Food for sensitive cat

jenn1984

Hi Guys

Our 16 month old neutered indoor male cat Twinkie has quite a sensitive tummy and we're thinking of switching his food (currently on Whiskas canned and LIDL Coshida Junior Dry Food). Was looking at this and am wondering has anyone ever used it before?

http://m.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/dry_cat_food/perfect_fit/605462

Thanks
Jenn

OnDraught

His tummy might not be sensitive at all and he's just reacting to the whiskas. I'd avoid anything with "sensitive" written on it until you try a high quality food first.

I use Acana dry food and a good wet food. We previously had a problem with a cat vomiting on Royal Canin. No problems at all now.

http://m.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/dry_cat_food/acana/133234

http://m.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/applaws/598468

jenn1984

OnDraught wrote: »

His tummy might not be sensitive at all and he's just reacting to the whiskas. I'd avoid anything with "sensitive" written on it until you try a high quality food first.

I use Acana dry food and a good wet food. We previously had a problem with a cat vomiting on Royal Canin. No problems at all now.

http://m.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/dry_cat_food/acana/133234

http://m.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/applaws/598468

Thanks - the dry food looks excellent but unfortunately out of our price range due to the fact that we have 6 cats total that we'd be switching over.

PAKNET

Whiskas doesn't agree with our 2 year old male either, oftentimes he outright refuses to even eat it in the first place.

Much prefers the Aldi or Felix wet and dry foods.

jenn1984

PAKNET wrote: »

Whiskas doesn't agree with our 2 year old male either, oftentimes he outright refuses to even eat it in the first place.

Much prefers the Aldi or Felix wet and dry foods.

We've tried them on LIDL, Aldi and Supervalu wet and dry foods. They were on Aldi wet food for quite a while before they got bored of it then we switched them over to the Whiskas. Half of them were sick on the Whiskas Junior dry food when they were babies but we thought the wet stuff was better.

jenn1984

Got a small bag of the Perfect Fit dry food (not sensitive one) and our cats went crazy for it including our sensitive cat who proceeded to throw up 6 times because of it. We gave him little bits of chicken over the evening and a small portion of mashed up wet food at bedtime and he was fine. Looks like alot of food doesn't agree with him so taking him to vets this morning for a check up.

VonVix

What is it suggests that he has a "sensitive tummy"? Just throwing up after eating or something else?

jenn1984

Either when he gorges on food - we call him an alley cat cause he acts like he hasn't had a meal in a week or when he eats certain dry food that comes back up within the hour. We've found that mashing up his wet food stays with him so not sure what the issue is really. Energy is good most of the time - throwing up 6 times yesterday took it out of him but that's unusual. Treated for fleas/ticks/worms a week ago so hopefully the vet will have an answer for us.

VonVix

jenn1984 wrote: »

Either when he gorges on food - we call him an alley cat cause he acts like he hasn't had a meal in a week or when he eats certain dry food that comes back up within the hour. We've found that mashing up his wet food stays with him so not sure what the issue is really. Energy is good most of the time - throwing up 6 times yesterday took it out of him but that's unusual. Treated for fleas/ticks/worms a week ago so hopefully the vet will have an answer for us.

Certainly bring it up with the vet, there could be an underlying health issue (diabetes for example) to his insatiable appetite... or it could just be him. But no harm in finding out.

Nody

Try Bozita chicken canned; price is similar to Whiskas but it's actually meat unlike Whiskas. If he's throwing up dry due to hoover mode eating go for a slow eater bowl or simply move all dry food to mind game balls and similar to stop them from getting to much kibble per time unit (which drives the throwing up).

jenn1984

Nody wrote: »

Try Bozita chicken canned; price is similar to Whiskas but it's actually meat unlike Whiskas. If he's throwing up dry due to hoover mode eating go for a slow eater bowl or simply move all dry food to mind game balls and similar to stop them from getting to much kibble per time unit (which drives the throwing up).

Thanks for the info - just Google the slow eating bowl and they have that in my local euro shop and I never knew what it was! Will go and get it now on my lunch break

jenn1984

All clear from the vets - got bloods done very quickly. He's been put on prescription Royal Canin sensitive food for the next month at 1 euro a pouch!! Gotta find a cheaper alternative!

OnDraught

jenn1984 wrote: »

All clear from the vets - got bloods done very quickly. He's been put on prescription Royal Canin sensitive food for the next month at 1 euro a pouch!! Gotta find a cheaper alternative!

That food is a con. You'd be better off with the likes of Canagan, Applaws or Bozita mentioned above.

https://www.google.ie/amp/healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2017/01/09/amp/prescription-pet-foods-lawsuit.aspx

Zapperzy

How many times a day do you feed him? Have you tried smaller meals more often? Iv had a cat that would throw up dry food almost immediately after eating because she didn't chew it and ate too fast. A wet pate type food such as smilla tins, or I think bozita do a pate food, mashed up would avoid chunks if that's what's causing it.

