Best Food For Ibd

[cheech]

Hi Everyone,

My Senior kitty has IBD and it’s been relatively well managed for several years. I feed Trader Joe’s Canned Cat food and Purina One Sensitive Systems Dry Food. He vomits if he goes too long without eating, so I need to leave a little dry food out.

I’m concerned with all of the recent complaints against Purina, and honestly, ingredient wise, I think I can do better.

My cat responds well to Turkey, so I’m hoping to find a turkey based food with limited other ingredients and one with moderate to low calories and protein. It seems like an impossible task! He’s almost 19 years old, so I don’t want to do anything drastic. I know some people rave about raw food diets, but I’m
really apprehensive to make such a drastic change at this point in his life.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
-Kim and Blackie

 

[Azazel]

Years ago when I first found out that my kitty had IBD I found this website to be very helpful: Raw Feeding for IBD Cats

This one too: IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

 

[LTS3]

Limited ingredient and novel protein diets are best. Here are some:

Blue Buffalo Basics
Merrick Limited Ingredients
Koha Limited Ingredient
Natural Balance LID
Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet | Instinct Pet Food

Your favorite brands of "novel protein" canned cat food
Single Novel Protein Grain Free Wet (not Raw) Food? Help!

Could you leave some canned food out for snacking on? A programmable timed feeder works great for this

 

[duckpond]

My honest opinion is at 19, with IBD, Im not sure i would try to change things up with him. If he is doing well on what he is currently eating. Change is often hard on cats even at the best of times.

Purina gets bad press, but if you watch so does basically every other company out there. Most of them are smaller than Purina, so its not as widely broadcast. I personally dont have a problem with Purina, any more than most other cat food companies

I guess with IBD cats im a little Leary of change, because of my sons cat. They had her to the vet for years, medications, every food you can name, prescription and other wise. She would be ok for a few weeks or a month, the the horrible Diarrhea would come back. They finally just started feed her the fancy feast classics, nothing else. Well its been about 3 years now, and she is doing so very well on Fancy feast classics. They have occasionally tried a different food now and again, trying to find something with "better" ingredients. she starts to get sick again, each and every time.

So i guess my advice is that if your cat is having problems, then by all means try some different food. If he is stable, no IBD issues right now, and happy with his food, i would not change him up, just to find a "better" brand.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

 

[babiesmom5]

I had very good success with my IBD cats on KOHA Limited Ingredient Turkey, Chicken, Duck, Guinea Fowl, and they also liked the "stew" versions of these too.
Check them out at www.KohaPet.com.

 

[lisahe]

So i guess my advice is that if your cat is having problems, then by all means try some different food. If he is stable, no IBD issues right now, and happy with his food, i would not change him up, just to find a "better" brand.

I tend to agree with this! And I write that as someone who's not a fan of dry food, particularly for cats with hinky stomachs. So if a senior cat has IBD and is stable on a set diet, I'd stick with that.

But. I agree that those foods aren't necessarily the healthiest: TJ's food is okay (our previous cat loved it and it was one of the only things she'd eat in her last months) but it's carby and has carrageenan and I already mentioned my preference not to feed dry food. The corn and soybean in the Purina food aren't really great for cats. If your cat does well with turkey and actively likes it, maybe you could add in some other wet food and ultimately transition out some of the food you're currently feeding?

Given the IBD, I'd only do that very slowly (a small spoonful at a time if he likes it) and with a food that has as simple a recipe as you can find, something without stuff like grains, peas, chickpeas, or potatoes. Rawz canned food is pretty simple and our cats like it. Someone mentioned Koha as well: we feed their duck stew to our cats and they love it; check the ingredients for their other foods, though, because some contain chickpeas. I know you said you were dubious about trying raw food for your cat but our previous cat loved Rad Cat when I gave it to her in her last weeks -- she was a young thing compared to your cat (only about 17!) but Rad Cat chicken was one of the only things she would eat. Rad Cat has very simple recipes. If you were to find a canned or raw food that your cat likes, you could either just feed small amounts of it (freezing leftovers) or very gradually increase it in his diet while reducing his other food(s). It would be a little (or maybe very? I don't know!) risky but sometimes variety can work wonders.

Anyway, good luck! You're very fortunate to have your cat's IBD so well (if only relatively speaking) under control.

 

[1 bruce 1]

I'll second not considering a different food right now if he's doing so well! Especially if he's getting wet food too, very good for them.
But by all means I understand the desire to find other foods, even if just for the possibility they make the formula he's doing well on "new and improved" (ugh!) and change things up. It's always good to have a few brands that are comparable in case something goes wrong with the food he's eating.
I think Wellness makes a turkey based food for cats, but I know little about the other ingredients or calories, etc.
From what I recall, Merrick makes a limited ingredient diet (I believe both wet food AND dry) so that might be something to look into.
Purina isn't my favorite but my childhood cats saw their 20's eating Purina and nothing more, raw is good but our IBD cat is one of those 1 in 1,000 that actually gets worse from it. The rest of the cats scarf it up!