New Food : Diarhea

[dn-wake]

Hey guys, after exhausting my Science Diet food, I switched to Wellness Core. Also, i switched from nutro ultramax to friskies (a cheaper brand that my cat LOVES; she hated eating nutro). I've fed her the friskies when she was just a little kitty and she did not have any problems whatsoever with it when i fed it to her about a few months ago. However she has had no exposure to the wellness. the first few days, her stool was solid and fine so i thought all was well. howeever for the past 2 days, she has had loose diarhea like stool quite often. i am worried , what could be the cause of this? a theory of mine was that i left out some fancy feast combined with friskies for the strays outside and when i brought in the leftover and left it on my counter, she ate some of it. could that be the cause? what should i do?

 

[forensic]

Did you do a slow transition from one food to the other? Sometimes a fast transition can give a cat very upset tummies.

 

[dn-wake]

the friskies was not a slow transition, it was immediate. however ive fed her the friskies for a while when she was a kitten so i thought she should be able to take it easily. however the wellness core she has never had before and it was sudden also. could it be that her diarhea is because of eating the mixed fancy feast + friskies of the stray cats?

 

[forensic]

Sure... anything sudden in their diet can cause it... sometimes unexpected things. Once a system gets used to new food it may not accept old food either.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

That sounds like what happend to Mooch when she was a kitten. Since then I take food changes slow and she's fine.

 

[yosemite]

When changing from one dry food to another it is advisable to do the changeover during a period of time of at least a week to 10 days. Gradually add the new food in with the food she is already eating and increase the new food a bit each day until at the end of the period she is eating all new food.

Wet food changeover isn't usually an issue but depending on your cat it can be. We've been very lucky in that we have changed foods immediately with no stool problems, but as I said, that was luck and our cats were able to handle it.

Now that you have already changed to the new food it may just be a matter of a bit more time and her system will adjust to the new food and the stool will get firmer. You can add a teaspoon of canned pumpkin to each meal for a while until the stool gets firmer. Make sure it is the pure canned pumpkin and NOT the pumpkin pie filling. You should be able to find it in the canned vegetable aisle of your local supermarket.

 

[dn-wake]

but for about the first 4-5 days after the transition, her stool was loose until the day afgter she consumed the friskies mixed w/ fancy feast for the strays