Brands of organic food for Cats?
About 6 months ago I stopped feeding my cats Wellness organic food, dry and wet, to my 2 indoor-only cats. It gave them soft stools that smelled really bad.
I switched to Nutro Indoor Cat formula-dry and I give them Fancy Feast soft food once a day. I was thinking of switching them back to a different organic brand but do you think it'll just give them the soft, smelly stools again like it did with the Wellness?
The Nutro/Fancy Feast regimine is doing fine, I'm just concerned about by-products and wheat-gluten and all the junk they're getting from the food. They both really enjoy the Fancy Feast and never got used to the Wellness soft food. Should I switch them back or just leave it be since they're content with what they're getting now?
Thanks! I will choose a best answer.
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Tagged with: cat formula • Cats • fancy feast • indoor cat • organic food • regimine • soft food • stools • wheat gluten
Filed under: Organic Cat food
Organic means exactly that – that the ingredients are organic. I have a cat who cannot tolerate corn. I purchased an organic food without reading the ingredients, and discovered after feeding it to them, that it contained corn! Organic corn, but still corn. Different cats react differently to different foods. You really *do* want to feed a diet free of corn, the glutens, and especially the by-products, but it also has to be something that they like and agrees with them.
Some brands to try – California Natural, Felidae, Solid Gold, and Innova’s EVO. Those are all popular here, and two of them – the CA Natural and the EVO – are well-tolerated by cats with IBD, so generally don’t cause the soft stools that you had problems with. And remember of course to switch their food slowly over a two-week period, or you’ll get tummy upsets from the change, which is different from a tummy upset from the food itself.
If they are doing well on what you feeding them now, I would stay with it. If you switch to much it could upset their digestion Just watch when you clean the litter box for any signs of problems.
In your effort to feed "Organic" food you may be causing some of the problem you want to eliminate. The important thing is that the food contains the proper balance of nutrients. As far as organic – It really does not matter to a cat. Remember that their stomach fluids can dissolve bones.
And there is little or no evidence that organic foods are any more nutritional or beneficial than any other food that is available. Getting rid of smelly poop is a concern. Other than that, give them what they like.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of health problems in cats and there is never a reason to switch to them. Wellness is obviously a better food then fancy feast (no gravy flavors please) but both serve the cat’s needs. You are right about the byproducts and gluten but if there are no allergies, no rashes or pimples nthen I guess those would be fine. Merrick also like wellness is human grade and has no grains. For the diahrrea, get some acidoupholous from a health food store and sprinle over the food 2x a day. That should do it. More on dry
Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingredient a muscle meat like chicken or is it meal or other things?
http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea...
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms
The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process them. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in
Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don’t use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. The optimum food to feed cats has no grains whatsoever, cats have no use for them and many have trouble processing them as well as the carbs. IBD is another disease that is rapidly becoming common amoung cats because of the inappropriate diets being fed.
Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...
Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics...
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht...
http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...
healthypetnet.com
First – did you switch to Wellness slowly or was it rather sudden? How long did they experience the soft stool?
If you switch foods suddenly, it can cause digestive upsets, which may clear up over time. So if that was the case, try adding just a bit to their FF and see how it’s tolerated. Keep increasing it until and if you see soft stool again. If not, you’ll eventually get them onto it completely and safely.
Which flavors did you use? The fishy ones might be more likely to cause these upsets – perhaps try a meat-only flavor?
Or it could just be that Wellness disagreed with them. Even good foods aren’t good for everyone! If that’s the case, then I do recommend you find another because FF isn’t great.
I’m not really into organic stuff, but I can recommend good foods. See the What to feed link for suggestions.
One that is good but isn’t on the list is By Nature Organics (I’m guess they’re organic!) It’s relatively inexpensive and I think PetSmart has started carrying it.
FYI – organic doesn’t necessarily mean good. For example, I think Paul Newman’s food is organic….but it’s not the very best food you can get.