Blue Buffalo

I have MANY cats in my house, and it seems like no matter what I feed them, SOMEONE gets really icky diarrhea or puking immediately after eating, even with the tapering food switch! I had them on Purina Cat Chow (Blue bag) for the longest time, but some started to lose their hair. Vet confirmed it was allergic (steroid shots cleared it up, while behavior modification to rule out stress did NOT work) and quite possibly allergy to grains. 

I switched to Blue Buffalo Sensitive Tummy and had good success. They DID lose some weight, which was alarming, except for the cats who needed to lose weight. LOL. The puking stopped, and the diarrhea tapered off. This food was grain free and had no by-products at all. My main concern was for the 4D animals ground up from by-product and put into pet foods (diseased, disabled, dead, or dying), including animals with tumors, and even roadkill!! YUCK!!

Now, due to cost reasons, I have them on EVOLVE from Wal-mart. So far, not much diarrhea. Some vomiting.

What's your experiences with Purina, Blue Buffalo, and Evolve?

Bentliy said:

I have MANY cats in my house, and it seems like no matter what I feed them, SOMEONE gets really icky diarrhea or puking immediately after eating, even with the tapering food switch! I had them on Purina Cat Chow (Blue bag) for the longest time, but some started to lose their hair. Vet confirmed it was allergic (steroid shots cleared it up, while behavior modification to rule out stress did NOT work) and quite possibly allergy to grains. 

I switched to Blue Buffalo Sensitive Tummy and had good success. They DID lose some weight, which was alarming, except for the cats who needed to lose weight. LOL. The puking stopped, and the diarrhea tapered off. This food was grain free and had no by-products at all. My main concern was for the 4D animals ground up from by-product and put into pet foods (diseased, disabled, dead, or dying), including animals with tumors, and even roadkill!! YUCK!!

Now, due to cost reasons, I have them on EVOLVE from Wal-mart. So far, not much diarrhea. Some vomiting.

What's your experiences with Purina, Blue Buffalo, and Evolve?

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I have absolutely no experience with Purina or Blue personally. I've never even heard of Evolve from Walmart but I don't shop there so that's not unusual for me. I'm assuming these foods have all been kibble and not wet food. I'm not sure where the concern for 4D animals came from regarding Blue. I don't know about the Purina processing but I have serious doubts about any 4D products in their food but of course I could be wrong. I don't know about Evolve. My food experiences have been mainly with Nutro Max Cat and Nutro Natural Choice products both wet and kibble. I also buy other premium wet food for diet variation for the kitties. So far I've had no food related issues. Nutro Natural Choice has just come out with new formulas and a new grain free which is pretty exciting. When your finances get better you might want to check those out.

You say the Evolve seems to be so-so. What's you next move? Back to Purina maybe? Keep us posted on what you decide to do. Getting them all on the same diet with no side effects can be a challenge.

You might look at the Max line. It is the more economical line of the Nutro lines and is a premium. It is comparable in price to some of the Purina products out there.

I do not know for a fact that feeding raw is more economical than commercial but some folks say it is. With the issues you're experiencing you might want to explore that area also. There is a forum here on TCS that can help at http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-feeding-for-cats

Hi!

I tried Nutro, and the effects were DEVASTATING on my carpet. That, and with Simply Nourish Turkey & Oatmeal formula. The minute I began to taper either of these brands into the previous food, everyone had explosive diarrhea and vomiting. :C

Essentially, I've gone through every brand in Petsmart that is grain-free and contains no by-product in the ingredient list.

I definitely won't be going back to Purina, as it's full of grains, by-product, and overall junk.

This article is from 2012, and I found worse articles dating back since 2005 regarding 4D animals used in pet food with the ingredient "____ by-product". http://coldnosesmag.com/2012/03/13/what-is-4-d-meat/

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend going back to Cat Chow, it is fairly low-quality. Evolve is decent, and if your cats do well on it I think that's as good as you can nope for, considering how sensitive they seem.

One thing that might be good to consider is adding some wet food to their diet (also, by-products in wet foods are not allowed to have 4-d animals, only b-product MEAL in dry foods does), as the added moisture is important for cats. Check out www.catinfo.org for more info.

Thanks Willowy,

I do try to give them treats with wet food; I was able to get almost 200 cans of cat food at Petco for less than $11 a few months ago!! (I was working there doing overnight remodeling of the store and knew what was on sale and what wasn't; this included boxed deals and 1cent cans) and despite them being within the expiry date, the wet food gives everyone diarrhea! I'm at a loss. Their fountain isn't working right now, and I know how important hydration is to their health. But I can't imagine why the wet food would give them such bad side effects.

Something just occurred to me.  The water fountain you were using.  Had you been keeping it clean?

We stopped using ours after I noticed that green algae would grow on the inside of it very quickly.  It was a cheaper model.  

I now just give them water in ceramic bowls.

Hi sivyaleah~

Yes, I clean it every day with Dawn. The bowl is stainless steel, and the motor is easy to take apart. I soak it in water with the tiniest bit of bleach, then let it run a few cycles in a different container with clean water to make sure all traces of bleach is out. I also have a baby bottle cleaner to get into the slot where the filter normally sits, the biggest offender for slimy yuckiness.

Ceramic bowls are no match for my cats! They still manage to slide them around, push them off "no slick" mats, and dump it over. While I'd love to have someone clean my floor, a flood of water just doesn't do the trick.

My male cat eats two kinds of grain free dry kibble, Nature's Variety (chicken) and Blue Buffalo Wilderness (chicken, duck) flavors and he has no problems with these brands.  He's 15 1/2 years old and weighs 11.56 pounds on the vets digital scale.