Anyone recommend cat food for cat with sensitive tummy?

[Louisiasb]

Hi, my six month old kitten started out of Arden grange but after few days in a cattery developed diarrhoea. And so the problems began?

He has been on pure chicken since that episode about 2 months ago. He gets the diarrhoea again if he has any other food. So far we have tried,

Arden grange
James Wellbeloved
iams

Vet has just for all parasites and worms so seems to be just his tummy.

She has recommended hills dd Venison and green pea but crazily expensive.

Just wondered if anyone had found anything that worked!!?

Hi Louisia

I'm wondering whether he has a food intolerance - to grain, say. Other posters have a lot more experience in that area so they may have some suggestions for you when they come on to the board later in the evening.

Have you given the vet a proper three day stool sample and had it properly checked at a Laboratory? Regardless of this I would recommend that you do a further three day sample and have it checked for Tritrichomonas Foetus as this can cause ongoing diar-rear in cats and they won't have checked for that unless you specifically request a QPCR or PCR test.

Have you tried a course of Pro-Kolin probiotics as these can be beneficial.

Thidly it's really important that you get your Kitten onto a complete food as soon as possible or it is going to end up seriously deficient in certain nutrients on a diet of nothing but plain chicken.

For my kitten the only food he really tolerates is raw. You can buy a commercially produced raw food from the following companies:

Natural Instinct
Nutriment
Honeys Real Cat Food

They are all nutrionally complete foods and very easy for a cat to digest as it's a more natural diet for them.

Otherwise, you could try some other brands of wet food. From the HappyKittyCompany you could try 'Ropocat Sensitive' which is a grain-free, easily digestible, single-protein wet food.

I wouldn't recommend you try and dry food at all.

I've been through months of on and off diar-reah with my now eight month old kitten and the raw food is really the only thing that works for us. We are currently waiting for the results of his fecal sample testing for Tritrichomonas foetus which I have recently learned about.

Good luck but you need to get him onto a complete food asap!

My mums Ragdoll has bowel problems ( had 2 emergency resections as a kitten) and he has royal canin sensitivity chicken and rice pouches ( they also do duck) and hills GI biscuit . He is very picky and has a variety of food but these are the staples for when he is particularly loose .

He can't really stay on just cooked chicken, there won't be enough taurine in it and taurine is as important to them as vitamin c is to us eg vital but we can't make it.

I had this problem & he's ok on butchers choice & aldi tins (but not rabbit and turkey) with applaws biscuits or royal canin rice and fish prescription biscuits.

Thanks for your suggestions,.. He has had a thorough 3 day poo sample and all clear.

He doesn't have diarrhoea while on the chicken so must just be sensitive.

I want to try and avoid wet food as have 2 cats and dry is so much easier. I know wet food is likely to be less problematic and may end up on it but wanted to try other options first.

Will look up some of these ideas.

It's the taurine you need to watch.

Dry food is a really seriously poor food choice for cats in general, especially if that's all they have. Cats must be able to take moisture from their food. Please try some wet food. Butcher's classic is inexpensive and generally well tolerated.

Your other option is raw. Instead of cooking the chicken, try giving them some little pieces of it raw. If they will eat it and it doesn't cause dire-rear (it almost certainly won't) then you can think again about buying a commercially produced raw food from one of the companies I have already suggested.

Also, please consider testing separately for tritrichomonas foetus. The bland chicken might simply be masking it's symptoms. If your cat does have tritrichomonas foetus then it can be treated with a two week course of medication and that would end the issue of dire-rear x

Most standard pooled three day sample tests do now include Cryptosporidium and tritrich we always routinely test for these in kittens with persistent diarrhoea, but it is worth checking that both these and giardia have been included for completeness.
In such a young kitten with persistent diarrhoea if all of these are clear on faecal I would be looking to pursue diagnosis further as food intolerance and IBD would be incredibly rare in one so young and if I was making one of these diagnoses I would be looking for allergy testing and gut biopsies to back them up.
Personally I have been very successful with salmon and potato diets in cats with IBD and food allergies.
I would disagree with Kim about cats needing all their water from their food. Studies have shown that even on a raw diet cats still drink from water sources, however, these water sources must be wide flat and open allowing the cat to look out over the water whilst drinking ( as opposed to deep bowls where they have to look down into the water), also that if possible it is desirable to offer a running water source for a cat from a water fountain.

Again it will leave you with the problem of Salmon and Potato being very far from a complete diet for a cat.

I think whether it's dry, wet or raw, the most important thing is that this cat is successfully moved onto something complete.

I didn't mean to imply I felt that a cat should take ALL of it's moisture from it's food, only that it should be able to take a proportion from it's food and a cat fed only on dry food will have some degree of dehydration as it's highly unlikely that it will drink enough water to balance it out. There's been some interesting studies on this and papers posted on other cat forums. Please let me know if you become interested in reading them :)

Raw food not an option as small children and risk of food poisoning.

The vet said that hills dd and purina ha are complete foods. Is that not true?

The salmon and potato one is now not produced anymore.

I would have thought that the wet food would have more rubbish in it.

Also vet not concerned about the runny tummy with food. Should I pushing it as they just said to try this food.

I will check the test included those things but I know the vet said it was a complete through test as took longer.

Don't know what to do next!!

As a vet I read extensively and the salmon and potato diet is a commercial avaliable complete diet.

If you're talking about dry, loads of them out there.

Can you give me the name of a salmon and potato dry food. The only one I know of is a Wafcol which is no longer available.

Any other names of suitable dry foods gratefully received.

\link{http://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/Products/CA3109/arden-grange-adult-cat-fresh-salmon-andamp-potato\Arden Grange} is one of them, Louisia.

I just found that thanks. He is bad with kitten food Arden grange but will try this one. It's cheaper than venison and green pea anyway!

My cat had runny poos and wind on wet food and things like cooked chicken.

I put her on a decent dry food royal canin and no problems for last three years. The second she has wet food or actual food then back comes the smelly poo.

Dry food is not bad as some like to profess. It's perfectly acceptable and has many advantages over wet. You just have to get a decent one and ensure the cat is drinking.

The problem is we have tried a few good dry foods and still give diarrhoea. I don't have a problem with dry food as find it easier.

I am going to try Arden grange next!!

Louisa I'm sure your vet has told you this, but is really important that you stick with a food for at least 12 weeks if you are doing an exclusion trial.

Louisia

Is there any chance that he could be nicking some of the other cat's food if different? Can you segregate their meals or shall you be feeding the same - arden grange, say - in the future?

In fact - is he an indoor cat at the moment? (Just wondering, if he goes out, whether Mrs McCafferty down the road could be giving him something she shouldn't.)

We are not doing an exclusion diet just trying out find a food that doesn't give him diarrhoea within 3 days of slowly introducing it into the chicken.

He nicks the other cats food whenever he gets a chance but only few balls every week or so. Also dog food if they spill some. The amount is so small and timing doesn't fit with diarrhoea.

Yes still indoors at moment

I'd have a think about feeding nonetheless. Diarrhoea isn't necessarily immediate so you'll likely need to work out some way to restrict his food to the 'good nosh'.

PS - at least with the dogs, it should be fairly straightforward. Dogs are usually such 'I see it, I eat it' that you can put their food down while you keep the cats out and them remove any uneaten or discarded a minute or so later before you let the cats back in.