I'd second changing off the prescription sensitive food onto something like smilla tins or bozita. I avoid dry food also as it's just not natural and feel they don't get enough moisture into their diet with it alone.

jenn1984

Zapperzy wrote: »

How many times a day do you feed him? Have you tried smaller meals more often? Iv had a cat that would throw up dry food almost immediately after eating because she didn't chew it and ate too fast. A wet pate type food such as smilla tins, or I think bozita do a pate food, mashed up would avoid chunks if that's what's causing it.

I'd second changing off the prescription sensitive food onto something like smilla tins or bozita. I avoid dry food also as it's just not natural and feel they don't get enough moisture into their diet with it alone.

Thanks - think we'll keep him on the prescription food for a week or two but it's just not feasible long term. We feed him 3 times a day (brekkie around 9am, dinner around 6pm and supper around midnight) He doesn't have a problem with canned food that we mash up into a pate like consistency but seriously considering the Bozita as everyone is recommending it. RE: Dry food - one of our cats will only eat LIDL Coshida Junior crunchies but he does drink plenty of water so no worries there

Themadhouse

If you go grain free, applaws, acana, canagen etc you will find you have to feed less. We have 8 cats and costs us about 100 a month on dry food. We don't often feed wet, giving whisked raw egg the odd time, juice from steamed chicken, pure chicken broth from stewing the bones from a roast chicken. So it's from things we are eating anyway so it's not costing extra.
Edited to add that we feed happy cat from zooplus. A grain free with duck.

JaeFox

Hey op, I'd recommend having a look at Smilla, it's not the highest quality out there but there isn't a massive difference between it and foods like Royal Canin. I used to use it when I was feeding ferals as well and we had 8 cats to keep happy. It's cheap enough and fairly good quality. They do a version with an XXL kibble that I found good for slowing down the fast eaters. http://www.zooplus.ie/esearch.htm#q=smilla

Like the others, I wouldn't recommend Royal Canin either, it's a crazy price and not the amazing quality people think it is

jenn1984

Thanks for advice guys - our vet is getting loads of money out of us lately. The other night our No.1 cat Shadow (he's been around the longest) came in with his tongue hanging out and kept trying to pull something out with his paw. Due to being busy with a sick cow it took two days for the vets to figure out that he'd broken his back tooth so had to have it removed root and all and kept in last night and picking him up this morning. Guess we'll be living cheap this week but at least he's out of pain. Oh the joys of having 7 cats, lol.

Nody

JaeFox wrote: »

Hey op, I'd recommend having a look at Smilla, it's not the highest quality out there but there isn't a massive difference between it and foods like Royal Canin. I used to use it when I was feeding ferals as well and we had 8 cats to keep happy. It's cheap enough and fairly good quality. They do a version with an XXL kibble that I found good for slowing down the fast eaters. http://www.zooplus.ie/esearch.htm#q=smilla

Like the others, I wouldn't recommend Royal Canin either, it's a crazy price and not the amazing quality people think it is

I'd personally not go Smilla because the stink from what came out when we changed over to it but that's a personal preference (we have a tendency to try most foods at one time or another on our cats to give variety and build up further suitable rotation foods).

Anyway; in your case I'd still go Bozita chicken can. It's cheap; it's grain free (unlike most RC versions) and it's made in Sweden by a company owned by farmers so no major worries over what actually happened to the chickens before they go into the food. They got a ton of variations but for our cats and over time we always rotate in Bozita chicken as it's a stable that works for everyone (the other variations can be hit and miss depending on the cats). The reason for can over tetra is that for whatever reason goes down better with the crew; other boardsies have also pointed out similar reaction. If it works out from the first round you can then look at making a big Zooplus.de order instead to drop the price from €2.86/kg to €1.96/kg but you'd need over €70 in order value. Another one you can look at is Animonda Carny (make sure it's Carny as there are multiple versions of Animonda) who do once again grain free cans but up to 800g size at about the same price (€2.08) as well and both of those (imo) are better than Smilla but the cost will be the same. A third option but slightly more expensive at €2.92 per kg would be MACs which our cats love as well so between the three you can get grain free rotation going to ensure they don't get bored by single type feeding only at a very reasonable cost and Bozita (and likely the other two) should be in most pet stores as well.

emzippy

Hi OP,

A lot of those supermarket cat foods are full of fillers and unnecessary rubbish.

We have a cat with a sensitive tum too and we used to give him the Bozita in Jelly (in the tetra pak cartons). We've recently switched to Animonda Carny tins as the Bozita was starting to give him a sick stomach. He loves it and it's really helped his stomach settle.

We also feed our other girl grain free Greenwoods dry cat food. She loves it and no tummy issues either. If you go on Zooplus you can search for foods that are grain free. Try to look for a food with high meat content and little else added.

I hope it helps. It's horrible having to clean up after an 'incident' because of food.