Food for Cat with Food Hypersensitivity/Colitis

I've been struggling to find a cheaper alternative food for my 8-9 month old kitten, Tonks, for a few weeks now. It started with a lot of blood in her stool. She actually had round worms and suspected colitis. The vet prescribed meds and upon the next checkup the worms were gone but she still had a fair amount of blood in her stool. The vet gave us a sample of Hill's Science Diet Z/D formula to try. She explained it was a hydrolyzed protein diet. Tonks loved it and it was a chore to keep it away from my two older boys. We started with scheduled feeding times morning and night. After a week she was out of that food and I decided to try Purina Beyond Grain Free Chicken and Oatmeal brand. Within a week Tonks had very bad diarrhea and then we went back to the vet for a checkup earlier this week. The vet said that she lost a bit of weight due to loose stools and that there was too much fat in the Purina Beoyond food. The vet then said she she should be put on the prescription Hill's Science Diet :-/d food however it's not within our budget. $30 for a 4lbs bag or $60 for an 8.5lbs bag is way too expensive. I picked up a bag of Simply Nourish Sweet Potato and Salmon food and Tonks doesn't seem to like it. She eats about half of a recommended serving and she's always been a very good eater. I thought maybe that poultry was the culprit and this food has no fowl in it whatsoever. But I feel like I'm starving her. Does anyone have any recommendations on another OTC food we can try?

First i would get her on some good quality probiotics asap. I like this one and i know a lot of other members here do too. I give all my cats, including my kittens, a probiotic in their morning wet food. You should probably check with your vet first, but a lot of vet's recommend a good quality probiotic, especially with serious tummy issues. 

Second, I would put her on a higher quality food, if you can afford it. You're not going to be able to feed her anything "cheap," I don't think, based on what you've already told us. Nothing from the grocery store, it'll need to come from a pet store. I would avoid kibble, or if you must go with kibble something high quality to avoid fillers, but that might end up being similar price to the RX food. Unless you had allergy testing done it's hard to pinpoint exactly what she's allergy too, but since you've been feeding lower quality food there's a high chance whatever is bothering her isn't the protein but some of the fillers. Cats are strictly carnivores, yet a lot of cat foods, especially cheaper ones, contain things cats do not need like veggies and grains. This is a good list of kibbles.  

Ultimately the best food for cats with sensitivity issues are wet foods that are limited ingredients, but they are more expensive. A great one my cats really like Merrick's Limited Ingredient Chicken, but they also have other flavors. You could also look into feeding Tikicat, Weruva, Soulistic, or a more affordable one is Nutro Natural Choice, they have tons of different flavors and textures with little to no fillers.

With food sensitivities its really a trial and error thing until you can find what works. I'm not a fan of RX diets because I don't think they're very good quality. 

Good luck! 

missmimz said:

First i would get her on some good quality probiotics asap. I like this one and i know a lot of other members here do too. I give all my cats, including my kittens, a probiotic in their morning wet food. You should probably check with your vet first, but a lot of vet's recommend a good quality probiotic, especially with serious tummy issues. 

Second, I would put her on a higher quality food, if you can afford it. You're not going to be able to feed her anything "cheap," I don't think, based on what you've already told us. Nothing from the grocery store, it'll need to come from a pet store. I would avoid kibble, or if you must go with kibble something high quality to avoid fillers, but that might end up being similar price to the RX food. Unless you had allergy testing done it's hard to pinpoint exactly what she's allergy too, but since you've been feeding lower quality food there's a high chance whatever is bothering her isn't the protein but some of the fillers. This is a good this of kibble. 

Ultimately the best food for cats with sensitivity issues are wet foods that are limited ingredients, but they are more expensive. A great one my cats really like Merrick's Limited Ingredient Chicken, but they also have other flavors. You could also look into feeding Tikicat, Weruva, Soulistic, or a more affordable one is Nutro Natural Choice, they have tons of different flavors and textures with little to no fillers.

With food sensitivities its really a trial and error thing until you can find what works. I'm not a fan of RX diets because I don't think they're very good quality. 

Good luck! 

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Thank you! I'll definitely look into the probiotic and the wet food. [emoji]128513[/emoji]

So I exchanged the Simply Nourish food and got Natural Balance L.I.D. Green Pea & Duck formula. The vet mentioned that if the Hill's z/d didn't help Tonks she would recommend the Rx Hill's duck and pea food (which is more expensive than z/d). I also picked up 12 cans of Iams Purrfect Delights in salmon, tuna & mackerel, and sardine flavors. Only those 3 flavors didn't contain any chicken. I gave her 1/2 can of wet and a small handful of the dry kibble duck & pea. She LOVED it!! She ate all of it and I am soooo happy. We've been giving her the Simply Nourish dry food for 2 days and she hardly ate any of it. If these foods help with her colitis symptoms I am going to transition my 2 older boys to this diet too. The Natural Balance is only around $30 for an 11lbs bag, I think. It's still more than what we were spending on food but not as expensive as the Rx diet. Wish us luck!

Oh and we also took Tonks to Petsmart with us too. She did great on her harness and leash!

PoeticFelony said:

So I exchanged the Simply Nourish food and got Natural Balance L.I.D. Green Pea & Duck formula. The vet mentioned that if the Hill's z/d didn't help Tonks she would recommend the Rx Hill's duck and pea food (which is more expensive than z/d). I also picked up 12 cans of Iams Purrfect Delights in salmon, tuna & mackerel, and sardine flavors. Only those 3 flavors didn't contain any chicken. I gave her 1/2 can of wet and a small handful of the dry kibble duck & pea. She LOVED it!! She ate all of it and I am soooo happy. We've been giving her the Simply Nourish dry food for 2 days and she hardly ate any of it. If these foods help with her colitis symptoms I am going to transition my 2 older boys to this diet too. The Natural Balance is only around $30 for an 11lbs bag, I think. It's still more than what we were spending on food but not as expensive as the Rx diet. Wish us luck!

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That's great! Just be careful not to feed too much fish. Ideally you only want to feed foods with fish in them as a treat because fish based foods are high in mercury and toxins as the fish that are used in most pet foods are not very good quality. In addition, fish can be addicting, which you don't want. There are a lot of companies that make novel proteins that aren't chicken. Duck, lamb, turkey, venison, maybe beef, are all good choices. I would still suggest you look into buying limited ingredients wet foods like either Merrick's or Nature's variety. Several don't contain chicken or fish, so best of both worlds. You can get them at Petco. 

Awesome advice! Thank you [emoji]128513[/emoji] I also looked it up online and the wet food I got contains carrageenan which I read could lead to health problems. I'll definitely try out other wet foods like you suggested. For now I'm just super happy she actually ate.