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GenericGirlName
Apr 10, 2012

Why did you post that?
So I got a kitten, and he's weird but he's fine with food and what not. the issue is, he gets fed more often then our roomate's cat. So she, a very very food focused former stray cat, is acting out more and more to "get more food". She never actually gets more food, but sometimes these tantrums/her getting hungry causes her to throw up foam (vet says it's acid reflux). She's not done that recently but we feel like she's getting close to that again so we want to be able to feed her ""more"". Here is there current weights and feeding times.

Basil, 9 months old, 11lbs
Peach, 9 years old, 11lbs

They both eat approx 1can of fussie cat at 7:30am and 7:30pm (two cans put on one plate because they're weird)

At 12pm and 12am I feed Basil abt 1/3 a cup of dry food.

The ideal plan for us would be anything that lets us cut out about a can of wet food from Peach's diet and then let her eat the remaining calories in dry food in multiple small feedings a day (or it can come from an auto feeder we have).

Tldr; we need something that's basically rice cakes but for cats so we can get our tortie to stop vomiting from hangry.

Cat tax, Princess Peach in all her tortie glory:

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Sefal
Nov 8, 2011
Fun Shoe

InvisibleMonkey posted:

Any recommendations on dry cat food that's easily available in mainland Europe? The OP seems pretty US-centric.

We've had our little Katya for about a month now and she's been fed Royal Canin Fit32 ever since she was found in a Romanian landfill. She loves it and seems healthy, she's tiny but gaining weight steadily (estimated 1 y/o, just shy of 3kg). Always hungry tho, but I feel like that's just a cat thing.
I was thinking of switching her to something with better ingredients after we finish this big bag, but almost none of the available brands are even mentioned in the OP? This is the grain-free category on the biggest online pet shop for reference: https://www.zooplus.nl/shop/katten/graanvrij

Here's a very flattering picture of her to pay the cat tax.


That's the same webshop I order from
My cats seem to be around 2.5KG, also almost 1 year old.
I recently sterilized my cats. So i'm giving em https://www.zooplus.nl/shop/katten/kattenvoer_droog/hills/hills_speciaalvoer/462060
For wetfood they love almo nature Atlantische Tonijn. Which I give em twice daily. Once in the morning and once in the evening.
I leave the dryfood out so they can eat whenever.

Fwiw. My vet recommended Hills

GoodBee
Apr 8, 2004


My vet recommended I feed my old lady cat more wet food since her kidney function looked a little worrying at her annual at 15.5 years in January. We're testing her again in July and keeping an eye on her.

She's still got dry food for whenever she wants it and I've been giving her some wet food once or twice a day. I'll up it after this next blood test if my vet suggests.

Anyway, she's been loving the Weruva pouches, mostly the Slide n Serve varieties but she eats some of the Cats in the Kitchen varieties too. She was pretty good with their BFF line, which I wanted to feed since the cans are recyclable and the pouches aren't here. Mostly I want a food where she'll eat the whole thing instead of licking at it a bit and letting it dry out.

I might have to put her on all canned after our next checkup but if anyone is looking to supplement with wet, I recommend trying the Weruva.

My other cat is 13, a little too fat, and fine as far as blood work goes. He likes it too.

Back Alley Borks
Oct 22, 2017

Awoo.


I have two 9yo cats (siblings, one male, one female, both a little over 12lbs) that I currently feed on two different flavors of Natural Balance, which is what they were on when I got them. I've had them for a bit under a year, but the male has had minor urinary problems (nothing critical though) and the female recently had to have dental extractions and a deep clean due to stomatitis. I'm thinking that I should switch their diet and hoping that the stomatitis was caused by an allergy to one of the weirder ingredients of Natural Balance, like the carrots or something.

I was wondering if I should switch them to Wellness, but I want to make sure I pick a food without the same weird veggies and stuff that's found in Natural Balance so I can maximize the chance that the female doesn't get stomatitis in the future. If the new food helps the male's urinary health too, that's a plus.

I asked my vet for recommendations, but they're kinda awful and just sort of shrugged and said "any wet food is fine".

Obligatory pictures:


Back Alley Borks fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 18, 2019

GenericGirlName
Apr 10, 2012

Why did you post that?

