moving to canned-only diet? - questions

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camping kitty

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Hello, I am sort of new to these boards. I used to read here a few years ago and got lots of great information and encouragement right after my cat Felix was found to be diabetic. He was diagnosed in 2008 and has been doing really well since. He's down to 1 unit of Lantus twice a day.

When he was diagnosed the vet put him on Purina DM dry but after some reading here I put him on Nature's Variety Instinct grain-free dry and Friskies canned. His main meal is in the morning with the canned food but he also free-feeds throughout the day on the dry. The vet felt free-feeding was important at first when we were trying to get his sugars under control, but I think we are past that stage at this point. (of course if that ever changed I'd be happy to let him free feed again).

I am thinking of moving Felix to a canned-only diet, and am interested in hearing if anyone has done this and what food they like. I'm also worried about Felix having diarreah from getting canned food only. I've had trouble with that in the past with other cats. Has anyone's kitty had trouble with diarreah while on canned only diets?

I've revisited Janet and Binky's food charts, and for canned food, there is a company called Merrick - has anyone tried their food? It seems to be higher in fiber than all the others, and I thought that may be a good thing to help promote good bm's.

I'd love to hear what you all have to say about canned food... thanks for reading :smile:
 
and for the most part smelly poops are a thing of the past.

in Maui's case she has IB issues, so she has the occasional loose stool and diarrhea. i'll take that over what she used to have daily diarrhea multiple times a day.

i also free feed the wet foods. I add water and leave them out until next meal time. My girls are doing well with this and Maui looks great.

so i say go for it. I haven't used merrick, but others here do and cats seem to like it.

i use nature's logic, friskies and homemade raw food.
 
Bandit and Gabby's poops got much better once we switched to a wet only diet. No diarrhea problems. And less vomiting for sure!

I fed Merrick's Cowboy Cookout and Surf-n-turf for a while, and both of my cats *loved* it. It was the only food Gabby found appetizing at the end of her life. Bandit was OTJ by then, but there was no change in his blood glucose on it. He's back to the grain-free flavors of Fancy Feast now. http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm
 
Eliminating the Purina DM and Nature's Instinct dry may help lower his blood glucose levels too so be on the lookout for that.

You also might read Dr. Lisa's page on transitioning to a wet food diet for some pointers.

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Tips for Transitioning PDF 1-14-11.pdf

"Some cats may experience softer stools during the transition. I do not worry if this happens and tend to 'ride it out'. If diarrhea results from the diet change you will either need to experiment with different canned foods or slow the transition down and do it over a period of several weeks.

When cats develop diarrhea during a diet change, many people run back to dry food and abandon the transition. However, that this is not a good answer. I have never encountered a cat that ‘needed’ dry food for intestinal health. There has always been a healthier dietary solution."
 
You can free-feed canned food. Most people use a timed feeder to give their cats access to small meals throughout the day. If you do a slow change to 100% canned food, there should't be any tummy issues. Using a probiotic may help, too.
 
Once I started learning about how to treat Max's FD, I switched from dry to wet-only food all in one go. Two cats at the same time. They both ate the food, and had absolutely NO bathroom/litter box issues. No diarrhea, no constipation, no upset stomach. They took to the wet food like white on rice, and I tossed the dry food the same day. We've never gone back. Once I found a couple of flavors with the same carb level, Max stopped vomiting (which was how we got to FD in the first place...constant vomitting, vet gave prednisone, and then he developed FD). We hardly even have hairballs anymore, and I don't brush them on any regular schedule. We only feed Friskies at our house, and both cats love it. Liver & Chicken Dinner or Turkey & Giblets. We're currently experimenting with Supreme Supper. The only time the boys have had diarrhea since the food switch was just a few months ago when one of them picked up a stomach bug at the vet. A few days later and all was well with both of them.

I don't free feed as Max is an over-eater and will eat until he pukes. They get fed twice a day. And while they do let us know when we've delayed a meal too long, they've both done absolutely fine on just the two meals. Max went OTJ about 6 weeks after we started insulin, and he was only being fed twice daily the whole time.
 
At least one of my 4 cats had some issue with beef so Merrick's Cowboy Cookout was thrown up. It is supposed to be the one that is about the same makeup as a mouse. Cleaning it up off the floor was probably like cleaning up a mouse that had been thrown up too. :roll: I also had to quit feeding FF beef. I think one of the problems was that I did not feed just one flavor for a few days to see if there was a problem before I added another flavor. I just fed a different flavor at every meal so we had some problems moving to a different food. Thus we ended up with lots of very loose poops and plenty of projectile vomit. Adding probiotics was the way we got through it.
 
I free feed canned food to my 4 cats. Fortunately all are grazers, so no worries about gobbling too much at a time.

Now we are feeding EVO & Merricks Before Grain 96% (chicken and turkey mostly due to allergies)
 
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