In article
,
Lord_Alex wrote:

Hello all, I'm new to the group and somewhat new to raising cats (I
had cats as a kid 10 years ago).

At the end of April I decided my house was too empty, so I went to the
local animal shelter and adopted two cats - a 6 month old female
shorthair (Xerxes) and a 2 year old male Persian ragdoll with super
fluffy long hair (Caesar). Spayed and neutered and they get along
great together.

Well after the first bag of food which the vet gave me, we switched to
Whiskas Meaty Selections. Both of them LOVE this stuff and everything
was normal.
They loved it so much and ate so often that I thought maybe the
Whiskas was like kitty junk-food. Feeling guilty, when the Whiskas ran
out I switched to IAMS ProActive Health with Chicken (IAMS is
"premium", correct?). I think they only eat this stuff because they're
hungry, it's only been a week. Caesar will sniff the bowl of food and
then proceed to "bury" it by going through the scratching motions on
the floor and walls. They have rubber claw covers so I'm not too
concerned with the scratching.

Within a day after switching to the IAMS food Caesar had diarrhea (BTW
not cool for a cat with his coat) but it only lasted 3 days. He still
tries to bury that food every time he walks by, but will eat it
reluctantly.
Xerxes on the other hand has started showing signs of a urinary
infection - I'm finding puddles. (Caesar likes to go outside, puddles
have shown up while he's out). Her litter box quickly took on an
incredibly powerful odor of ammonia, the kind of smell that can cut
glass and curls your teeth.

So last night I bought the Whiskas again and switched litter (it was
corn based, now it's recycled paper pellets). They both seemed VERY
happy about the change, ate ALL the food and promptly took turns using
the litter box. I'll find out later today if Xerxes left another
surprise, I'm really hoping she just didn't want to melt her skin
using the smelly litter.

What do you guys think? Did the switch to IAMS annoy my cats or did it
actually cause problems?


I don't know a lot about cat food. I do know that you
shouldn't switch foods suddenly like you did. You should
mix the foods for several days until the cats are eating
just the new food.

Iams is supposed to be one of the best foods, ingredient
wise. Whiskas is more like junk food, but still nutritious.
Not as good as Iams. I feed my cats Purina ONE. It's a good
quality food and they seem to like the taste. It's less
expensive than Iams.

8^)~~~~~~ Sue (remove x to email)
~~~~~~~~~

http://suzie-q-wacvet.com/
http://intergnat.com/malebashing/