So William has diabetes now. Insulin twice a day. I want to get all 3 cats off of the kibble. Samuel and Danny and William (the gang of three) have other ideas. The good news is that they do not dislike wet food. In fact it is a nightly treat for them. BUT...we just want a little, and we MUST have our kibble. So after 3 weeks of trying and having to make sure William ate something i broke down and bought Young again zero formula. They all 3 love it. True to the package instructions and claims they are not eating as much, but are content. After a few days their cat boxes are reasonable again. BUT...what about the liquid and the UTIs and all? So my wife has ALWAYS ground the canned food in a baby food grinder, and mixed in more water. I am now mixing a 3 ounce can with 3 ounces of water and feeding that in 3 bowls at night. They lap it like candy. They are getting an extra couple of ounces of water in the wet food so I am hoping that will offset the lack of moisture in the dry food. I am still searching for a wet food that they like that is very low carb. Petsmart does not carry the Dr. Lisa list brands I have looked for so far. I am going to have to print out the whole list and take it to Petsmart. I live in the country so another pet food store is quite a distance. I bought Tiki chicken with zero carbs via Amazon, but they would not eat it. I mixed it with Instinct rabbit formula, and they lapped that up, but the carb calculator from the young again website says it is about 20% carbs. So half and half with the tiki I ended up with around 10% carbs. Meanwhile, the recent vet check says William is doing fine on the insulin injections. I am still not able to get my own blood glucose readings on him. He is a ragdoll burmese mix with very dark ears and even with the flashlight i am having trouble finding the vein. William does not mind his injections and now will even come up on my lap after his shot. He is 20 pounds so my wife will not hold him anymore, so he has become my cat. But I ramble. Sorry. Actually just wanted to share the increasing moisture in the wet food solution to the dry food downside. Maybe that will work for someone else as well.
My specific solution for my kibble addicted kitties
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JanetNJ
Member Since 2016
Young Again worked great for my cat the first time around. I credit it with helping her into remission the first time. She stated in remission for a year. I had to take her off the young again for two reasons. First she gained 4 lbs on it. Second she started getting terrible diarrhea from it. Glad it's working for you.
Young again is a brand. It is actually Youngagain. There is no shipping charge. It is not available on Amazon. Thanks for your suggestion...
Do you remember how long it took before she went into remission? The other cats had no digestive problems at all, but William took a few days for his stool to firm. William has always had a sensitive tummy so we were not surprised when it took a few days. Terrible gas and loose stools. Much improved after 4th day.
JoyBee&Ravan
Member Since 2018
Have you read the Yellow Sticky note by Dr. Pierson
Info Dry Food - PLEASE consider more than just carbohydrate content It's an eye opener.
I've seen cats go into remission just by stopping all dry food. Dry food is not Natural for "ANY" animal.It was made for our
convenience!
Info Dry Food - PLEASE consider more than just carbohydrate content It's an eye opener.
I've seen cats go into remission just by stopping all dry food. Dry food is not Natural for "ANY" animal.It was made for our
convenience!
Calibonbons
Member Since 2019
Hi! I am a newbie and as much as I want to feed my kitty something with better indegrients, I went with what my vet highly recommended and is Fancy Feast. I personally never fed my cats the 10 1/2 years I have had them what I feel is such a low quality food. I also tried him on a real meat diet/ higher quality/low carb wet food and couldn't get his levels under control. After my last visit to the vet and getting my sugar kitty a shot of antibiotics for what they thought was a bladder infection, I can finally say he is doing amazing!! I tried every other healthy food out there and he ate a couple bites and was dying for kibble!! But finally I have found he will eat the Beef Pate very well and with 1cc he is doing amazing!! I don't really know if it was his antibiotics or finally getting him to eat what is considered a low carb food. Also one thing my vet said is I have to stick to the same food so maybe after a week and a half his body isn't my science experiment any longer. Seriously I felt like he was my guinea pig poking him and testing him til we got it right. One thing I want to mention is be careful if you do switch to Fancy Feast. I had to reduce my cats insulin by 1cc. One day last week he was down to 57 and that was scary, but now he has been at about 112 each spot test. I am not doing a curve again for awhile since I finally seem to have it down. I too have been struggling getting my other fatties to eat wet food and diet. My Coco Boy is not happy!! But I sure dont need 5 other fat cats with diabetes. Love my babies!! Good Luck with your babies 
If I could get them to go totally on wet food I would gladly do that. Unfortunately after 10 to 12 years on dry food it is extremely difficult to change their perception of what a meal is. They will eat some of the wet food, even demand it at dusk. But a 3 ounce can can be split 3 ways and they will leave it. Or eat a bit and look for the kibble. If the kibble is in their bowl they will scarf down the canned food, but if they can't have the dry food available they don't eat the meat. I cannot afford for William to not eat right now. So for now this dry food recommended by Dr Pierson is my best solution. I am hoping that this will just be a transition trick. They are eating more of the wet food every day. They have never recognized "people" food as food. I can't get them to touch raw chicken or turkey, or cooked chicken or turkey. We start training them that people food is not for them so that they are not in our faces at mealtime, and now they won't touch unprocessed foods.