Codeacious posted:

I have two 9yo cats (siblings, one male, one female, both a little over 12lbs) that I currently feed on two different flavors of Natural Balance, which is what they were on when I got them. I've had them for a bit under a year, but the male has had minor urinary problems (nothing critical though) and the female recently had to have dental extractions and a deep clean due to stomatitis. I'm thinking that I should switch their diet and hoping that the stomatitis was caused by an allergy to one of the weirder ingredients of Natural Balance, like the carrots or something.

I was wondering if I should switch them to Wellness, but I want to make sure I pick a food without the same weird veggies and stuff that's found in Natural Balance so I can maximize the chance that the female doesn't get stomatitis in the future. If the new food helps the male's urinary health too, that's a plus.

I asked my vet for recommendations, but they're kinda awful and just sort of shrugged and said "any wet food is fine".

Fussie Cat is what we use for wet food. It's pricey but I've not seen any veggies in the tuna based ones.

Annath
Jan 11, 2009

Batatouille is a great and funny play on words for a video game creature and I love silly words like these
Clever Betty
Cross posting from the Dog thread:

Anyone seen this yet?

FDA Investigation into Potential Link between Certain Diets and Canine Dilated Cardiomyopathy

khy
Aug 15, 2005

I would like some assistance please regarding cat food. While speaking with the Vet, the vet mentioned that recent studies show grain-free foods have been linked to heart disease in pets. A search of the subject DOES bring up articles about it for dogs, but not for cats. That said, I'm inclined to believe the vet is right and as such I'm wondering about a few things.

The treats I give her are most certainly NOT grain free. The treats I'm giving her now are Temptations Cat treats, which she adores - they DO have corn, rice, and wheat in them. She gets several treats daily, though I try not to spoil her TOO much with them. Would this be enough to give her some grain to offset the grain-free food?

I'm currently feeding my cat Solid Gold Indigo Moon, as it is listed in the OP as being one of the better dry foods. Wet food is problematic for multiple reasons, not the least of which is she just licks it a few times then leaves. Should I change to a different dry food? I know that the 'wet food is always better, use that' is the mantra, but for a dry food diet should I stick with what I've got or change it up?

ohnobugs
Feb 22, 2003


Did your vet try to sell you on Science Diet? If they were, it's garbage and you should think about switching vets. Corn and rice are cheap fillers in cat food and they are not a necessary part of the diet, at all. It's fine to give your cat treats every once in a while. There have been some issues with dogs on grain-free food, but I think they're still working on figuring out the exact issue. So far it's just a correlation between feeding the same types of food. I suspect eventually we'll find the issue has to do with a lack of regulation in pet food production in general. Right now this issue seems to be limited to dogs.

If your pets are doing okay don't stress too much. If you want to change what you're feeding, look for a higher protein food. Avoid ingredients like brewer's rice, corn gluten meal, wheat, etc. You'll likely find them somewhere in the ingredients list in most foods, but you want to avoid anything where it's the first three ingredients.

Organza Quiz
Nov 7, 2009


khy posted:

I would like some assistance please regarding cat food. While speaking with the Vet, the vet mentioned that recent studies show grain-free foods have been linked to heart disease in pets. A search of the subject DOES bring up articles about it for dogs, but not for cats. That said, I'm inclined to believe the vet is right and as such I'm wondering about a few things.

The treats I give her are most certainly NOT grain free. The treats I'm giving her now are Temptations Cat treats, which she adores - they DO have corn, rice, and wheat in them. She gets several treats daily, though I try not to spoil her TOO much with them. Would this be enough to give her some grain to offset the grain-free food?

I'm currently feeding my cat Solid Gold Indigo Moon, as it is listed in the OP as being one of the better dry foods. Wet food is problematic for multiple reasons, not the least of which is she just licks it a few times then leaves. Should I change to a different dry food? I know that the 'wet food is always better, use that' is the mantra, but for a dry food diet should I stick with what I've got or change it up?

The problem doesn't seem to be with grains or lack of grains specifically so much as a ton of new foods on the market which haven't been properly tested. The advice is to stick with established brands that have tested their foods over long periods. I don't think there's been any reports of cats having specific problems but it doesn't seem like bad advice to me to check if the food you're feeding your pet has actually been tested properly.

GoodBee
Apr 8, 2004


There have been 14 cases of cats with DCM reported to the FDA.

https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/science-research/vet-lirn-update-investigation-dilated-cardiomyopathy

owls or something
Jul 7, 2003

It seems weird to me to be worrying about the grain free issue but ignoring the all dry food being horrible issue.

