Struggling with kitten wet food

[aarond]

I have a 5 month old kitten who’s had chronic diarrhea since I got him. We’ve taken countless trips to vet, went through coccidia treatment, antibiotics, etc, and he still has issues. (It can be really bad).

My vet suggested a diet change, as there may be a food allergen triggering it. He was eating Fancy Feast for Kittens (Chicken) before I got him, so I wanted to stuck with it until recently. The fact that it contained cow’s milk was concerning, so I figured that could be the issue.

I switched him to Purina Pro Plan True Nature for Kittens (Chicken) which has way less ingredients. We saw near immediate results after the switch. His stool was much firmer. So, I order a few cases to ride through this pandemic. Now, he refuses to eat more than half. Also, my older cat (who is food obsessed) refuses to eat more than half of his Purina Beyond wet food.

Clearly there’s something wrong, maybe two bad batches? I tried cans from each case. They won’t eat them. My kitten has diarrhea again as well. He’s clearly letting me know that this food is making him upset.

What are some good, low ingredient options for kittens? Grain/carb free seems like a must. We really need to find out what ingredient is upsetting him, and it looks like the Purina brand isn’t going to work in our household anymore. He’s very hungry, not getting enough calories, and forcing himself to eat the whole portion eventually.

If necessary I’ll just have to start giving him adult food, as there’s more options to chose from. I’ll have to find some way to supplement the nutrients he won’t be getting.

 

[molly92]

You can use any food that says "all life stages" on it. Enough nutrients for kittens and adults (usually found in higher quality foods), and that might be helpful to increase your options. The only difference is that you feed kittens more of it.

The options outside of Purina brands are going to be more expensive, although better quality. But Fancy Feast also has a lot of low-cost options that might work once the kitten's an adult that you could revisit again later.

Some parasites are very good at hiding from tests and evading treatment, and sometimes there's just an imbalance in the gut bacteria. Both of these conditions are encouraged with higher carbohydrate diets (parasites and bacteria tend to love carbs), so you probably want to look for something with fewer carbs and more protein. Dr. Elsey's clean protein, Nature's Variety Instinct, Wellness CORE, Hounds and Gatos, Tiki Cat After Dark, and Holistic Select are some options I like.

Note that a sudden switch to any food may cause digestive upset, and it's usually best to do a gradual transition over a week or two.

Something else that might really help is a good probiotic, like S. boulardii. It's shown to help with parasites and also general diarrhea, so it's a win-win. It can also help keep the digestive system more stable in times of stress.

 

[aarond]

The vet has ruled out parasites (thankfully) after doing 4 very extensive fecal tests. We’ve been giving probiotics including S. Boulardii for a few weeks, but now refuses to eat anything with it mixed. I’ll leave him off of it for a little while to see if there’s improvement. He’s eating a concerningly low amount of calories (200kcal max per day), so whatever adjustments I can make to get him to eat are important.

Purina already isn’t cheap ($1.19/can) so going more expensive isn’t too concerning. It already has high protein content, as it’s basically just chicken. On paper, it looks like a fairly high-quality canned food:Pro Plan True Nature Grain Free Chicken & Liver Wet Kitten Food | Purina

On ingredient I noticed is it has fish, which could be the issue. We’re unsure if it’s fish or chicken he’s sensitive to. My assumption is fish, as chicken is more rare. I’ll have to do some trials with fish-only and chicken-only foods to find out.

We transitioned him over two weeks and saw good results. He had no issues gobbling down the food during that time period. It’s only been an issue since using it as his only food

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

You might try turkey, or duck. It's amazing how many cats actually are issues with chicken. And, yes, with fish.

As to the S. Boulardi, I give that to my guys as well, but if I get just a tiny bit too much in their food, they won't eat it. It tastes nasty, or so I've been told. I do split it up between all their meals so they don't have too much at one time.

Have you tried using toppers? I hate to even suggest it because I have created two little monsters in my house. They will not even look at their dishes if they don't see me sprinkle toppers on top OMG those little stinkers

 

[LTS3]

As to the S. Boulardi, I give that to my guys as well, but if I get just a tiny bit too much in their food, they won't eat it. It tastes nasty, or so I've been told. I do split it up between all their meals so they don't have too much at one time.

S. boulardii that contains MOS (Mannan oligosaccharides) is bitter tasting to cats. There are S. boulardii products that don't contain it such as this one. Adding toppers to the food will help mask any smell / taste from S. boluardii and probiotics.

What are some good, low ingredient options for kittens? Grain/carb free seems like a must. We really need to find out what ingredient is upsetting him, and it looks like the Purina brand isn’t going to work in our household anymore. He’s very hungry, not getting enough calories, and forcing himself to eat the whole portion eventually.

If necessary I’ll just have to start giving him adult food, as there’s more options to chose from. I’ll have to find some way to supplement the nutrients he won’t be getting.

Try the chart here:

Check This Out.... Chart For Cat Food Ingredients

Over the past couple of weeks, @cheeser and I have been working on a cat food ingredient chart that anyone can use to find suitable foods a food sensitive cat can eat or if a particular ingredient is to be avoided for preference reasons, such as no gums. Cheeser already had a personal...

thecatsite.com

I believe there are some kitten foods listed but it's mostly adult and "all life stages" food.

 

[molly92]

It's more important that a kitten is eating at all, that's for sure. If you'd like to try it, L. acidophilus is also a good probiotic and isn't bitter like S. Boulardii.

The problem with the ProPlan for food intolerances is that they use meat by-products as an ingredient. Not a bad thing necessarily, but you have no way of knowing what exactly that is, so it makes it difficult to identify potential allergens.

It's always a good idea to leave out fish in general. I think you could go two routes with this. You could try something with entirely novel ingredients and a unique protein that they likely haven't been exposed to before (duck, rabbit, lamb, pork, venison). Or you could try food with few ingredients but chicken as the main one to see if chicken really is the problem or it was something else. The first option has a higher chance of working. Problems with chicken are pretty common. I had a cat that threw up whenever she had chicken but was fine with turkey. On the other hand, it's very nice to know if a chicken intolerance is real or not because chicken is in almost everything and non-chicken foods are harder to find and more expensive on average.

Whichever you do, they say it takes 4-8 weeks for dietary allergens to leave the system entirely, so you may still see symptoms on a new food and you have to wait a while to know for sure that it doesn't work. (It won't do any good if they don't eat, so if they don't like it, you can of course switch to a different food mid-trial.)