Tips to help cat eat hydrolyzed kibble?

[gabicards]

Hi all,

My cat's vet is hellbent on getting my cat to eat hydrolyzed kibble as part of his treatment for intestinal inflammation. He hasn't been diagnosed with IBD yet, but he's been taking prednisolone for 10 days and will be doing so (with different dosages) for 2 months. He will also undergo surgery next week, a double FHO, and so I really don't want him to lose weight.

The issue is that he doesn't want to eat the kibble unless we mix it with the wet food he's been eating up until now, but the whole purpose of introducing this kibble to him is to be able to remove the sachet. We've been transitioning him into it slowly, and today's supposed to be the last day of the sachet, but when we offer him the dry food by itself, he's very uninterested. I'm concerned because there's literally no other hydrolyzed food in Brazil - with the exception of Purina's, which he ate for about a month halfway through 2022 and did not help him. He improved when we moved him out of kibble entirely, but apparently that doesn't matter and I do not want to argue with the vet over this anymore. I'm willing to try anything - I wanted to follow a cat recipe and make his food with some novel protein myself, but the vets from this clinic didn't like the idea.

So, is there anything - not protein, I suppose - that I could put on top of his food that could make it more appealing? Something that is unlikely to irritate his gut? The vet wouldn't let me give him any additional fiber because it could disrupt the treatment for now (introducing too many things at once), so I guess it needs to be something fairly empty, nutritionally, but that tastes good.

I'd appreciate any tips! I feel like I'm in a bit of a race against time here, not only because of the surgery, but because if I don't figure out which food agrees with him I fear he'll end up medicated for pretty much the rest of his life. Vets say it's food related and probably not chronic.. yet. I'm also scared for him because I know IBD can evolve to a lymphoma.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

If he improved when he was on entirely wet food, WHY was he at the Vet for a food change? I understand he was there because of the FHO issue, but that doesn't seem related to a possible IBD issue. What was happening when he was on an all wet diet? Without more information, I don't know what to recommend as a "topper" that might not not hurt him, and it's also hard to add toppers to dry food. I guess you have discussed this with your Vet and mentioned your cat isn't eating much of the food?

Most Vets don't like the idea of raw or homemade food, mainly because they aren't schooled in that so worry about either salmonella or other parasitic issues, or nutritional issues. I had to educate my Vet on it and now she's on board

 

[gabicards]

If he improved when he was on entirely wet food, WHY was he at the Vet for a food change? I understand he was there because of the FHO issue, but that doesn't seem related to a possible IBD issue. What was happening when he was on an all wet diet? Without more information, I don't know what to recommend as a "topper" that might not not hurt him, and it's also hard to add toppers to dry food. I guess you have discussed this with your Vet and mentioned your cat isn't eating much of the food?

Most Vets don't like the idea of raw or homemade food, mainly because they aren't schooled in that so worry about either salmonella or other parasitic issues, or nutritional issues. I had to educate my Vet on it and now she's on board

Ah yes, of course! The context: when I adopted him, he was fine for a few weeks and then started with soft stool that didn't improve. We had an ultrasound done and it showed thickening of intestinal walls, the vet (another one) suggested a biopsy and I didn't want to do it. I changed his diet to all wet and the symptoms went away. I eventually introduced a little bit of a different dry food, which he continued to eat but at small quantities, as a complement to the wet food (2-3 sachets of wet + 20g of dry, normally). He was fine for about 5 months.

Then, about halfway through December, his stool was a bit soft again. I started giving him S. Boulardii and once again removed dry food, he started to improve but was not 100%. Because we had already seen inflammation in the intestines in the original ultrasound, I asked to have it done again and we saw the same thing - only slightly worse in some areas. Queue prednisolone. Since he needs to go through surgery, the vet didn't want to give him chlorambucil yet, but she mentioned she'll talk to the surgeon to see when after the surgery it would be ideal to get him started on it.

His stool improved immediately after prednisolone (went from like 70% okay to 100%), but we were also told to introduce the hydrolyzed food, so today his stool was a bit soft again - he's generally sensitive to any minor food changes, and a reaction to any new food is expected 2-3 days after the transition begins, as per usual. I wasn't sure how that would go with the medication, but I wasn't very surprised.

His blood tests were all fine. He eats the hydrolyzed kibble very well if there's at least a hint of the wet one on it... but I think the whole purpose of the transition is to remove that one entirely, because the protein could be causing the irritation.

If any other info is needed, just let me know.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

When you were feeding only wet, was it just one protein, or a variety? Also, have you seen this particular website? It's got tons of info about IBD in cats. IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

I'm thinking maybe you could use something like Rawz (it's a canned food) as a topper because it's pretty "clean" as far as ingredients go, and if you only need a little bit for him to eat, that might work.

 

[lisahe]

When you were feeding only wet, was it just one protein, or a variety? Also, have you seen this particular website? It's got tons of info about IBD in cats. IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

I'm thinking maybe you could use something like Rawz (it's a canned food) as a topper because it's pretty "clean" as far as ingredients go, and if you only need a little bit for him to eat, that might work.

I second everything that mrsgreenjeens suggests.

I also wonder if you've tried taking that second kind of dry food out of his diet and going back to the first. Sometimes a small change like that can make a huge difference.

 

[gabicards]

When you were feeding only wet, was it just one protein, or a variety? Also, have you seen this particular website? It's got tons of info about IBD in cats. IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

I'm thinking maybe you could use something like Rawz (it's a canned food) as a topper because it's pretty "clean" as far as ingredients go, and if you only need a little bit for him to eat, that might work.

I think Rawz is only in the US, I'm in Brazil. But thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to see if we have any "equivalents" here.

I do know that website! I'm in their facebook group as well, it's been helpful.