GoodBee
Apr 8, 2004


Eh. It a newly reported link and some of the grain free diets that have been reported to the FDA recently include wet, raw and homemade.

It's good to be aware. You don't want to trade one problem for another.

Ophidia
Oct 20, 2012
Our two cats (they're about 10 years old) were recently diagnosed with renal disease, to be exact both their creatinine was a bit too high. The vet recommended Royal Canin Renal wet and dry food. What is your opinion on that? Is that good food or is there something thats better for cats with kidney problems? I get the feeling our vet might recommend royal canin because its still "affordable", thinking that most people might be too cheap to buy high quality food.

Do you recommend anything else or is royal canin okay? We really don't care about the price, we just want whatever is best for the cats.

Cat tax:

Kia Soul Enthusias
May 9, 2004

zoom-zoom
Toilet Rascal
Vet recommended Royal Canin regular or a prescription formula?

edit: sorry just missed where you said Royal Canin Renal the first time. It might be better than the Sciene Diet K/d

edit 2: what are they eating now?

Ophidia
Oct 20, 2012

Charles posted:

edit 2: what are they eating now?

at the moment they are eating royal canin renal. they dont like it very much but at least they eat most of it

ANUSTART
Jun 26, 2013


ur jiri3-pax(PAD)-ra2 al-tukur2?-re
gu-du-ni an-na-ab-be2
a-ra-/ab-gig-ga\-[(X)]-e-ce


- Wisdom of the ages.
I worked for Blue for awhile and they drilled on pushing grain-free so strongly (they are a business before All Else), I cant but wonder how many Big Heart Failure dogs I am indirectly responsible for and I know that isnt a fair burden to put on myself but, feels bad man

My dog has been doing great on a brand called Muenster, but I have switched her to their with-grain formula (new marketing term on the way) and her skin is all jacked up now sigh

Kia Soul Enthusias
May 9, 2004

zoom-zoom
Toilet Rascal

Ophidia posted:

at the moment they are eating royal canin renal. they dont like it very much but at least they eat most of it

What were they eating before this I mean.

Ophidia
Oct 20, 2012

Charles posted:

What were they eating before this I mean.

ah sorry. before that they were eating cats finefood

GoodBee
Apr 8, 2004


Ophidia posted:

ah sorry. before that they were eating cats finefood

Is that wet, dry, both?

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

Organza Quiz posted:

The problem doesn't seem to be with grains or lack of grains specifically so much as a ton of new foods on the market which haven't been properly tested. The advice is to stick with established brands that have tested their foods over long periods. I don't think there's been any reports of cats having specific problems but it doesn't seem like bad advice to me to check if the food you're feeding your pet has actually been tested properly.
Keep in mind the biggest push in the grain-free movement is very recent. It's hard to prove that your pet food is safe over 20+ years when your company hasn't even been around that long. In fact, the companion animal care industry as a whole has seen massive changes over the last few decades - the American Pet Products Association reported $28.5 billion spent on pet care in the US in 2001, and $72.5 billion spent in the US in 2018. Pet food expenses alone have more than doubled.

Most of the food you see on the market today didn't exist 10 years ago, and while the AAFCO and FDA are the ones who say an ingredient is safe to use in animal feed, I doubt even they ever did studies like "if you feed a dog a high amount of potatoes or legumes every day for many years, it'll stay healthy." Twenty years ago, the industry was much smaller, and they were more worried about basic things like "don't put onions in the dog food."

I'm not sure what the solution is, honestly. We live in a weird time where there isn't quite enough data to ensure food safety over a long lifespan. A PI vet (or maybe vet tech?) once said "the best food is the one your pet does well on," and that's the best advice anyone can give any pet owner right now.

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009

AuntBuck posted:

Did your vet try to sell you on Science Diet? If they were, it's garbage and you should think about switching vets.

Okay, for serious, this is ridiculous. The reason they would have said this is that 90% of owners don't actually give a poo poo about what they feed their pet, but saying "anything is fine" sometimes results in Joe Bloggs going for bargain basement supermarket chow, or feeding their new pet nothing but cheerios and cottage cheese because the breeder said so. SOME people who actually do care will go off and look at options and select a well balanced diet, and that's totally fine - but lots don't.

