Stopped feeding dry and will try raw. How big poop should be?

ankitty · Nov 19, 2014

Hello,

It's my first post. I've been reading the forums for some time and learned so much about cat nutrition. I really appreciate that this forum exists! I switched to all canned food about a couple months ago and my cats are already looking shiny and healthier. I'm so impressed by the improvement. I wish I knew when I adopted my cats years ago. I've talked a vet who is for raw diet and now am ready to try.

I have one question. When you switch from dry to canned food, do poops get smaller and firmer? How big normal poop should be? One of my cats poop got smaller and firmer. I'm feeding mostly Natures Variety Instinct and I wonder if it's because of the clay in Instinct, or something else. The vet thought he's constipated and recommended adding water and a little more fat in his diet.

zoneout · Nov 19, 2014

Depends on the canned food. Most canned food poop will be same as dry. Basically carbs and vege protein make large poop. Ultra premium canned like weruva or tiki might see smaller poops. If you want healthy poop go raw.

Btw, sounds like you found one of the better vets out there. A lot of them are clowns masquerading as animal doctors.

ritz · Nov 20, 2014

Agree with Zonecat; depends on how much 'filler' is in the canned food. And by "filler", I mean carbohydrates which include blueberries, oatmeal, carrots, etc.
When you go with Raw, in my experience, poop frequency and size will decrease significantly. I fed prey model raw and Ritz poops about three times a week. (If you cat is prone to constipation, I would go with the low end of bone percentage recommendation to start with.)
And yeah you found an 'enlightened' vet.

ankitty · Nov 20, 2014

Thank you for your replies.

Instinct is no grain low carb, so I guess that's why his poop became smaller. Weird thing is that the other cat has much bigger poop even though they both eat same food. But I started adding water to their food and giving the one with small poop some butter, and he had more poops this morning than before.

Yes, it's fortunate that I was able to find this vet. She sounded more like a good doctor for human than a sales representative.

I have a few independent pet stores around here that sell raw food and better canned food, and I asked some of them if they know a good vet. I looked up Yelp too.

zoneout · Nov 20, 2014

ankitty said:
Thank you for your replies.

Instinct is no grain low carb, so I guess that's why his poop became smaller. Weird thing is that the other cat has much bigger poop even though they both eat same food. But I started adding water to their food and giving the one with small poop some butter, and he had more poops this morning than before.

Yes, it's fortunate that I was able to find this vet. She sounded more like a good doctor for human than a sales representative.

I have a few independent pet stores around here that sell raw food and better canned food, and I asked some of them if they know a good vet. I looked up Yelp too.

Did you say there is `clay` in instinct?? That is strange.... geez, talk about a filler!

Hmmm... you know - that is an incredibly good idea asking an independent pet store for a vet recommendation. I will have to try that.

stephanie42 · Nov 20, 2014

zoneout said:
Did you say there is `clay` in instinct?? That is strange.... geez, talk about a filler!

Hmmm... you know - that is an incredibly good idea asking an independent pet store for a vet recommendation. I will have to try that.

the montrmorillonite clay in nature's variety instinct is supposed to help remove toxins and is believed to support internal healing. it's been used by humans for some time.

ankitty · Nov 20, 2014

zoneout said:
Did you say there is `clay` in instinct?? That is strange.... geez, talk about a filler!

stephgas said:
the montrmorillonite clay in nature's variety instinct is supposed to help remove toxins and is believed to support internal healing. it's been used by humans for some time.

That's my understanding too that this particular clay has health benefit. And also for anti caking instead of carrageenan or gum.

abbyntim · Nov 20, 2014

My cats' poop got very small and firm when on Nature's Variety Instinct canned. And it hardly smelled. Now that my male cat eats 70% of his calories in the form of raw food, I can say that his poop on all NVI canned was pretty similar to his mostly raw poop, though he goes a little less frequently now that he's mostly raw. My female eats about 50% NVI along with ZiwiPeak, Pure Vita, and Lotus Just Juicy, and her poops are even smaller than when she was eating all NVI. A food without a lot of fillers and other garbage will do that - nice benefit!

ankitty · Nov 20, 2014

AbbyNTim said:
My cats' poop got very small and firm when on Nature's Variety Instinct canned. And it hardly smelled. Now that my male cat eats 70% of his calories in the form of raw food, I can say that his poop on all NVI canned was pretty similar to his mostly raw poop, though he goes a little less frequently now that he's mostly raw. My female eats about 50% NVI along with ZiwiPeak, Pure Vita, and Lotus Just Juicy, and her poops are even smaller than when she was eating all NVI. A food without a lot of fillers and other garbage will do that - nice benefit!

