Diet change

I'm thinking of switching my cat from Wellness canned food back to Fancy
Feast after many many months. She doesn't seem to be getting nutrition
from the Wellness, it appears to be going right through her. At first she
was satisfied with 9 oz of Wellness a day, now 12 isn't enough. When she
ate FF I only needed to feed her about 6 oz a day.

Three or four large very smelly BMs a day, most very soft, unburied,
occasional diarrhea, and she's constantly hungry. Of her three meals, I'm
considering changing one from ~4 oz Wellness to 3 oz. Fancy Feast. If
that helps and her BMs improve a little, two, then later three. I suspect
it will help reduce her hairball episodes too; the Wellness seems to have
no fiber.

I know, take her to the vet. BTDT.

What say?

TIA.


--
"When you choose the lesser of two evils, always
remember that it is still an evil." - Max Lerner

KenK wrote:
I'm thinking of switching my cat from Wellness canned food back to
Fancy Feast after many many months. She doesn't seem to be getting
nutrition from the Wellness, it appears to be going right through
her. At first she was satisfied with 9 oz of Wellness a day, now 12
isn't enough. When she ate FF I only needed to feed her about 6 oz a
day.

Three or four large very smelly BMs a day, most very soft, unburied,
occasional diarrhea, and she's constantly hungry. Of her three meals,
I'm considering changing one from ~4 oz Wellness to 3 oz. Fancy
Feast. If that helps and her BMs improve a little, two, then later
three. I suspect it will help reduce her hairball episodes too; the
Wellness seems to have no fiber.

I know, take her to the vet. BTDT.

What say?

TIA.

I feed my cats a great variety of foods, both cat foods and people foods.
There are two reasons for this. The cats like it, and don't get bored with
just eating one thing. And, should the particular food I choose not satisfy
some important nutritional need, it won't matter, because they get several
other things to eat. I wouldn't want to have to eat the same thing day after
day, so I won't subject my cats to that either.

Ken,

Something is off here. I've never heard anyone saying these kinds of
things about Wellness before. I can't imagine feeding that amount of
food to a cat without weight gain! (our 14 lb 10 oz. guy gets one 5.5
oz van per day, for instance, to maintain weight.) A vet check is
certainly in order. Have you had her checked for parasites and hyper
thryoidism recently?

Rene

"KenK" wrote

I'm thinking of switching my cat from Wellness canned food back to Fancy
Feast after many many months. She doesn't seem to be getting nutrition
from the Wellness, it appears to be going right through her. At first she
was satisfied with 9 oz of Wellness a day, now 12 isn't enough. When she
ate FF I only needed to feed her about 6 oz a day.

Ken, the wellness they have here isnt grain free so I can't use it. I
assume some are but the ones here are not.
About 4 of 10 types of fancy feast is grain free, you just have to check the
labels. *If* your cat has grain issues, that may be it.

There are many ways a cat (or dog) can show 'grain issues'. One is a loose
stool which you seem to be experiencing. Common also are ear issues and
skin issues (bald spots when really bad and chewing on toes, belly, legs).

Can reading is pretty easy. Look for wheat, wheat gluten, corn, soy. Most
pets who are reactive, react them in that order of commoness.

I have 2 beagles who are reactive and a cat who is reactive. Beagles I am
told are more prone for this so it's not really that odd. Daisy-chan (cat)
mostly has ear issues on any wheat but can tolerate a bit of it if not too
often given. Too much and she gets loose stools, ear infections (normally
yeast type) and starts chewing her feet or overgrooming her belly. Oh, and
the fur on her ears starts shedding.

It's not rocket science to try a grain free and see if it improves. Even
some of the friskies cans are grain free. Conversely, many of the so called
'better' cans that cost twice as much, are not grain free. Depending on how
bad it is (if grain related) you may see some level of improvement in just
2-3 days but 1 week should show a lessening of issues and I am told takes up
to 3 months for full effect.

Check the treats too. Daisy-chan gets the dried duck jerky treats sold for
dogs and broken to kitty-sized treats for her.

"Rene" wrote
Ken,

Something is off here. I've never heard anyone saying these kinds of
things about Wellness before. I can't imagine feeding that amount of
food to a cat without weight gain! (our 14 lb 10 oz. guy gets one 5.5
oz van per day, for instance, to maintain weight.) A vet check is
certainly in order. Have you had her checked for parasites and hyper
thryoidism recently?

Rene, from what I gather the 'wellness core' is grain free. Quite frankly,
after reading the label of the one type we get here, I was not impressed.
Corn gluten and other things in there. We don't have 'wellness core'.

I might add, blue wilderness cat cans cost a little less locally and no one
argues their quality at all.

Rene, from what I gather the 'wellness core' is grain free. *Quite frankly,
after reading the label of the one type we get here, I was not impressed.
Corn gluten and other things in there. *We don't have 'wellness core'.

