Can you feed FreshPet?

[Carmine Daversa]

This is my second diabetic cat and he is proving to be harder to keep in a good BG range. He has always had free range food and now that I am monitoring it I am noticing he is very inconsistent with his food intake.
I am currently feeding purina dm dry food and was hoping to supplement with a topping like freshpet or pure bites to get him to eat some type of small meal 2x a day as well as leaving the dry food out for him to nibble on when he wants to.
Does anyone else have any experience with this? I know there is a wet food equivalent of the dry he is currently getting but I'm afraid he needs something more palatable.

Thanks
Carmine

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

Actually, the dry DM is an awful food for a diabetic cat. It's very high in carbs and the ingredients are really lousy.

We recommend feeding a low carb canned diet that's less than 10% carbs.....Most people here feed Fancy Feast classics or Friskies pates, but there are a lot of choices out there. There's a list of a lot of commercially available foods on THIS CHART

Find foods that are under 10% carbs.

BUT...before you change the diet, it's very important that you are home testing. Dropping the amount of carbs can drastically reduce the blood glucose levels (up to 200 points!) so it's important to do it slowly and be testing to keep kitty safe.

Lots of great information on good cat nutrition on Dr. Lisa's site, Feeding your cat, Know the basics of feline nutrition (including some tips on transitioning the hard core kibble addict)

 

[Sylvie]

i don't know if we got a bad bag, it didn't smell bad to me, but, none of my 10 cats would even eat the freshpet soft kibble shaped chicken bites food for cat that they sell. but, like i said could of been a bad bag considering how i have seen stock workers around here just leave cold stuff in aisles for awhile (my main problem with buying raw pet foods from regular stores and big name pet stores so i rarely do). if you trust your stores there, it wouldn't hurt to try the raw kibble/bite shaped one with your cat, he may like it and it definitely would be better for you to switch to it if he does instead of feeding the dry DM food that is for sure. I can't recall the exact carb % amount but, i am pretty sure the freshpet bites we bought in yellow/white bag was 5% or less or i wouldn't of bought it for my diabetic cat tux to try.

if don't like freshpet and you want something he has to somewhat chew, feed wet can foods like 'American journey' minced poultry in gravy flavors; the pieces are tiny minced one, a decent healthy low carb brand (2% wet carbs/9% dry carbs), smells delicious even to my nose and most of my cats like their poultry ones but, they also have the minced in fish flavors too (none of my cats like their pate versions though).. if you feel the need to leave dry out for him too, a few of us use Dr. elsey Clean protein Chicken dry food, it is 5% carbs and must taste good for all 10 of my cats like it. the salmon version is okay too, half of my cats like that one and i think that one is 7-9% carb.. really a much better choice than the DM as well, a bit pricey for 6.6lb bag but it is very high in calories so you feed less of it, 1/4 cp is 135 or so calories.. i think they still do so so if you contact the company and ask they will send you a sample to try.

Do listen to Chris & China and test BG regularly, i sure was very surprised at how fast and by how much their BG can change when making diet changes.

welcome btw,