Hill's do enough product testing and general anal retentiveness that even if you don't like their ingredient list, they provide a complete diet that will not leave your pet deficient in anything unless something pathological is disrupting normal absorption etc. So when Joe Bloggs asks for a recommendation, the vet is going to take the path most travelled and say "sure, <Food That Is Sold In This Clinic Like Hills or Royal Canin or Whatever> is a complete diet and a good food for your pet" because they know it's a safe bet and it directs people away from rubbish supermarket chaff or weird made up breeder diets which are massively lacking in key nutrients. Not because they are Shills-To-Big-Pet-Food-Pharma.

Ophidia posted:

Our two cats (they're about 10 years old) were recently diagnosed with renal disease, to be exact both their creatinine was a bit too high. The vet recommended Royal Canin Renal wet and dry food. What is your opinion on that? Is that good food or is there something thats better for cats with kidney problems? I get the feeling our vet might recommend royal canin because its still "affordable", thinking that most people might be too cheap to buy high quality food.

Do you recommend anything else or is royal canin okay? We really don't care about the price, we just want whatever is best for the cats.

The Royal Canin renal diets have a lower total % of protein and phosphorus - kidneys are key players in protein metabolism and if they're packing in, you want to ease their workload as much as you can. It's awesome that you want the best for your pet as this is obviously why you're information gathering; but do listen to your vet when they recommend a prescription diet - it isn't about quality or affordability, it is literally that the composition and content of the food has been tested and specifically works to help alleviate the condition it's targeted at.

Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Jul 30, 2019

ohnobugs
Feb 22, 2003


Tamarillo posted:

Okay, for serious, this is ridiculous. The reason they would have said this is that 90% of owners don't actually give a poo poo about what they feed their pet, but saying "anything is fine" sometimes results in Joe Bloggs going for bargain basement supermarket chow, or feeding their new pet nothing but cheerios and cottage cheese because the breeder said so. SOME people who actually do care will go off and look at options and select a well balanced diet, and that's totally fine - but lots don't.

Hill's do enough product testing and general anal retentiveness that even if you don't like their ingredient list, they provide a complete diet that will not leave your pet deficient in anything unless something pathological is disrupting normal absorption etc. So when Joe Bloggs asks for a recommendation, the vet is going to take the path most travelled and say "sure, <Food That Is Sold In This Clinic Like Hills or Royal Canin or Whatever> is a complete diet and a good food for your pet" because they know it's a safe bet and it directs people away from rubbish supermarket chaff or weird made up breeder diets which are massively lacking in key nutrients. Not because they are Shills-To-Big-Pet-Food-Pharma.


No it is not ridiculous, and I'm tired of vets suggesting Hills and only Hills. Their prescription foods are tested and trustworthy, but there's no reason to buy any of their other products. They're overpriced garbage. I don't expect vets to be able to list off all the boutique brands available today, and I'm as annoyed about all the weird fad/bullshit food as you are. However, I've had vets lie to me and say Science Diet is the highest protein food out there, or that they've never heard of Blue Buffalo, etc. People do need to be better educated about what they feed their pets in general, and plenty of people do "give a poo poo" but just don't know anything about pet food quality. Vets could take a minute and actually educate people on what to look for in a food, but that's never the conversation.

owls or something
Jul 7, 2003

It sounds like your vet just sucks. But yeah, some vets really do push their sponsored by Hill's bullshit to people needlessly.

Kia Soul Enthusias
May 9, 2004

zoom-zoom
Toilet Rascal

Ophidia posted:

ah sorry. before that they were eating cats finefood

Yeah, go to the prescription food. That was already a pretty good food ( looking at the ingredients of Classic chicken for example doesn't have all the bad stuff), so like mentioned you really need to get the one that is specifically low protein and phosphorus. Sometimes if you had a really bad food just switching to something good will help...but I don't think the Catz finefood would be high in ash or the other stuff that can also cause problems.

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

Tamarillo posted:

The Royal Canin renal diets have a lower total % of protein and phosphorus - kidneys are key players in protein metabolism and if they're packing in, you want to ease their workload as much as you can. It's awesome that you want the best for your pet as this is obviously why you're information gathering; but do listen to your vet when they recommend a prescription diet - it isn't about quality or affordability, it is literally that the composition and content of the food has been tested and specifically works to help alleviate the condition it's targeted at.
Have you seen recent studies on the effect of lower protein in cats with kidney disease? Last I looked into it, there were no studies on it in cats, and there was actually a big controversy among vets because the low protein renal diets were formulated decades ago based on studies done on rats and people, not cats.

