Food Suggestions For Cat With Chronic Diarrhea

Here is the background story and what she's on now: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/269727/lola-cat-update-the-diarrhea-diaries#post_3461404

I'm open to anything. I'd like something that all four of my cats can be on together, to simplify feeding, but I also can't afford like $400 in pet food a month. I'd say $100 is the upper end of our budget to feed all four and have litter for them. If I HAVE to separate Lola from the others during feeding, I guess I can. I'm just really grumpy about that.

If I were you I would try to go grain free.  Canned food is ideal for cats if you can afford it.  This website has some good ideas for kitties who have sensitive systems:  http://ibdkitties.net/Food.html

I actually just purchased these two items:

Halo Spot's Stew for Cats, Grain Free Hearty Chicken Recipe

Instinct Grain-Free Duck Formula Canned Cat Food by Nature's Variety

Plus this:

Natural Factors Acidophilus and Bifidus Double Strength Capsules

I'd be curious to see how those probiotics work out. Hopefully they help poor Lola. I know how frustrating it is to have a cat with chronic diarrhea. Our Wiggs was like that for years before we managed to get him solid. Lately though he's been having runny poops again and I'm thinking of getting probiotics for him.
As for the food you mentioned, I've bought both those (Halo canned though) and I find that Wiggs is fussy about the Instinct.

I can come and report back about the probiotics. They arrive Monday, with the food. I'm wondering if I should do a switch of the food first...using the rest of the same probiotic...then switching to the different probiotic. If for no other reason than to pinpoint which is helping if things do change.

I had a discussion with my husband last night, and he offered to cook the food for the cats. Just out of no where. I said "I'm thinking we might eventually have to feed her a raw diet, and he piped right up with "it would probably be cheaper," and I said yes, it might be, but it seems like a lot of work," and he said "not really." Just like that. (he does all the cooking in the house regardless)

So, we're going to try this food for a few weeks. We have to stick with it for a few weeks, because we're without a kitchen, so we couldn't prepare boiled chicken for her if we wanted to. My husband suggested getting rotisserie chickens and removing the skin, and that might work, but it's not as good as just PLAIN BOILED CHICKEN, so it might not work well anyway. We should be getting new appliances January 9th, so we have a few weeks to stick it out.

Domino04, I just clicked on your first post and laughed out loud at the photo of your cats under the blanket.  That's funny!  Good job on the pic.  

Have you tried pumpkin puree in their food?  If you put 'pumpkin' in the search box, several threads will come up about it.  Here's one:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/244415/canned-pumpkin

If you try it, here's another good resource about how to store it from www.ibdkitties.net:  Tip #2:  For diarrhea or constipation, add a teaspoon of all natural canned pumpkin to your cat's meal. Any 
canned pumpkin will do but Farmer's Market Organic is the best one and seems to be the most tasty. Make sure 
it's the 100% pumpkin and not the pie filling. It works like magic. Canned pumpkin is good for 7 days in the 
refrigerator but usually only tastes good for about 4-5 days. Place the remainder in ice cube trays and freeze. 
Then place them in baggies or a container immediately for freshness and defrost as needed or freeze 3 days 
worth at a time.

I use pumpkin for two kitties I have with IBD who get bouts of diarrhea.  It is not 100% effective for them but helps a LOT and they don't mind eating it mixed in with food.  I just saw another thread here on TCS where the poster said their cat will eat pumpkin by itself, so I'm going to try that, too.  Sometimes they don't eat all their food and it would be great it if they will eat it on its own.  

Betsy, I did try pumpkin. She was on it for at least 3 weeks (one spoonful with her wet food a day), and I didn't see any improvement at all. This is why I'm thinking it might just be IBD and we need to figure out what's going on. The sample went to the vet yesterday, though, so they may find something.

That's a shame.  I hope you have better results with the probiotics and food changes.  Please keep up posted with what you find out--keeping my fingers crossed for the best results possible!

Have you considered raw? My 3 cats had terrible diarrhea, Gadget having it the worst. Meds wouldn't touch it. I was scooping the boxes 4 times a day and scrubbing them twice a week. I was spraying Febreeze multiple times a day, and was still horrified at the smell. And I knew my cats didn't feel good.

