Cat sleeping more on new food

whosaboo

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Our 8 month old Ragdoll has eaten a combo of Royal Canin kitten kibble and fancy feast kitten cans for most of her life this far. We wanted to switch her kibble to something more affordable/available locally that was still nutritious and ok for kitteenagers. I ended up choosing Goodlife Recipe and we have been switching her VERY slowly over the past two weeks. Well, about a week ago we noticed she began sleeping a lot more during the day. We thought maybe it was just an off day. However she continued to be so sleepy and tired most of the day for the past week, and I noticed she has not been eating nearly as much kibble with the new food mixed in. Last night we made the connection (we can be a little dim, apparently) and I gave her a lot more RC in the kibble ratio (probably 60% RC). She has gobbled the food and is zooming around like her old self this morning, lots of energy and I even caught her being mischievous (who knew I'd miss that!).

Anyway, has anyone had this sleepy reaction to a food switch before? She has had no diarrhea or vomiting or any of those symptoms I was looking out for, just the extreme sleepiness. I saw an old thread with a similar reaction but it was because they switched the food too quickly, which is definitely not the problem here. I'm going to head to the city to buy another bag of RC kitten today. Our kitty's energy and livelihood is definitely worth the extra $.
 

red top rescue

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The only reason I can see that your cat would have less energy from the Goodlife recipe is that she is eating less of it.  I compared the ingredients of Goodlife and Royal Canin Kitten dry food and the Goodlife actually has much better ingredients!  I do know that Royal Canin foods are treated with something that makes cats just LOVE them and eat them in large quantities.  I had to work hard to wean one of mine off of Royal Canin Kitten because I didn't really like the ingredients.  It doesn't even have any real MEAT in it!  I guess because there is no meat, they have to use some great animal digest flavorings to make it appealing.  Once I started reading labels, I stopped using all Royal Canin and Hills dry foods even for snacks!  You might try reading the catinfo.org web site about ingredients in cat foods and what they mean and what is desirable and what is not.  That's what opened my eyes.  Now I read labels in making my choices, and mostly they get canned food.

Goodlife Ingredients


Chicken, chicken meal,brown rice, brewers rice,chicken by-product meal, animal fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), natural flavor, brewers dried yeast, potassium chloride,dried peas, salt, taurine, dl-methionine, caramel color, dried spinach, dried tomato, dried blueberry, dried sweet potato, dried apple, dried cranberry, choline chloride, dried carrots, mixed tocopherols (a preservative), titanium dioxide color, vitamins (vitamin e supplement, niacin, vitamin a supplement, vitamin b12 supplement, thiamine mononitrate [vitamin b1], riboflavin supplement [vitamin b2], d-calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin b6], vitamin d3 supplement, folic acid, biotin), minerals(zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, manganese sulfate, potassium iodide), iron oxide color, yucca schidigera extract, sodium copper chlorophyllin

Royal Canin Kitten Ingredients


Brewers rice, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, wheat gluten, chicken fat, corn, egg product, natural flavors, dried plain beet pulp, powdered cellulose, fish oil, vegetable oil, sodium silico aluminate, grain distillers dried yeast, calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, psyllium seed husk, salt, fructooligosaccharides, taurine, hydrolyzed yeast, L-lysine, choline chloride, magnesium oxide, vitamins [DL-alpha tocopherol acetate (source of vitamin E), L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), niacin supplement, biotin, riboflavin supplement, D-calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin A acetate, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), vitamin B12 supplement, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement], marigold extract (Tagetes erecta L.), trace minerals [zinc proteinate, zinc oxide, ferrous sulfate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite, copper proteinate] , rosemary extract, preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid
 
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whosaboo

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Thanks for the reply. Yes, the ingredients were one of the reasons I chose to switch her! I don't understand why RC is so great, but she has done very well on it. Her coat is beautiful and she is growing well and happy and energetic and all that, so I'm not worried for now. (And I have read all about the wet vs dry debate and people seem to have incredibly strong & self righteous opinions either way, much like politics :lol3: I landed in the middle with a combo and am not interested in joining the debate.)

I did a little research and found some reviews of Goodlife that pointed out cats having issues and one fatality likely because of the large pieces of bone in the food, and my kibbles do have large chunks of it...kinda scary. So my theory is that her stomach was irritated and just didn't feel well.
 

red top rescue

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Large pieces of bone it it?  Ewww.  In a dry food, that's bad.  In a wet food, it would probably be soft from being cooked so long.  Personally I feed a mix of wet and dry because I have too many cats to feed ALL wet (my only income is social security retirement).  I have always fed a combination of the two and most of my cats live to be close to 20 years old.
 
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