There were several studies that showed renal diets significantly improved a cat's survival with kidney disease, but the theory was that was due to lower phosphorus and other aspects that targeted the endocrine system, not the protein reduction.

The renal diet studies in cats were also pretty weird (and maybe still are). Some of them were funded by companies that manufacture renal diets, and some even surgically altered cats to force kidney disease to occur instead of using cats where it already existed, which raised questions about whether the conclusions would still apply in naturally-occurring kidney disease cases. Hopefully newer studies have gotten better.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


What’s the new hotness for dry cat food? I never liked Science Diet and this just makes me want to switch, but the last recommended food I tried gave my cat dandruff and weird rashy patches.

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009

LoreOfSerpents posted:

Have you seen recent studies on the effect of lower protein in cats with kidney disease? Last I looked into it, there were no studies on it in cats, and there was actually a big controversy among vets because the low protein renal diets were formulated decades ago based on studies done on rats and people, not cats.

There were several studies that showed renal diets significantly improved a cat's survival with kidney disease, but the theory was that was due to lower phosphorus and other aspects that targeted the endocrine system, not the protein reduction.

The renal diet studies in cats were also pretty weird (and maybe still are). Some of them were funded by companies that manufacture renal diets, and some even surgically altered cats to force kidney disease to occur instead of using cats where it already existed, which raised questions about whether the conclusions would still apply in naturally-occurring kidney disease cases. Hopefully newer studies have gotten better.

Nothing super recent unfortunately, the feline chronic kidney disease studies I've just had a look through are circa 2000-2006 and are mostly relating to combination low protein and phosphorus diets - not rehashing the formulation thereof, but just testing the existing diets. I only looked at spontaneously occurring cases, I think the case you're referring to was done in 1993 and ethical standards have definitely tightened since then. While I haven't exactly done a full literature reviews of the articles, they suggest the combo diets do increase the mean survival time. The low phosphate would definitely help with the hypocalcaemia, but the filtration rate is still lower than normal which means less effective protein excretion, and lower proteinuria is linked to worse outcomes. e: update post discussion with nutrition specialist vet - the evidence for low protein as a standalone factor isn't well studied; but this is because the phosphorus content comes from the meat ingredients so the commercial diets that end up being studied all have lower phosphorus and consequently lower protein.

AuntBuck posted:

No it is not ridiculous, and I'm tired of vets suggesting Hills and only Hills. Their prescription foods are tested and trustworthy, but there's no reason to buy any of their other products. They're overpriced garbage. I don't expect vets to be able to list off all the boutique brands available today, and I'm as annoyed about all the weird fad/bullshit food as you are. However, I've had vets lie to me and say Science Diet is the highest protein food out there, or that they've never heard of Blue Buffalo, etc. People do need to be better educated about what they feed their pets in general, and plenty of people do "give a poo poo" but just don't know anything about pet food quality. Vets could take a minute and actually educate people on what to look for in a food, but that's never the conversation.

Okay, that's a more moderate stance than it sounded like the first time. It would be overkill to drop a vet if they said "Science Diet is a complete diet and good for your pet" (because they are totally adequate diet that doesn't lack anything important) but if they were saying it was the best dang thing on the planet bar nothing and anything else is awful, yeah, that's a valid reason to look sideways. There are a whole host of diets out there that are great (I don't feed my pets Science Diet), and yes I agree that if someone identified themselves as particularly interested in nutrition then the vet should give some key pointers on whats important. This approach has been increasingly taught to the newer vets coming out with qualifications today.

Out of interest I looked up Blue Buffalo as it's not available here, and they look a bit dodgy with the ingredient splitting they're doing on their labels. Their Freedom adult indoor recipe has Peas (4th), Pea Protein (5th) and Pea Fibre (9th) as separate ingredients. Thats a whole lot of peas. Not necessarily a bad ingredient, no maligning of the humble pea here - but if you added all those separate percentages up then I would not be surprised if there were more peas than chicken in there.

Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 1, 2019

Konstantin
Jun 20, 2005
And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
One issue is that vets are more likely to be blamed if they recommend something unconventional. If the vet recommends Science Diet and the dog vomits all over the floor, the owner doesn't blame the vet. If the vet recommends some expensive and obscure grain free food and the dog vomits, then the vet doesn't know what he's doing and it his fault for recommending that weird crap.