Glad to know that my cat's poop is probably normal with NVI. His poop doesn't smell much either. Do you see more benefit feeding raw than all NVI?

abbyntim · Nov 22, 2014

I have seen a lot of benefits now that Tim gets approximately 70% of his calories from raw. He'd had a couple of very bad constipation episodes, so we transitioned both cats from mostly dry to approximately 99% canned (Wellness plus a small amount of other brands like Tiki Cat and Weruva). But something in the Wellness made him very, very sick; he was so sick when I switched him to NVI. He had some minor lingering issues even on the NVI, though nothing like before. They've pretty much cleared up now that he's been eating mostly raw for over three months. Tim has a very sensitive stomach and we need to avoid certain ingredients. I've started a lot of posts about Tim's various issues, which you can read for more details if you're interested, but he's doing well now and we plan to keep him on a mostly raw diet.

ankitty · Nov 22, 2014

AbbyNTim said:
I have seen a lot of benefits now that Tim gets approximately 70% of his calories from raw. He'd had a couple of very bad constipation episodes, so we transitioned both cats from mostly dry to approximately 99% canned (Wellness plus a small amount of other brands like Tiki Cat and Weruva). But something in the Wellness made him very, very sick; he was so sick when I switched him to NVI. He had some minor lingering issues even on the NVI, though nothing like before. They've pretty much cleared up now that he's been eating mostly raw for over three months. Tim has a very sensitive stomach and we need to avoid certain ingredients. I've started a lot of posts about Tim's various issues, which you can read for more details if you're interested, but he's doing well now and we plan to keep him on a mostly raw diet.

My cat also had some problems with Wellness cans. A vet told me his vomiting is due to IBD, and caused by some protein, so I didn't look into other ingredients first, but after researching on internet and this site, I figured that it's probably carrageenan, because he had problems with Blue Buffalo cans also and BB has carrageenan too. I've heard a few complaints about carrageenan but I guess not enough to make the pet food companies to change their ingredients. Anyway, good to know that raw diet is even better than NVI. I'll look your other posts.

abbyntim · Nov 22, 2014

The vomiting might or might not be IBD and it may or may not be a protein. When Tim was vomiting after almost every meal, I dug the empty cans out of the trash can and isolated three ingredients that were common to all of his vomit episodes: chicken, carrageenan, and xantham gum. Every single food he vomited contained one or more of these ingredients. If none of these were present, he did not vomit.

I intend to try chicken again some day, but will never feed him food with carrageenan or xantham gum. I hope you can figure out what is triggering your cat's vomit. If, after you read the massive threads I've written on Tim, you have questions, let me know. I just summarized his current diet in his "raw poop" thread.

ankitty · Nov 22, 2014

AbbyNTim said:
The vomiting might or might not be IBD and it may or may not be a protein. When Tim was vomiting after almost every meal, I dug the empty cans out of the trash can and isolated three ingredients that were common to all of his vomit episodes: chicken, carrageenan, and xantham gum. Every single food he vomited contained one or more of these ingredients. If none of these were present, he did not vomit.

I intend to try chicken again some day, but will never feed him food with carrageenan or xantham gum. I hope you can figure out what is triggering your cat's vomit. If, after you read the massive threads I've written on Tim, you have questions, let me know. I just summarized his current diet in his "raw poop" thread.

Thank you so much.

Now I realized that I've read a few of your posts which helped me a lot. My cat vomits when he's hungry, so it's been hard to find out what is causing it.

I'll read your summary.

Stopped feeding dry and will try raw. How big poop should be?

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