Cat suddenly refuses to eat Stella and Chewy freeze dried

[R@ch]

Hi all! I haven’t posted in a while but am always a lurker, lol. I’ve been fostering a mama and she just had 5 babies 2 weeks ago…so it’s been hectic.
my year old runt, Jellybean, has serious (think infant with diarrhea but no diaper….) digestive issues for the first 9 months of his life. The ONLY thing that finally worked was Stella & Chewy rabbit. I started slowly incorporating duck into the mix because tbh, the rabbit is just sooo expensive. He acclimated well, no issues. The raw food tended to make him constipated so I also mixed in a little canned pumpkin (100% pumpkin, nothing else). Anyway, all was GREAT until recently…he’s been trying to get picky over the past few weeks but this week, I can’t get him to eat it at all!!
His appetite is fine because he’s constantly trying to eat the dry food I put out for the strays and continues to try and eat his brothers Rx urinary food….
He seems healthy and fine but it’s so odd…he used to be obsessed with his food…I’d feed him when I have the other cats treats and he was FINE- didn’t even want a treat…that’s how much he loved his food.
Should I try a different formula…salmon or chicken maybe???

 

[Tobermory]

You might try the turkey. Mine seem to prefer it.

S&C has a fairly high bone content which could be contributing to Jellybean’s constipation. Have you tried Northwest Naturals? Lower bone content. Again, my girls really like the turkey.

 

[R@ch]

I don’t think I’ve tried Turkey but I’m going to have to….I’ll try Stella and Chewy Turkey and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try another brand. Funny you should say that about bone…he loved VitalCat but I couldn’t continue it because of the chunks of bone I always had to pick out. It was the rabbit I previously used from them.
maybe he’s just sick of rabbit!
I don’t know but I do know it’s WAY too expensive for me to buy it if he won’t eat it
He already nearly bankrupts me as is

 

[lisahe]

One of our cats tends to get constipated, too, but Vet's Best Hairball Relief Digestive Aid tablets have made Ireland very regular. I bought them for her fluffy sister but after reading that they'd helped other cats' constipation, I tried them on Ireland, too, and they work beautifully. Plus they're a favorite treat.

As for food, if other proteins might be possible, Primal's pork is relatively low in bone, around (or maybe even below?) 10%, I believe, though you might want to check if you try it. We've also fed Northwest Naturals, which the cats liked. A newer brand is Boss: I don't know the bone content (they don't give the exact figure) but it's apparently relatively low or moderate since the food has a second calcium source.

 

[Byrdie]

Hi all! I haven’t posted in a while but am always a lurker, lol. I’ve been fostering a mama and she just had 5 babies 2 weeks ago…so it’s been hectic.
my year old runt, Jellybean, has serious (think infant with diarrhea but no diaper….) digestive issues for the first 9 months of his life. The ONLY thing that finally worked was Stella & Chewy rabbit. I started slowly incorporating duck into the mix because tbh, the rabbit is just sooo expensive. He acclimated well, no issues. The raw food tended to make him constipated so I also mixed in a little canned pumpkin (100% pumpkin, nothing else). Anyway, all was GREAT until recently…he’s been trying to get picky over the past few weeks but this week, I can’t get him to eat it at all!!
His appetite is fine because he’s constantly trying to eat the dry food I put out for the strays and continues to try and eat his brothers Rx urinary food….
He seems healthy and fine but it’s so odd…he used to be obsessed with his food…I’d feed him when I have the other cats treats and he was FINE- didn’t even want a treat…that’s how much he loved his food.
Should I try a different formula…salmon or chicken maybe???

Well, same thing just happened with my cat. He ate it gleefully and then suddenly stopped. I read a post elsewhere and that person said: "Stella & Chewy's is SUPER bony." This individual was absolutely correct. Other folks here suggest checking out Northwest Naturals. My cat ate it a few years ago and ate it right up until he got tired of it and stopped. Cats will also suddenly stop because they are bored of the food, too. Anyway, I opened a new bagnof Northwest Naturals tonight and offered it to my boy and he would have nothing to do with it! Another helper here said that Northwest Naturals is not as bony. I would have agreed a few years ago, but the bag I opened tonight was riddled with bone! It took me forever to pick it out of the food.and barely had enough to make three tiny little chicken meatballs. I posted a new thread moments ago: "AM I Crazy Or Is There More Bone Than Ever in Freeze-Dried Raw Cat Food?" I may not have recalled the title of my post accurately, word for word, but it is somewhere in the right neighborhood. I think my kitty is rejecting raw freeze-dried food now (I always hydrate it, by the way) because of too much bone. I swear I do not recall ever seeing - and feeling - so much bone in these raw freeze-dried products before. I had a big problem with Feline Natural recently due to unacceptably large, sharp pieces of bone that I discovered in Apollo's food. Unacceptable to me, at least. I discuss this in the thread I posted today.

