Food fails ._.

So I had been trying to get my kitties on a rotation of different wet foods. While my one cat did fine on most of them(he has a habit of vomiting on some brands but I actually don't recall running into any that made him do that exclusively), my younger guy is another story. I had posted about him before, how his stools smelled awful and a change of food solved it. 

Most of the brands I tried had given him diarrhea! Merrick, Soulistic(I think this one was actually okay but there was no consistency in the food and I got some questionable cans), Earthborn, and I think even Fancy Feast gave him the runs. 

Anyway, finally I worked something out that worked for both of them. They got Authority in the morning for breakfast(not the best, but it worked for the time being), and different wets for dinner. The kitten did well on Natural Balance Wild Pursuit, NutroMax chicken/liver adult formula, and a few bits of I/D strew that I picked up from work when he decided he wasn't interested in his current food anymore. The small amount of I/D was enough to encourage him to eat. Not sure why he went through a bought of not wanting to eat much, but he's over that now. He stopped wanting the NB by itself so that's why I mixed in the Nutro, and to see if it helped his smelly poop. Strictly having NB gives him smelly stools, the Nutro solved the smell and he was more interested in it, until he did the same thing and I had to add I/D to it as well. 

So recently both cats got sick, vomiting and diarrhea. My older boy never gets diarrhea so something was definitely up. I attributed it to their breakfast food, the Authority. I had just picked up some Catfish formula and went with that one morning. They had had one can of it previously with no issues and it had been a few days between the first can and this one. That's the only thing I could think of that caused them to be sick since that's the only thing they share and they don't have any parasites. They had been having liquid diarrhea, it was bad. I picked up some RC Gastrointestinal High Energy from work and they've been eating that. Both of them LOVE it, but I hate it. No way do I want them to continue eating that. I believe it's safe to put my other cat back on his normal dinner meal of Wellness Core, but it's the younger guy that I'm concerned about. He's the one who gets diarrhea off of almost everything. 

What can I try feeding him? His stools are perfect on the Royal Canin, which sucks because I don't want him eating that forever. They were okay on what he was eating before they both got sick, only with occasional softer stools. Part of me thinks he just can't handle the higher quality brands and that upsets me because I want him eating good foods. 

Ideally I'd like them both eating the same thing in the morning(rotating it hopefully), and to keep what they eat for dinner the same to provide some consistency. 

I've tried limited ingredient brands, I've tried different proteins, I've tried with/without grains, etc... He honestly seems to do better on brands with grains, poop wise... Not counting the Natural Balance since that was grain free and he did okay on that, he just didn't want to eat it and it made his stool smell horrid. But no diarrhea. 

Raw is also off the table at the moment, at least until I move and my chinchilla has his own room. The kitten is always going after the cage and I don't want to deal with contamination. 

SIGH. Thoughts?

How old are they? You've had them both checked by a vet to rule out a medical issue? I would start them both on probiotics. Either Nexabiotics, which has s boulardii already in it, or using s boulardii on its own. s boulardii helps alleviate diarrhea. Wet food really shouldn't cause diarrhea, so it seems like it may be something else. 

Sometimes foods with gravy will trigger diarrhea. What about Merrick LID, did you try that one? It's a pate, but a very soft one with a nice texture. 


http://www.foodfurlife.com/my-cat-has-diarrhea---what-do-i-do.html

My cat has been on Fancy Feast Classic wet all his life and has NEVER vomited or had diarrhea. He is 1 and a half years old. I rotate chicken, beef and turkey with giblets. Worth a try.

They don't have diarrhea anymore, that's not the problem. I was just mentioning it because that's what made me put them on the crap RC food in the first place. Whatever has caused the random bought of diarrhea(which I assume was the catfish Authority food) is over. Now the issue is that the one cat gets diarrhea on a handful of brands of food. I haven't figured out the cause, but I know it's not protein based. 

Kitty is almost 7, has never had a case of diarrhea in his life until now. 

Crowley is 1 year and a half, has the more sensitive digestive tract. 

I listed Merrick in my post, I tried that already. Also tried FF classics and he gets diarrhea from those as well.

Both cats are healthy, it's something in the food that his digestive tract cannot handle. He tolerates Wellness CORE, Natural Balance Wild Persuit, and Nutro Max fine, his stools just smell horrid on the first two. 

That's about it for a decent brands, he gets diarrhea on just about everything else that I've tried so far.