The vet was out of options and wanted to biopsy. I wanted to try one more thing: raw. I bought some chicken thighs and gave them the meat. They ended up eating a full meal's worth. I threw the bone to them and Gadget bit right through the bone! He hauled off with one piece and went under the couch and proceeded to eat some of the bone. Mason took off with the other half. No one choked thank goodness, and the following morning there was less smell. I did the same thing for breakfast only this time Julie got half a bone. I did the same for lunch and by that night the diarrhea was resolved. I immediately ordered a grinder (back ordered at the time) and premixes to balance the meat. I haven't fed them canned since. My vet was amazed that such a simple solution fixed all 3 cats.

Peaches,

I had a discussion with my husband last night, and he offered to cook the food for the cats. Just out of no where. I said "I'm thinking we might eventually have to feed her a raw diet, and he piped right up with "it would probably be cheaper," and I said yes, it might be, but it seems like a lot of work," and he said "not really." Just like that. (he does all the cooking in the house regardless)

So, we're going to try this food I ordered first for a few weeks. We have to stick with it for a few weeks, because we're without a kitchen right now due to renovations, so we couldn't prepare boiled chicken for her if we wanted to. My husband suggested getting rotisserie chickens and removing the skin, and that might work, but it's not as good as just PLAIN BOILED CHICKEN, so it might not work well anyway. We should be getting new appliances January 9th, so we have a few weeks to stick it out.

In the meantime, I'm going to google some "recipes" and see what we need to do to prepare this type of thing on a regular basis. I mean. Just RAW? Ground up? Or. Cooked a little? I have no idea. At all.

Domino04 said:

Peaches,

I had a discussion with my husband last night, and he offered to cook the food for the cats. Just out of no where. I said "I'm thinking we might eventually have to feed her a raw diet, and he piped right up with "it would probably be cheaper," and I said yes, it might be, but it seems like a lot of work," and he said "not really." Just like that. (he does all the cooking in the house regardless)

So, we're going to try this food I ordered first for a few weeks. We have to stick with it for a few weeks, because we're without a kitchen right now due to renovations, so we couldn't prepare boiled chicken for her if we wanted to. My husband suggested getting rotisserie chickens and removing the skin, and that might work, but it's not as good as just PLAIN BOILED CHICKEN, so it might not work well anyway. We should be getting new appliances January 9th, so we have a few weeks to stick it out.

In the meantime, I'm going to google some "recipes" and see what we need to do to prepare this type of thing on a regular basis. I mean. Just RAW? Ground up? Or. Cooked a little? I have no idea. At all.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't get a rotisserie chicken because of spices used on it. Just get plain ole raw chicken. Rinse if you'd like. Cut into little cubes about the size of dice or run it through a food processor if it will handle it. As far as recipes, check out the raw forum stickies. I use www.catinfo.org recipe, but if a grinder isn't in the budget right now don't worry. You can use eggshells as a calcium source. I buy Morton's Lite salt with iodine at the grocery store, and the other supplements from www.iherb.com. it seems really daunting at first, I know. I was terrified at first. But it really is simple.

Oh, a good scale. Definitely gotta have a scale. I recommend poultry scissors because they're awesome, but that can come later. Start watching for sales at the grocery store. My grocer sells chicken thighs on sale for $0.99/lb and I stock up. Three cats cost me less than $15/month to feed raw twice a day.

peaches08 said:

I wouldn't get a rotisserie chicken because of spices used on it. Just get plain ole raw chicken. Rinse if you'd like. Cut into little cubes about the size of dice or run it through a food processor if it will handle it. As far as recipes, check out the raw forum stickies. I use www.catinfo.org recipe, but if a grinder isn't in the budget right now don't worry. You can use eggshells as a calcium source. I buy Morton's Lite salt with iodine at the grocery store, and the other supplements from www.iherb.com. it seems really daunting at first, I know. I was terrified at first. But it really is simple.

Oh, a good scale. Definitely gotta have a scale. I recommend poultry scissors because they're awesome, but that can come later. Start watching for sales at the grocery store. My grocer sells chicken thighs on sale for $0.99/lb and I stock up. Three cats cost me less than $15/month to feed raw twice a day.

Click to expand...

Right---that's exactly what I was worried about, too with the rotisserie.

I'm going to give this new food a week or two. Really, only because I bought it and I want to just give it a whirl, AND the kitchen thing. If that doesn't work, at least in 2 weeks we should have flooring, walls, possibly even counters (no tops until the week after that). So, even if the appliances aren't delivered until January 9th, I could try the raw stuff before, and presumably, I can get to my food processor by then (no clue where it is right now, because everything is in boxes).