 

[lisahe]

Ah, the bone issue... some of these foods are ridiculously bony! About the only one I felt good about (when we were still feeding raw food) was Stella's Selects, which have no bone. A fair number of other foods now include ingredients like pumpkin to mitigate the (constipating) effects of the bone but that's not really an optimal solution to the problem.

 

[Byrdie]

Thank you for taking time to reply. I just went on Stella & Chewy's website, but I could not find "Stella's Selects." I am interested in trying it.

Thanks,
Mary ("Byrdie" ) & Apollo
(Byrd is my middle name - my mother's maiden name.)

 

[Byrdie]

Here are some pictures of pieces of bone I recently found in bags.of Feline Natural Freeze-Dried Raw Chicken & Lamb, King Salmon & Lamb and Beef Hoki. I included these photos in my other post. Do you think the pieces if bone in these photos are unacceptably large? I do think so, and I am also concerned about how razor-sharp many of the pieces feel; they are sharp enough to nearly cut my skin. That is how I first discovered the bone. I was handling the food and something that felt very sharp poked me; at first I thought it was a piece of metal!

Thanks for your kind and insightful reply!

"Byrdie" & Apollo

 

[lisahe]

Thank you for taking time to reply. I just went on Stella & Chewy's website, but I could not find "Stella's Selects." I am interested in trying it.

Thanks,
Mary ("Byrdie" ) & Apollo
(Byrd is my middle name - my mother's maiden name.)

Well how about that, it looks like they must not make those foods anymore! That's too bad because they were one of the few commercial raw foods without bone. (I understand that bone is good for cats but unfortunately most commercial raw foods tend to have more than some cats can tolerate.)

 

[Byrdie]

Well how about that, it looks like they must not make those foods anymore! That's too bad because they were one of the few commercial raw foods without bone. (I understand that bone is good for cats but unfortunately most commercial raw foods tend to have more than some cats can tolerate.)

Yes, Sophie's post is enlightening. None is the cheapest ingredient. So there you go! Bottom line always seems to be money. I never used to notice so much bone before. Too much!!
.

 

[Byrdie]

I don’t think I’ve tried Turkey but I’m going to have to….I’ll try Stella and Chewy Turkey and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try another brand. Funny you should say that about bone…he loved VitalCat but I couldn’t continue it because of the chunks of bone I always had to pick out. It was the rabbit I previously used from them.
maybe he’s just sick of rabbit!
I don’t know but I do know it’s WAY too expensive for me to buy it if he won’t eat it
He already nearly bankrupts me as is

I found a lot of bone in Stella & Chewy's Turkey, too. Finely ground buy still a lot there!

 

[Byrdie]

Well, same thing just happened with my cat. He ate it gleefully and then suddenly stopped. I read a post elsewhere and that person said: "Stella & Chewy's is SUPER bony." This individual was absolutely correct. Other folks here suggest checking out Northwest Naturals. My cat ate it a few years ago and ate it right up until he got tired of it and stopped. Cats will also suddenly stop because they are bored of the food, too. Anyway, I opened a new bagnof Northwest Naturals tonight and offered it to my boy and he would have nothing to do with it! Another helper here said that Northwest Naturals is not as bony. I would have agreed a few years ago, but the bag I opened tonight was riddled with bone! It took me forever to pick it out of the food.and barely had enough to make three tiny little chicken meatballs. I posted a new thread moments ago: "AM I Crazy Or Is There More Bone Than Ever in Freeze-Dried Raw Cat Food?" I may not have recalled the title of my post accurately, word for word, but it is somewhere in the right neighborhood. I think my kitty is rejecting raw freeze-dried food now (I always hydrate it, by the way) because of too much bone. I swear I do not recall ever seeing - and feeling - so much bone in these raw freeze-dried products before. I had a big problem with Feline Natural recently due to unacceptably large, sharp pieces of bone that I discovered in Apollo's food. Unacceptable to me, at least. I discuss this in the thread I posted today.

Maybe your kitty is having a difficult time with Stella & Chewy's bone content. A LOT of bone!

 

[Byrdie]

You might try the turkey. Mine seem to prefer it.

S&C has a fairly high bone content which could be contributing to Jellybean’s constipation. Have you tried Northwest Naturals? Lower bone content. Again, my girls really like the turkey.

I opened a bag of Northwest Naturals Chicken last night and it was LOADED with bone!.I do not recall it having so much bone in the past, though!