Waroduce
Aug 5, 2008
I have a small, 9lb 3 year old mutt of some sort. Maybe Shitzu/terrier. I have fed her Blue Buffalo Wet in the morning and Blue buffalo dry at night for about a year. She has recently been refusing them morning wet blue buffalo but has been continuing to eat the dry. I would really appreciate recommendations on a grain inclusive wet dog food. If it came in single serve packaging that'd be great, but if not nbd.

snake and bake
Feb 23, 2005

:theroni:

Pollyanna posted:

What’s the new hotness for dry cat food? I never liked Science Diet and this just makes me want to switch, but the last recommended food I tried gave my cat dandruff and weird rashy patches.

Which food gave your cat issues?

I'm here because I'm looking to try a new premium dry cat food too.

I adopted an older adult cat (12ish) about 2 years ago. His previous diet was dry awful-grade food. He still strongly prefers dry food but I did at least get him on dry Wellness Core.

It transformed him from a scabby, itchy, greasy, mangy-looking skinny thing into a fluffy, proudly handsome cat with healthy weight. He still eats it fine and seems to prefer the poultry flavors.

But I've noticed that occasionally a piece of food will get in the water bowl and it doesn't really seem to dissolve. It just sits there in the water like a stone. He does have occasional hairballs (maybe 1-2 a month) and when food comes up with them, the food always looks like it just came out of the bag.

Even though the Wellness Core has done wonders for his coat, I've been wondering if I should switch him to something more easily digestible.

venus de lmao
Apr 30, 2007

Call me "pixeltits"

Wet food question for this princess:



Meet Aphra. Former stray, been with me about a week and a half since I scooped her up off the streets of Boston. Story here. Spayed, shots given, FIV/FeLV negative, treated for fleas. Recovering well. I don't know what she was eating before I got her, but I have tried a few foods and she doesn't seem to be especially picky (or sensitive to food changes), with a few exceptions: she won't touch anything with pureed pumpkin in it, and for some reason she doesn't like the soupy chicken in broth type food. I'm trying Blue Buffalo Freedom Fish Recipe but I'm not crazy about ingredients like carrots and potatoes. She loves it, of course, and anything else with fish in it to the point where if I eat fish I have to eat it in the other room or she'll be right in my face.

Been looking at maybe Tiki Cat or Solid Gold. Is menadione bad? The OP was inconclusive, but that was six years ago, and a lot of premium foods seem to have it. I tried one of the Tiki Cat recipes when I first got her because I was just trialing different things to see what she'd eat, and the conclusion is she goes bonkers for fish. Fish treats are the only ones she'll touch, too. Other than that I just want to feed her good food.

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

Bertrand Hustle posted:

Wet food question for this princess:



Meet Aphra. Former stray, been with me about a week and a half since I scooped her up off the streets of Boston. Story here. Spayed, shots given, FIV/FeLV negative, treated for fleas. Recovering well. I don't know what she was eating before I got her, but I have tried a few foods and she doesn't seem to be especially picky (or sensitive to food changes), with a few exceptions: she won't touch anything with pureed pumpkin in it, and for some reason she doesn't like the soupy chicken in broth type food. I'm trying Blue Buffalo Freedom Fish Recipe but I'm not crazy about ingredients like carrots and potatoes. She loves it, of course, and anything else with fish in it to the point where if I eat fish I have to eat it in the other room or she'll be right in my face.

Been looking at maybe Tiki Cat or Solid Gold. Is menadione bad? The OP was inconclusive, but that was six years ago, and a lot of premium foods seem to have it. I tried one of the Tiki Cat recipes when I first got her because I was just trialing different things to see what she'd eat, and the conclusion is she goes bonkers for fish. Fish treats are the only ones she'll touch, too. Other than that I just want to feed her good food.
Just my two cents, but I'm a little biased against Tiki Cat. Our cat loved it, but she kept getting resorptive lesions in her mouth. She had multiple teeth extracted over the course of a year, starting shortly after we switched her to Tiki Cat. Our vet asked us to contact Tiki Cat about how much vitamin D was in the food she was eating, because there were some early studies showing there might be a connection between vitamin D overdose and those lesions in cats (although there were also studies trying to explore a genetic component).

We contacted Tiki Cat. Tried phone, tried email. They either didn't respond at all or they churned out auto-response non-answers, or they said they'd call us back with more info. After weeks of trying to get any useful information from them, they told us something along the lines of "vitamin D is less than [x]% of that recipe."