I'll check out the recipe and give it a look over and share it with my husband and see what he thinks. Sounds like he was right in saying this might be cheaper. Our 4 go through a bag of Blue maybe every 1.5/2 months, and that's $40, plus a can of wet every day at $40 for 24. So it does sound like doing this might at least NOT be any more expensive, and possibly even cheaper, even if I can't get the stuff on sale.

AND, one of the appliances is a chest freezer for the basement so we can maybe try to go organic ourselves and get cows/chickens/pigs. Even if we don't go organic chicken for the cats (I'd have to check that rolling cost per month), we'll have the space to store frozen chicken when things do go on sale. So that is another good thing about the renovations, I suppose.

Budget isn't a huge issue--I think the grinder attachment to my Kitchenaid is less than $100, and I sort of wanted it for ALL THE SAUSAGE anyway. Plus, we're renovating. We can just say it's part of that cost.

Oh, I should add that there are options like Frankenprey and commercial raw (pricy but a great option). For now, just see if they'll eat raw. If they will, then let's look at balancing the raw so that your kitties get everything they need.

@Carolina has a similar story about diarrhea and raw helping her cats.

Certainly give the new food a try. You can always look at transitioning to raw later. Right now, helping your cat is what's important. Check out the site I mentioned and the raw subforum stickies anyway, they have a lot of good nutritional information.

I'm not familiar with the attachment for KitchenAid, but be warned that most grinders have a warranty disclaimer about grinding bone.

I should also have mentioned that you can feed 15% of the diet as unbalanced raw. If you feed twice a day, that comes to 2 meals a week without worrying about balancing.

Good luck on your renovations and I hope the new food helps. Did I also read that you're expecting?

Thanks peaches! My husband will know more about grinders and whatnot (He is literally in charge of everything in the kitchen but the wine cooler and the kitchenaid, those are mine. Oh, and the Keurig. I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't cook. Ever. I bake. But I don't cook.), so before purchasing, we'll look into that--thanks for the head's up there. And it's good to know we can skip a few meals a week if we're out of town with no real consequence (other than, you know, if it makes her sick, but we'll have to see).

And hey, before any of this, the vet MIGHT find a bug or some other clue in her sample and it might be easily taken care of. But before putting her on any kind of medication for IBD, if that is what it ends up being, I do want to try this first.

Thanks for the good luck! We have been after this renovation since July (we waited FOUR MONTHS for someone to get back to us with a ridiculous quote on cabinets. $20K just for cabinets? No. We found BETTER cabinets with an island for less than half that, thank you, and they were back to us within a week.), so we really wanted this done in the summer/fall, and we're way behind. We didn't start real reno until about three weeks ago, though. Still, everything was SUPPOSED to be finished by Christmas, and it's not. BUT. It should be by the middle/end of January. We're getting there.

And no, we're not expecting yet. We are expecting to be expecting? Sort of trying? Not really? Who knows? I don't remember saying that on this board, though (I could have, I babble), so if you knew that, you're just psychic.

Domino, just be aware, there is RAW, and there is homecooked.  TWO different things.  You were originally talking about cooking their food.  That's a good option.  So is feeding them completely raw meats.  Just be aware that they are different.

We have a sub-forum that discusses both here under the Nutrition Forum.  I have done both, mainly raw, but once just for the heck of it I tried cooking their food just to see how they'd like it. It was very easy.  The only thing I caution you about either way is to check and make sure any meat you purchase does not have additives.  Chicken normally has a sodium solution added.  Breasts commonly have this added, and sometimes thighs do too.  For instance, I buy the flash frozen thighs bulk from Costco.  I cannot use those for the cats because they add the sodium solution.   Anyway, as far as adding in the necessary nutrients to the raw food, there are several companies that make a premix that you can use if you don't want to buy all the individual supplements and measure them out.  Alnutrin, TCFeline are a couple that come to mind.  If you don't want to grind bones, you can get these with  calcium added.  You can use these for your cooked meals too   It's really SO easy.

Here's the link to the Raw/Homecooked Forum:  http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-home-cooked-cat-food

There is a LOT of information here, so you or DH could start researching now, for implementation later.  It took me months to get going, just because I wanted to be prepared (mentally to make sure I sort of knew what I was doing...now all this information is provided)