I might add, blue wilderness cat cans cost a little less locally and no one
argues their quality at all.

cshenk,

I'm pretty sure Ken was feeding canned Wellness chicken, and that's
one of their grain-free varieties (they have five wet grain-free
flavors). That's why I'm surprised he's feeding so much food--I feed
the wet grain free Wellness here (among other brands of food) and
can't imagine feeding that amount without there being a health
problem.

Rene

After Thanksgiving I noticed that both Amber and Tiger seemed less
interested in their Wellness chicken (canned) food. Suddenly, on
Christmas morning they ate with gusto. It was a new batch. The cans with
the code "MW10" on the bottom were the good ones. The cans with the
"7WCCS4" code they didn't like. This was NOT a subtle difference. Their
meal with the good cans was finished in an hour. With the "bad" cans
almost half had to be thrown away after two or three hours.
Unfortunately the store didn't have any more of the "good" cans. I
called Wellness and they claimed there should be no difference. The MW
cans came from a California plant while the 7WCC cans came from a New
Jersey plant. I have been a Wellness customer for about 7 years and use
over 730 cans a year. Their customer service people did not seem
concerned when I told them I would try Innova and other brands if they
could not provide me with the MW cans. Wellness says there is no
difference but the cats say otherwise.
******************


---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44° 15' N - Elevation 1580')

On 15 Jan 2011 16:59:08 GMT, KenK wrote:

I'm thinking of switching my cat from Wellness canned food back to Fancy
Feast after many many months. She doesn't seem to be getting nutrition
from the Wellness, it appears to be going right through her. At first she
was satisfied with 9 oz of Wellness a day, now 12 isn't enough. When she
ate FF I only needed to feed her about 6 oz a day.

Three or four large very smelly BMs a day, most very soft, unburied,
occasional diarrhea, and she's constantly hungry. Of her three meals, I'm
considering changing one from ~4 oz Wellness to 3 oz. Fancy Feast. If
that helps and her BMs improve a little, two, then later three. I suspect
it will help reduce her hairball episodes too; the Wellness seems to have
no fiber.

I know, take her to the vet. BTDT.

What say?

TIA.

I put my cat on the dry Wellness cat food, with the usual 2 week period
of slowly increasing the Wellness, while decreasing the previous food.

After about a week of eating Wellness, my cat also developed diarrhea.
It started with soft stools, and then got worse.

I switched her back to her previous food, as quickly as I though was
safe, and the diarrhea disappeared just as quickly.

Dehydration and loss of electrolytes are the big concerns with diarrhea,
but my cat didn't become dehydrated. I did not take her to the vet,
because I was so confident it was food related, and because she didn't
get dehydrated.

My cat had no lasting effects from the Wellness an diarrhea, much to my
relief.

I can't recommend Wellness, because of my bad experience with it, though
I know it is one of the 'better' cat foods.

On Jan 17, 2:02*pm, (---MIKE---) wrote:
After Thanksgiving I noticed that both Amber and Tiger seemed less
interested in their Wellness chicken (canned) food. Suddenly, on
Christmas morning they ate with gusto. It was a new batch. The cans with
the code "MW10" on the bottom were the good ones. The cans with the
"7WCCS4" code they didn't like. This was NOT a subtle difference. Their
meal with the good cans was finished in an hour. With the "bad" cans
almost half had to be thrown away after two or three hours.
Unfortunately the store didn't have any more of the "good" cans. I
called Wellness and they claimed there should be no difference. The MW
cans came from a California plant while the 7WCC cans came from a New
Jersey plant. I have been a Wellness customer for about 7 years and use
over 730 cans a year. Their customer service people did not seem
concerned when I told them I would try Innova and other brands if they
could not provide me with the MW cans. Wellness says there is no
difference but the cats say otherwise.

Mike, you raise a good point. Last year, I had bought several cans of
their beef and chicken canned. One cat vomited it, and another (who
loves food) would not eat it, which was odd. I called Wellness to
report the batch number, and they had not had reports of any problems.

Ken, perhaps you could check the batch numbers and call Wellness.
Perhaps try another batch (the store should be willing to exchange
them).

---MIKE--- wrote:
After Thanksgiving I noticed that both Amber and Tiger seemed less
interested in their Wellness chicken (canned) food. Suddenly, on
Christmas morning they ate with gusto. It was a new batch. The cans with
the code "MW10" on the bottom were the good ones. The cans with the
"7WCCS4" code they didn't like. This was NOT a subtle difference. Their
meal with the good cans was finished in an hour. With the "bad" cans
almost half had to be thrown away after two or three hours.
Unfortunately the store didn't have any more of the "good" cans. I
called Wellness and they claimed there should be no difference. The MW
cans came from a California plant while the 7WCC cans came from a New
Jersey plant. I have been a Wellness customer for about 7 years and use
over 730 cans a year. Their customer service people did not seem
concerned when I told them I would try Innova and other brands if they
could not provide me with the MW cans. Wellness says there is no
difference but the cats say otherwise.

---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44° 15' N - Elevation 1580')

The cats always know! I also see a difference in texture between
lots, which frequently correlates with whether or not they like it.

Have you tried Wellness Core? That generally goes over well here.

--
Jean B.