Stinky Poop and Inconsistent Weight - Diet Recommendations?

[lemondrop]

My two boys are both nearly two years old and I'm still searching for a food I'm fully satisfied with.

They used to be on Hill's Ideal Balance chicken and rice adult food, but they had really soft/unformed poo. I switched them to Nutro chicken and rice indoor adult because it has a higher fiber content and the soft poo is no longer a problem. 

However, the litter box still STINKS and they're having trouble keeping weight on. They're not underweight (both averaging ten pounds), but their weights vary by a pound or two every time they're weighed at the vet and just won't level out. 

I'd really like to find a kibble that works for them. I just don't have the money for a canned-only or raw diet.

I'm not sure what other details to include so please ask if you need more info. 

 

[ldg]

I don't know kibble, but cats naturally do best on a food that is "high" protein, low fiber - where the protein comes from meat, or in the case of kubble, meat meal. I used to recommend Nature's Variety, but now pea protein is up there on the ingredient list, so I can't help there. Fiber will appear to help, but it stinks, because cats have very short digestive systems that are not built to ferment fiber.

Consider giving them a digestive enzyme at least once a day. I really like Animal Essentials Digestive Enzymes and Probiotic, I think it's called. Can you afford to split one can - or even part of one - between them daily? You can mix the enzyme into that. That will help break down and digest the food better

Also, even though you can't afford moist food, it's still healthier to feed them timed meals. You can add water to the kibble to increase water intake (if you don't leave it sitting out). If you do this, you can add the enzymes to every meal.

 

[lemondrop]

Also, even though you can't afford moist food, it's still healthier to feed them timed meals. You can add water to the kibble to increase water intake (if you don't leave it sitting out). If you do this, you can add the enzymes to every meal.

I do feed them in meals, rather than just leaving food out all the time. I've never seen the digestive enzymes! I'll look into that. I've heard that adding pumpkin to a low fiber food would help. Do you know anything about that? Would it just be empty fiber and not actually help the problem?

Feeding a little bit of canned food daily is manageable for me; I just can't afford an all-canned diet.

 

[lemondrop]

I saw some posts here saying the Friskies canned food is pretty good, so I went to look at prices for cases of cans. The ingredients lists all have corn and wheat and by-products! Does the moisture content alone make them a better food than a high-end kibble? I guess I just don't understand why that's being recommended over a good dry food combined with other ways to increase water intake.

 

[ldg]

It is only the Friskies pate style foods that are recommended. Anything with sauce or gravy will be higher carb. While canned is recommended over kibble generally for cats, it is for two reasons: the moisture content and lower carb content.

There are almost no kibbles with less than 10% carbs; some have over 40%. Cats can digest some carbs, but they really aren't "designed" for eating them in relatively large quantities over time. They have fewer difestives enzymes to manage them than omnivores like people. Dogs are also carnivores, but like people, they have multiple pathways of carb metabolism. Cats have one. Cats are *obligate* carnivores, and naturally detive all of their needed nutrition from only eating other animals.

The Friskies pate foods do have rice flour, but it's down the ingredient list, and all of those pate foods are low carb. Some, like Poultry Platter, have chicken (not by-products) as the first ingredient.

 

[lemondrop]

Is there a variety of Friskies or other cheapish canned food that doesn't have "meat by-products"? I was doing some research and it sounds like named by-products are more or less okay, but I'm still wary of unnamed sources. All the Friskies pate styles I'm looking at have unnamed meat by-products.

 

[ldg]

Hopefully others will chime in. I don't know. I no longer feed commercial food.

 

[ldg]

I do feed Friskies pate to the (former) feral cats that live outside.

 

[2cats4me]

 
Is there a variety of Friskies or other cheapish canned food that doesn't have "meat by-products"? I was doing some research and it sounds like named by-products are more or less okay, but I'm still wary of unnamed sources. All the Friskies pate styles I'm looking at have unnamed meat by-products.

I think most if not all of the lower end canned foods will have some meat by products .. 

 

[lemondrop]

Thanks for your help, everyone!

I bought a few varieties of Friskies pate tonight to see which flavors my cats like best. I'm going to start giving them some canned food daily, maybe with added water, but they'll also get kibble for monetary reasons. This is probably a stupid question, but I'm not sure how much to feed them if I'm mixing two kinds of foods? What I mean is, right now they each get 3/4 cup kibble daily and the recommendation for the canned is two cans each daily. If I gave them maybe half a can or a quarter of a can each, how much kibble would they need on top of that to be getting enough to eat?