That blew my mind. AAFCO standards aren't for vitamin D as a percentage. AAFCO standards for vitamin D are IU/kg. We told them so, and provided the AAFCO standards for reference, but they had no idea what the IU/kg was. Tiki Cat's support was incapable of providing information on whether their food actually met AAFCO's standards.

That was a few years ago, and hopefully it was just a huge disconnect between support and manufacturing, but it's a big reason why I'm skeptical about new pet food companies now. Adhering to AAFCO standards is basically on the honor system since states don't really have the time/resources to aggressively enforce pet feed guidelines.

We switched that cat to Solid Gold. She hasn't had any resorptive lesions since we took her off Tiki Cat. I'm not overly thrilled with Solid Gold as a company because their ingredients are a little creative and I don't think they handled their recall very well, but the cat eats it and her teeth have been fine for years now, so we stick with it.

Wellness Core is also worth looking into. Their customer support was awesome when our other cat stopped eating that all of a sudden.

And, with great shame and chagrin, I will once again point out that the more maligned companies (e.g., Purina, Hills) have been doing this for decades. I have seriously considered trying to switch to poo poo like Fancy Feast just because it's widely used and it's been around forever.

owls or something
Jul 7, 2003

I ditched the fancy brands for Purina's Pro Plan wet food and my sweet precious kitty eats it happily and has been completely fine and healthy. Costs about the same as Blue Buffalo, but isn't completely loaded with carrot chunks and potato.

As a former Nestle factory employee I can say that they have really, really good food safety/quality stuff going on behind the scenes in their factories. Their brands are the least often recalled which I've come to think is what's really important.

Boogalo
Jul 8, 2012

Meep Meep




The vitamin D stuff is interesting since both of my cats are showing resorbtion issues. Milly is stuck on prescription limited protein diet due to sensitive stomach and Butters just eats the same stuff since it makes it easy, they're also free-fed and not overweight so big score there. Current food since around christmas time is royal canin adult PR rabbit, and before was wellness core but Milly was way barfier on it. They're both switched to wet of the same due to some dental work (resorbed teeth) but i'm throwing away a lot of it and they're losing a little weight and it would quintuple my food bill to feed them this wet full time :(

I'll get to switch them back to try in a few days, but i'll still try to get them to eat a little wet food in the evenings and will talk to my vet about the vitamin D stuff.

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

Boogalo posted:

The vitamin D stuff is interesting since both of my cats are showing resorbtion issues. Milly is stuck on prescription limited protein diet due to sensitive stomach and Butters just eats the same stuff since it makes it easy, they're also free-fed and not overweight so big score there. Current food since around christmas time is royal canin adult PR rabbit, and before was wellness core but Milly was way barfier on it. They're both switched to wet of the same due to some dental work (resorbed teeth) but i'm throwing away a lot of it and they're losing a little weight and it would quintuple my food bill to feed them this wet full time :(

I'll get to switch them back to try in a few days, but i'll still try to get them to eat a little wet food in the evenings and will talk to my vet about the vitamin D stuff.
Cornell has a useful site on it:

quote:

The cause, says Jennifer Rawlinson, DVM, chief of the dentistry and oral surgery section at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, is unknown. “There are a few theories,” she says, “but no one is sure about what really stimulates this condition. Some researchers, for example, theorize that an excess of vitamin D in commercial cat food might be to blame, but other researchers don’t necessarily agree. So, for now, we don’t have an answer.”
There are tons of interesting studies about it, with results on both sides of the theory, so the scientific evidence doesn't fully support vitamin D overdose as the primary cause. But that was the logic behind us reaching out to Tiki Cat when we suddenly started seeing issues.

If you're curious, you can reach out to the pet food companies and ask about their vitamin D content in the food you use. If you used a different food before and your cats didn't have issues on that one, try reaching out to that company, too, so you can compare the content between the foods.

Your situation is extra lovely because switching foods when you've got a prescription limited protein diet is not a good idea. I was lucky because we could just try another food and see if that helped.

owls or something posted:

I ditched the fancy brands for Purina's Pro Plan wet food and my sweet precious kitty eats it happily and has been completely fine and healthy. Costs about the same as Blue Buffalo, but isn't completely loaded with carrot chunks and potato.

