I Am Going Crazy

[sunflower7]

UPDATE TO MY POST
I AM STILL GOING CRAZY!


Thought I had settled on a few brands
BUT
FROMM- they "like" don't love and some give bad breath/stinky poop
NULO- they also LIKE but they it has tuna in it so that's prob not good daily
EARTHBORN- they like but high carb
Health Extension - I just don't know- some people say this brand is great, others say it's crap. cats say it's "OK"
WERUVA- tried this for the last week, mini can at night split 3 ways and now ALL 3 cats have diarrehea..HOW can that be when all I gave was 4 cans paw lickin chicken and 1 can mack and jack????!?!

I'm just getting so tired of trying this, trying that, they like one day, not the next, too many high in carbs, do I feed carageenan or not? is guar just as bad? agar agar? spinach, potatoes, etc etc.... wanted smaller companies, not the big ones owned by nestle, mars, etc...<---- this is the voice in my head running constantly....

Others I may try but really am getting frustrated

Wellness ...I just don't know if they are good or over rated
Bravo seems good, not local so I can't even grab a can, and not many chewy reviews to read
newman's organic ( has carageenen though and I read lots of articles it's bad, then again others say it is NOT bad and did you know it's in A LOT of foods WE eat?)
rebarn? good ingreds but I feel this company caters 90% to dogs
halo? claiiming holistic but has soy in it and garlic?????
My friend loves natural balance but I'm leaning toward that it's crap brand now.
Canidae- has carageenan

does someone want to come over and just get my cats 2 or 3 good brands??
SO confusing!

 

[sunflower7]

so I'm looking at my post and see I started some weruva on 3/19 and 2 of them have diarrahea now ( on 3/29) so I'm thinking that may not be related. I think the issue is I don't know which one made them have it since they had Fromm and health extension ch/pump in afternoon, then WERUVA at night, NULO the next morning, then diarrehea that next day( and still no solid poop, I'm waiting to see) I fed Fromm chicken this morning, no one pooped yet! maybe it is too many brands? or a bad can?

I also want to add that I will not go back to PURINA, despite the fact they used to love it. Older cat has so much more energy now off that crap. and I don't want to support them as a company/brand

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi - It could be a 'new' food too fast - sometimes I can get away with serving a new food that he'll eat with no tummy upset, but other times a slow transition to a new food is required.
Canidae has started adding menadione
If your cats like it, redbarn is fine
I'd stay away from garlic for sure
I see that reviews.com/cat-food has finally updated their cat food page, you might check that out

 

[sunflower7]

Hi - It could be a 'new' food too fast - sometimes I can get away with serving a new food that he'll eat with no tummy upset, but other times a slow transition to a new food is required.
Canidae has started adding menadione
If your cats like it, redbarn is fine
I'd stay away from garlic for sure
I see that reviews.com/cat-food has finally updated their cat food page, you might check that out

Thanks! I am quite surprised some of the ones they have on there. Some I'd never buy. Petco brand?

 

[sunflower7]

plus they all link to amazon, so they are profiting on it. just seems like an odd list to me

 

[Furballsmom]

As I understand it they're working to find the safest foods, user preferences et al notwithstanding.

 

[lisahe]

Yes, feeding new foods can definitely cause problems, though sometimes it seems like there is absolutely no logical explanation! Since one of our cats vomits if she eats potato, I have to wonder if that might be where the Paw Lickin' Chicken went wrong. Sometimes that food gets overstarched and gloppy: that happened once before I made the realization about the potato sensitivity. The litter box was not a happy place then, either!

It's too bad Canidae started adding menadione, though I think they already used carrageenan... Their foods are pretty decent other than that.

Our cats like the Fromm chicken, too, and sometimes not pooping isn't such a bad thing... When cats eat food that they digest and process well, they have less solid waste. Ours eat a lot of very low-carb food, much of it raw, and they don't poop every day. What does come out doesn't smell much and there isn't a lot of it, either. (The down side to that is that it's important to try to monitor a little to be sure nobody's constipated!)

Anyway, good luck!

 

[sunflower7]

As I understand it they're working to find the safest foods, user preferences et al notwithstanding.

yes I know.... :-)
I just think they added some that aren't all that great and missed some others. JMO though

 

[Furballsmom]

They probably got in trouble with the AAFCO with the way they were doing things (they called out menadione in a big way prior to this incarnation of their website).
Now they're saying it this way with no specific mention of what ingredients they're referring to; “Safe” doesn’t necessarily mean “ideal for your cat’s health.” After speaking with experts, we combed through our list of contenders and cut any with colors, flavorings, or ingredients toxic at high doses.
Oh well (sigh) just leaves it up to us, as usual, to lose our eyesight squinting at the tiny text on the labels, but it was more useful when they actually stated what those additives were.

 

[lisahe]

yes I know.... :-)
I just think they added some that aren't all that great and missed some others. JMO though

Yes, a lot of things about their list really make me wonder... BFF foods really caught my eye since they're fine for an occasional treat but are loaded with fish and usually carby thickeners, too. OTOH, Feline Natural is a very good brand. At least on casual looking, it's unclear who's making the choices on cat food, which makes me pretty skeptical. (So does the fact that reviews.com reviews toothbrushes, too... So who's looking at cat food?) And some of their reasoning is a bit odd, like not approving of "meat" because a cat might have a sensitivity to a specific protein (good to recognize that but still) but then putting BFF on the list despite widespread concerns about feeding cats a lot of fish. All in all, I don't think our vet would be very happy with that list!

 

[Neo_23]

I’m feeding lots of Weruva right now because it’s low in phosphorus and the amount of gummy gunk in it really grosses me out.

But, what is there to do when you need high protein low phosphorus foods.

 

[lisahe]

I’m feeding lots of Weruva right now because it’s low in phosphorus and the amount of gummy gunk in it really grosses me out.

But, what is there to do when you need high protein low phosphorus foods.

I feed about one can of Cats in the Kitchen per week because the cats like it, but yes, it is very gummy. In our case, though, that's better than potato (carby and barfy!) or tapioca (carby!), though I also will sometimes feed a drained pouch of chicken/pumpkin food, too. They love that, too.

All that said, Weruva is great if you need low phosphorus. It worked incredibly well for our previous cat in her last months, particularly because she liked it.

 

[Neo_23]

I feed about one can of Cats in the Kitchen per week because the cats like it, but yes, it is very gummy. In our case, though, that's better than potato (carby and barfy!) or tapioca (carby!), though I also will sometimes feed a drained pouch of chicken/pumpkin food, too. They love that, too.

All that said, Weruva is great if you need low phosphorus. It worked incredibly well for our previous cat in her last months, particularly because she liked it.

This is true, it’s a decent food so I’m not super bummed by it, I just wish it wasn’t so gummy. She’s currently on a mainly Rad Cat/Weruva diet with the occasional Ziwipeak for protein variety.

 

[Furballsmom]

To the OP and everyone, it's just generally all around frustrating.
I'd used the Reviews website quite a lot over these past few years while working to figure out things regarding cat food ingredients.

I apologize, I didn't realize at first just how much of a change they'd made (as of March 8 2018) to their page for cat food. --Obviously NO

So now it's as though there's really nothing to rely on except ourselves. Not that we're lightweights in this regard, but to lose a source that used to be at least somewhat reliable is really kind of disgusting.