You should try Weruva's Paw Licking Chicken.  It's like crack for my cats and it's premium food.  Thirteen, the pickiest female Tuxedo cat on the planet, wolfs it down.  And I totally agree with missmimz about the s.  boulardii.  You can find it pretty much anywhere and it will help tremendously with diarrhea.

You mention the smelly poops:  When I put my cats on Evo their poop was unbearable.  It smelled like they had pooped and someone set fire to it.  OMG it was just beyond awful.  It would wake me up out of a sound sleep and I would have to scoop the box.  I thought they would get used to it but after ten days I said to heck with it and donated the remaining two cases to the animal shelter.  I always assumed that the protein content was just too high or there was something else going on that caused them not to be able to tolerate it.

He seems best on the lower quality foods and it drives me nuts.

That's one I haven't tried, I doubt he would tolerate it since he can't handle Merrick or Whole Earth but I'll see if I can find it. One of the reasons I didn't try Weruva was that I couldn't find it anywhere nearby.

I don't think probiotics will solve the problem though. I mean I can give it a try but no promises. He doesn't get diarrhea on all foods, I have some that work fine. I just would like to get him on better brands and to start rotating again. Rotating seems to make matters worse but I'm hoping I can just go between foods he's tolerated in the past... Once I find enough lol.

When you rotate foods are you mixing some of the new food in with some of his old food?  If not, or if there's not enough old food in the mix, that could be your diarrhea problem right there.  Cats have notoriously sensitive digestions and can't jump from one food to another.  They have to make the change slowly.

I don't rotate dry food... Just wet, which most people have no trouble doing. He can rotate fine between certain brands, there's just something about the others that gives him the runs.

Smidgeyy said:

 
They don't have diarrhea anymore, that's not the problem. I was just mentioning it because that's what made me put them on the crap RC food in the first place. Whatever has caused the random bought of diarrhea(which I assume was the catfish Authority food) is over. Now the issue is that the one cat gets diarrhea on a handful of brands of food. I haven't figured out the cause, but I know it's not protein based. 

Kitty is almost 7, has never had a case of diarrhea in his life until now. 

Crowley is 1 year and a half, has the more sensitive digestive tract. 

I listed Merrick in my post, I tried that already. Also tried FF classics and he gets diarrhea from those as well.

Both cats are healthy, it's something in the food that his digestive tract cannot handle. He tolerates Wellness CORE, Natural Balance Wild Persuit, and Nutro Max fine, his stools just smell horrid on the first two. 

That's about it for a decent brands, he gets diarrhea on just about everything else that I've tried so far.

Click to expand...

Merrick has several types of foods, not all of them are their LID foods. There is a difference. The best solution to this is to mix probiotics in their wet food AM and PM, or a digestive enzyme. Probiotics help with digestion, and if you get one with s boulardii, which helps diarrhea specifically, the problem will likely resolve. I don't know how long you attempted to feed wet food for, but it's also possible it was a temporary issue from the transition. 

My apologies for not elaborating but I've tried different formulas for all brands mentioned above. I've tried limited ingredient if available, and I've tried regular formulas. I've tried different proteins, though I know it's not protein specific.

They've been on wet food their whole lives... My older cat doesn't have diarrhea. It's just the younger one, ONLY on certain brands of food. It's not a constant issue.
My older cat doesn't have any problems. The younger one has the sensitive stomach.

It's brand specific, not the fact that it's wet food. Like I said...... Some brands are perfectly fine and he doesn't have diarrhea.

Just wanted to post an update... I found a solution, I just hope nothing changes.

Nature's Variety seems to be the answer. He seems to hate the turkey though, even if I mix it in with a different flavor. Rabbit is the favorite, since it's the most expensive Lol. 

I had my older boy on this before but he started vomiting so I switched him to Wellness CORE and he stopped. I don't know if it was really the food that caused the vomiting but he won't really touch the salmon now, which is weird since he used to love it. He'll eat the turkey if I mix something else with it so I've been trying to give him the flavors my younger guy won't touch.

Anyway, no diarrhea since he's been on NV. I still do add a small spoonful of the RC Gastrointestinal since I still have the cans at home and I'm trying to use them up, but he only gets that added at night. His breakfast is strictly NV. I also have a bag of NV dry so I'm hoping I can get him eating some of that but I don't want to get greedy Lol. My older cat likes it at least, so someone will eat it.