Sudden Switch to Raw

Hello,

This is my first post here. My 8 year old cat was recently ill and was not terribly interested in food. Long story short my vet is treating it as stress colitis and she is on metronidazole/flagyl and hydrolyzed milk protein as a natural calming aid. The reason I am posting this story here is that while she was ill, she wouldn't eat her normal kibble but she is eating the Rad Cat Raw diet we've been supplementing her with for months. Since she had lost some weight and I was desperate for her to eat, I've allowed her to eat as much as she's wanted of this. She has 1 more day left on the 10 day metronidazole prescription. I've been reading you really need to make a slow and gradual transition to raw food from kibble and I'm concerned about her G.I. tract and digestion. Her poops went from bloody & runny (when she was ill) to pretty formed (today), but the poop seems like it is tinged red (and obviously it is a different, unfamiliar texture from her old kibble poops). I've read raw food poops should be small and almost chalky. Naturally there is blood mixed in with the Rad Cat Raw ground turkey but I've read it's not supposed to show up in stool.

I'm not sure how to proceed with her diet. I'm worried I've transitioned her too quickly but I've read it's bad to feed kibble and raw food at same time because the digestion processes for each are very different? She is in so much better spirits than before but I'm still concerned about her health and diet. It is possibly that after she stops taking flagyl we could find she still has an issue (IBD??) but the fact that she has transitioned diets so quickly will make it hard to observe in stool. Looking for advice and/or experience.

If she has IBD, the Radcat or any other raw diet is probably the best food you can feed her.  Are you giving her probiotics along with the flagyl?  I know it seems counterproductive to give a probiotic along with an antibiotic, but we've always been advised to do it, just not at the same time of day....to give a couple hours in between. 

I've also heard that kibble and raw don't digest at the same rate, but don't see how that would cause blood in her stool.  How many days has it been that she's been eating strictly the Radcat?  I would probably give her another few days strictly on that and see if her stools completely straighten out (firm, small, dryish, no blood) and then check in again. 

Hoping this change in diet will be the fix for her.

She has been eating strictly Rad Cat for at least 10 days. Today was her last flagyl pill, I will watch her over the weekend to see what happens stool wise because I've read flagyl can be rough on cats. I have not been giving her probiotics, I need to pick some up. Definitely on my mind. Do you know if Rad Cat turkey has a good formulation of proteins, as far as muscle, organs, etc? I can do some more research.

Yes, Radcat is 100% nutritionally complete,  I see they've added some different  meats since I was feeding it.  If your girl ends up needing more fiber, their Venison might be the way to go.  It's always a good idea to feed different meats rather than just one, unless she ends up having food allergies.  Some cats can only eat rabbit or venison, for example, but most can eat almost any meat

Rad Cat is great food so that's an excellent choice. I might speak to the vet about how long it could/should take for the blood to clear up: 10 days doesn't sound like a long time to me for it to clear up completely, particularly if there's been a chronic problem. To me, it sounds like good progress that your cat has shown so much improvement, though I, too, would be concerned about the possibility of IBD. Also, with regard to poops for cats fed raw food, I think that can vary. Our cats eat a combination of raw, canned, and homemade foods and their poops are pretty small, chalky, and odorless. (And they don't each poop every day.) But I don't think everybody's that lucky!

I think I'd probably keep the cat -- what is her name, by the way? -- on Rad Cat and check in with the vet about progress. Also, do you have any sense that there might be a cat food ingredient that had been bothering your cat? As an easy example: maybe she's sensitive to chicken, so now that she's eating turkey she feels better.