Wellness core wet food question

hi there - I read here about some issues with wellness core dry being too rich but wondered if anyone had the following issues with the wet. I recently switched both cats to wellness core indoor wet food (the chicken flavor) from fancy feast classic. They were doing fine on the fancy feast the only reason I switched them was I was tired of going through so many of the tiny cans (they got two each per day of the 3oz) and I know it's not the most nutritious food. I switch them over gradually to the wellness and everything was going fine. Now they are 100% on wellness and get one can each per day (5.5oz so a half ounce less than the total amount they got on fancy feast)

I've noticed that both cats drink MUCH more water, and pee and poop more often. One cat also has a really stinky poops. She did before occasionally but now they seem stinky much more often. No diarrhea just stinkier and more frequent.

Is this a bad sign? Should I switch them to a different brand? Back to fancy feast? WHY would they be drinking MORE water if there's less grains? I would think the higher carbohydrates would want make them want more water, so so now they should want less since the wellness is mostly carb free.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

First off, welcome to The Cat Site, mymeeshell!

As for food! Fancy Feast Classics and Wellness Core are all grain-free. Overall, if you look at the food charts on Catinfo.org (PDF here), you can see that FF Classics are lower carb (I think in all cases!) than Wellness Core's flavors. As Dr. Pierson notes on Catinfo.org, grain-free doesn't necessarily mean low-carb.

As to the specifics of Wellness Core, I'm not sure if you're feeding Wellness's indoor or chicken flavor (I think it's the indoor, which just so happens to be chicken! ) so will mention things about both foods. The indoor food is definitely a higher-carb food, at 14% of dry matter. (Dr. Pierson recommends staying at 10% or below.) The indoor food is lower-calorie but higher-carb, and that's a mean trade-off. It's most likely the pea products that raise the carbs in the indoor food. Personally, I won't/don't feed peas for that reason. Since they're a carby legume, the peas would be my prime suspect for the smells you're smelling.

If it happens to be the chicken flavor of Wellness Core that you're feeding, well, that one has potato in it, and potato can cause digestive issues for some cats... including one of ours, who gets nastily gassy and a little barfy from potato.

If you're looking for a lower-calorie, low-carb, high-protein canned food for indoor cats, I might suggest one of Tiki's chicken foods (expensive but worth it -- our cats really like them and the luau food cans are packed with meat) or Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen canned chicken foods (our cats love their Chicken Frick a See). All those are shred-style foods instead of pates. Do your cats have a preference for shreds or pates? If your cats were doing well and weren't gaining weight on Fancy Feast, maybe it's best to just switch them back?

Good luck!

Thanks so much! This is incredibly helpful. I didn't realize that the wellness had more carbs than the FF!! I just saw grain free and assumed, but that's a great point.

A little more back story: the cats were about 16 lbs when I adopted them. I got them down to about 11-12lbs feeding FF (6 oz per cat per day). But since they used to be overweight they will literally eat ANYTHING so I don't have to worry if they'll turn up their noses at shredded Another reason I switched off FF was the phosphorous count was higher and I heard that's worse for cats who have history of utis as one does (though we haven't had a problem in years).

So maybe I should go back to FF? I assumed it was lower quality but I guess if it wasn't broke don't fix it

mymeeshell said:

Is this a bad sign? Should I switch them to a different brand? Back to fancy feast? WHY would they be drinking MORE water if there's less grains? 

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Who knows. My cat drank a lot more water when he was on raw. He likes his food with lots of mush, so we're talking lots of water already in his food. 

FF classics is quite decent. There are worse ones than FF classics. If your cat seems to eliminate more on Wellness, it could be that their GI tract doesn't handle Wellness well (ha.). If you don't mind it, you can certainly stick with FF.

mymeeshell said:

Another reason I switched off FF was the phosphorous count was higher and I heard that's worse for cats who have history of utis as one does 

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You're going to hear about a lot of things asserted by all kinds of people with all kinds of vested interest. Go with your gut. Read as much as you can to make an informed decision, but remember that everyone has opinions on what works and what doesn't. It does not necessarily mean it's good or bad for your cat, just that it's different. Your cats will tell you.

mymeeshell said:

Thanks so much! This is incredibly helpful. I didn't realize that the wellness had more carbs than the FF!! I just saw grain free and assumed, but that's a great point.

A little more back story: the cats were about 16 lbs when I adopted them. I got them down to about 11-12lbs feeding FF (6 oz per cat per day). But since they used to be overweight they will literally eat ANYTHING so I don't have to worry if they'll turn up their noses at shredded

Another reason I switched off FF was the phosphorous count was higher and I heard that's worse for cats who have history of utis as one does (though we haven't had a problem in years).

So maybe I should go back to FF? I assumed it was lower quality but I guess if it wasn't broke don't fix it

Click to expand...

Good, I'm glad that was helpful! And yes, it's easy to think that grain-free means low-carb... I wish things were that easy.

That's great that your cats have lost so much weight since you adopted them. I don't know anything about feline UTIs but definitely agree with @FhiCat that there are far worse foods than Fancy Feast Classics. In any case, it sounds like your cats are telling you, via the litter box , what works agrees with their systems and works well for them!

  If your cat will eat it I'd recommend feeding more than one brand as well.   So if you're cat likes both Wellness and FF classic, feed them both.  

Did you mix the food? If you didn't mix it, that could cause the smelly poop. I gave my cat the welness dry and his poop was loose so I stopped.
But also, after I started feeding my cat wellness food, his poop def smelled more. He very well like said above not handle the food well. It has happened more than once with my cat.
The fancy feast classic is fine to feed. my cat won't eat it.
I will say that I agree with the above about wervuva the chicken wervuva my cat loves. I just switched and haven't had any issues. He goes crazy when I open the can and he is a picky little thing.

Thank you all - these are great suggestions. I ordered more Fancy Feast so I can go back to that and maybe try some Weeruva too to mix up my brands. Appreciate all the help!

i was feeding weruva for some time and my cats loved it.  another canned food that i liked and my cats enjoyed was merrick - they liked the chicken pate, turkey pate, and duck pate.  my local petco stores carry it now too, although it's usually cheaper online.

like others have said, if your cats are doing well on the fancy feast and you're comfortable feeding it, go for it.  like someone else mentioned, you may want to feed more than one brand.  my thinking on that is that in case there is a recall on one, you aren't left stranded trying to figure out what you want to feed your cats.  

I feed FL classics in rotation along with other grain free brands and proteins. I also feed Stella Chewy's freeze dried raw. I do this in case there is a recall and to fight boredom. Our Petey who lived to be 19 only liked one brand and flavor and they stopped making it. It took a long time to find something he would eat without grumbling. I don't want to do that again. By the way my cat only vet said FL classics is fine.