so that is mixed in there too. I couldnt find anything about how many calories is in a can, but she seems to be eating more of it than she has anything else.
 

Oh, that is GREAT you found something she loves!!!!!!!!!! If you're feeding the kitten formula, it has 122 calories per 3 oz can: http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/product-details.aspx?pet=cat&pid=1#guaranteed-analysis

And the a/d should help boost that caloric intake with added nutrion. :nod:

They were actually sold out of the kitten the day I went so I picked up Chicken and Turkey flavors in the 5.5oz cans. I hope that is ok, I figured with it being good quality it was.
 

Oh I'm sure it is. :nod: The kitten food may have higher protein, so when they do have it in stock you may want to get it. I'm on the website -the calories are comparable. :lol3: The 3 oz can of chicken has 120 calories, the 3 oz can of Turkey has 119, both have 12% protein on an "as fed" basis, and the kitten food, oddly, is 11.5% protein. Hunh. That's weird. The kitten food has more fat than the others. :dk: Well, I wouldn't really worry about the kitten food vs the others then! :lol3: