Cat with a delicate stomach.

[BTZPusspusspuss]

My senior cat seems to have fairly runny stools as his normal state. He is on Whiskas wet (2 sachets a day) and RC sensible dry (one scoop per meal). He’s healthy in himself and has a good coat, very active, complete scavenger and will steal food given the chance. Any tips for helping his stomach settle more. The shelter seemed to think he was fine with Whiskas (we’ve had them 8 months now) but I’m wondering if I should move him to something else. I’ve seen people mention the pro-kalin but there’s a paste and a powder? Does it matter which or would a general probiotic type powder help? Trying not to go insanely expensive as I’m feeding three and one is already on a full renal diet!

Agree that Katkin sorted our elderly cat’s tummy out and also had the pleasing effect off making his poos much less smelly!

We make it as economical as possible by tweaking the numbers so we get the largest sachet size (400kcal) and eek them out a bit longer than one day. They have brought in a new 'shredded' texture too now which has been a hit with our boy (who also has no teeth!).

We were told by our vet that supermarket food isn't great for digestion in cats due to the low meat content.

I assume the formulation has changed because in the 90s all our cats were fine with it.

Nowadays all our cats have higher meat content food as they all had digestive trouble. It really has helped.

Have a look in Zooplus for other brands. My least high maintenance cat has a brand called Wild Freedom and is very settled on it.

Pretty sure if you look around there will be samples on there you can try without spending out too much. And then you can bulk buy to save money if it's a success.

Yes these brands are more expensive, but it's worth it for the normal poos imo.

So Whiskas is roughly 35% meat and Scrumbles is 80% so we’ll see how that goes. The cost is roughly £19 a week with the new food (buying direct with a discount from their website), just for meat for the boys, as they go through 4 pouches a day. Although biscuit consumption will have to drop as the Scrumbles is more calorific than the Whiskas.

Whiskers is great if your cat is constipated mine are on felix which is almost as bad but they eat it which is obviously the point

I would look at adding a better quality dry food like wild freedom or Purizon, you can buy a sack from zooplus and ours last half a year you can then do less wet food.

I just leave it down to free eat but you could mix into the wet food.

They’re already on Royal Canin sensible so the quality of the dry food isn’t an issue, I can’t leave them to free eat as one would just eat until he was sick. He’s like a Labrador in cat form. It’s a work in progress, we’ve only had them since Feb (so started on the shelters recommendations for food) and they’re seniors so still adjusting and learning to trust each other (I got mauled initially if I got my hands in the wrong place at dinner time!). I’ve got them all eating in the same space now which is something.

I should add I’m never sure with dry vs wet these days, it seems to be a bit of a split camp over which is better, our previous old puss had one small tin a day and the rest dry and did fine on it, but I don’t know whether that’s a better set up than roughly equal wet and dry. Especially when you can’t leave any dry down for free feeding.

I'd add some probiotics and make sure the dry food is high quality. Scrumbles is good for poo's and not particularly expensive. Mine love Wild Freedom but it's expensive. I get it as a treat sometimes and mix it in with some cheaper dry food. James Wellbeloved also v popular with mine. They do a grain free version which is often better tolerated.

All mine are on dry only except the guy who had urine crystals in the past as he needs higher water content - so he has a mixture of wet and dry.

Btw I have to weigh their food each day to make sure they don't stack the weight on - no free eating here!

Oh the dry is measured out for everyone! When my previous cat had free rein of his dried food that was within his daily allowance so once it was gone he was done for the day! I’ve kept their weight even for 9 months now so think I’m getting that aspect right even if greedy guts knicks everyone’s leftovers given half a chance.

We feed our sensitive stomach girl the Applaws chicken for wet food - it looks pretty much like chicken I would eat, so I think probably better for their stomachs than the formed stuff! And she has the RC gastrointestinal biscuits, which she loves. The combo of these has fixed all her stomach issues.

I worked for a well known cat food firm in R+D years ago.
They changed the recipe to "new improved" and put textured vegetable protein in it. Cats did not digest it well so they took it back out and launched "best ever"- with the tag line "does your cat have a sensitive stomach"
I suggest you look at the ingredients list and try for a food that does not have vegetable protein in it before you medicate your cat

Good luck finding something that works and that will be eaten!

With the Pro-Kolin paste, I always put it on the top of paw/front of lower shin, then they lick it off as part of cleaning themselves.