As a former Nestle factory employee I can say that they have really, really good food safety/quality stuff going on behind the scenes in their factories. Their brands are the least often recalled which I've come to think is what's really important.
It's funny that you mention this, because the most recent cat food recall I know about is this one from Nestle (in their Muse line):

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-...natural-chicken

There are three interesting things worth noting about that recall:
1. The vast majority of pet food recalls in general are for bacterial contamination or incorrect levels of vitamins/minerals, but this was a machinery problem.
2. Purina didn't catch the problem until consumers started complaining.
3. The equipment failure only impacted a single flavor.

So on one hand, I'm disappointed that Purina didn't know there was a problem until consumers complained, but on the other, it's good that it was due to machinery and it had such a limited impact.

venus de lmao
Apr 30, 2007

Call me "pixeltits"

owls or something posted:

I ditched the fancy brands for Purina's Pro Plan wet food and my sweet precious kitty eats it happily and has been completely fine and healthy. Costs about the same as Blue Buffalo, but isn't completely loaded with carrot chunks and potato.

Weirdly, Blue Buffalo Wilderness appears to be pretty great in terms of ingredients, even compared to their other lines like Basics or Freedom.

Aphra would probably eat a potato it you offered it to her. The little dingus keeps trying to get my oatmeal.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Jet’s used to Science Diet, but I’ve considered switching his food to something better. That said, I’m mostly worried about the possibility of urinary crystals and periodontal disease - but he seems fine so far...it’s hard to tell.

Is there a way to check if my cat is having urinary issues, or has teeth issues? Nothing’s really come up at vet visits, but boy is his breath terrible.

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

Pollyanna posted:

Jet’s used to Science Diet, but I’ve considered switching his food to something better. That said, I’m mostly worried about the possibility of urinary crystals and periodontal disease - but he seems fine so far...it’s hard to tell.

Is there a way to check if my cat is having urinary issues, or has teeth issues? Nothing’s really come up at vet visits, but boy is his breath terrible.
Urinary issues:
Watch for litter box habit changes. Cats are good at hiding pain but they still send all kinds of signals. Passing less urine, going to the box more frequently, squatting to pee but not producing anything, peeing outside the box, peeing in "safe" spots like the bed or soft laundry piles, red or pink urine (one of the reasons I use a light-colored litter so it's really hard to miss).

Some places sell test kits that claim to let you test your cat's urine at home, but the ones I've seen specifically market themselves for UTIs, so I assumed they're not as good as a vet because the urine won't be sterile. I've never taken them seriously, but if you're curious/worried, it couldn't hurt to ask your vet for their opinion.

Teeth issues:
Other than waiting for it to get so bad that the cat stops eating on one side of his mouth, the best way to tell is to look. Resorptive lesions, tartar buildup, and inflamed gums are pretty obvious once they get bad, but it takes practice to be able to look in your cat's mouth. Even my most tolerant cat will only allow 1-2 seconds of inspection at a time. If you have a camera that can catch a good yawn, that'd probably be a lot easier.

Your vet should do an oral inspection during your cat's scheduled checkups. If you mention the bad breath, your vet will probably spend extra time examining his mouth. Once your cat is 10+ years old, you're probably doing a more involved senior exam every 6 months to watch kidney values and such anyway, so his teeth will get inspected about as often as a person goes to a dentist.

You can have dental X-rays taken for cats, but it requires sedation so it isn't really something you want to do just for kicks.

hey girl you up
May 21, 2001

Forum Nice Guy
We've been feeding our dog the same Blue Buffalo dry food [1] since we adopted him. In the most recent bag we bought, the shape of the kibble changed; the triangular pieces are thinner than they used to be.

Old kibble:

New kibble:


Since moving to this bag, he is on his second bout of gnarly, incredibly mucous-y diarrhea. Changing his diet to pumpkin with homemade chicken and rice (suggested by our vet) seems to solve the issue.

So, figured I'd reach out to the thread here:

  • Anyone else seen the changes in kibble? Had any issues?
  • Am I crazy for linking the new kibble with some other change, possibly related to Blue Buffalo getting bought out? I don't have an old bag to compare ingredients against.
  • Any other food people recommend that would be easy to transition to?

[1] "Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Large Breed Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe Dry Dog Food" (we buy through Chewy)

edit: found images of the old and new kibble on Blue Buffalo's website; the difference is probably not obvious between the two unless you've seen them in person.

hey girl you up fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Aug 11, 2019

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Submarine Sandpaper
May 27, 2007


my dog had bad stool with blue buffalo. common goon experience iirc

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