Very interesting....So if Ravan was raised on a raw meat diet does this not bring into question the validity of the dry foods being the main cause of diabetes in cats? I would be curious to know how many other raw meat diet raised cats developed diabetes at later years in their lives......We have just started the all meat diets. Our vets always recommended some kind of kibble up until now. Also something to think about is that our cats are living longer in captivity than they would in the wild, which may give the disease a chance to take hold. Old age diseases don't get a chance to show up if the cat dies young from living in the wild.
Thank you for your response and concern.
Very interesting....So if Ravan was raised on a raw meat diet does this not bring into question the validity of the dry foods being the main cause of diabetes in cats? I would be curious to know how many other raw meat diet raised cats developed diabetes at later years in their lives......We have just started the all meat diets. Our vets always recommended some kind of kibble up until now. Also something to think about is that our cats are living longer in captivity than they would in the wild, which may give the disease a chance to take hold. Old age diseases don't get a chance to show up if the cat dies young from living in the wild.
Thank you for your response and concern.
Good information to think about. Thank you. And good luck with your babies as well.Hi! I am a newbie and as much as I want to feed my kitty something with better indegrients, I went with what my vet highly recommended and is Fancy Feast. I personally never fed my cats the 10 1/2 years I have had them what I feel is such a low quality food. I also tried him on a real meat diet/ higher quality/low carb wet food and couldn't get his levels under control. After my last visit to the vet and getting my sugar kitty a shot of antibiotics for what they thought was a bladder infection, I can finally say he is doing amazing!! I tried every other healthy food out there and he ate a couple bites and was dying for kibble!! But finally I have found he will eat the Beef Pate very well and with 1cc he is doing amazing!! I don't really know if it was his antibiotics or finally getting him to eat what is considered a low carb food. Also one thing my vet said is I have to stick to the same food so maybe after a week and a half his body isn't my science experiment any longer. Seriously I felt like he was my guinea pig poking him and testing him til we got it right. One thing I want to mention is be careful if you do switch to Fancy Feast. I had to reduce my cats insulin by 1cc. One day last week he was down to 57 and that was scary, but now he has been at about 112 each spot test. I am not doing a curve again for awhile since I finally seem to have it down. I too have been struggling getting my other fatties to eat wet food and diet. My Coco Boy is not happy!! But I sure dont need 5 other fat cats with diabetes. Love my babies!! Good Luck with your babies
JanetNJ
Member Since 2016
A few weeks after starting the food. If you look at the tab in my spreadsheet that is called 2016 you can see it
OK I had to go look on their website. Their logo/trademark is YoungAgain, but in their writings/text the call themselves Young Again. Just to clarify.
Calibonbons
Member Since 2019
I completely understand your struggle with the wet food transition. That is like my cats. 10+ years of mostly dry. I have found that if I sit and hold my cats food bowl he eats more lol. Yes I do it twice a day when he seems to walk away. I did try the raw diet but didn't get the results I had hoped for. Looking at my in laws 17 year old barn cat that is healtier then any of my cats has had mostly lizards, birds, mice and two small hand fulls a day of dry kibble. I can't help but think a raw diet was a way to go. Goggle a prey diet. I live in the country so it makes sense for cats to eat critters but the young guy at the feed store thought it was awful I considered even trying some live mice or chicks. Trust me I couldn't stomach giving my cats a little cute baby chick, but Im sure some added excersise would be added to each meal lol yummmmm chicken
All I have to say is this is a real battle with finding food cats will eat. I wish I was that picky cuz I sure would be a lot skinner myself!
Wishing you the best! I did mainly want to share Fancy Feast Beef Pate has worked the best for my picky guy! Good luck!
All I have to say is this is a real battle with finding food cats will eat. I wish I was that picky cuz I sure would be a lot skinner myself!
Wishing you the best! I did mainly want to share Fancy Feast Beef Pate has worked the best for my picky guy! Good luck!
So the chick idea is not so bad when you stop to consider that supermarket chickens are butchered at 6 to 8 weeks old anyway.....
CandyH & Catcat
Member Since 2019
squeamish people, skip this post --
when chicks arrive at the farm store from the hatchery, 1 day old or less, a small percentage of them fail to survive, they get crushed or too hot or too cold
talk to the manager at the feed store -- that could be a resource -- I've watched them being unpacked, they are tightly packed in the shipping carton, there are usually a few lumps at the bottom with no life left in them
when chicks arrive at the farm store from the hatchery, 1 day old or less, a small percentage of them fail to survive, they get crushed or too hot or too cold
talk to the manager at the feed store -- that could be a resource -- I've watched them being unpacked, they are tightly packed in the shipping carton, there are usually a few lumps at the bottom with no life left in them
CandyH & Catcat
Member Since 2019
to return to your original idea -- particularly in unexpected hot weather, like we're experiencing here right now, adding water to the canned food, making it into "pate soup", could make a real difference for our sugar cats
I dump the can out, run water into the mostly empty can to salvage the last few bits stuck in it, then mash the whole thing up -- Catcat can't curl his tongue the way most cats do, so a slurry, gravy, soupy mess is much easier for him to eat
I dump the can out, run water into the mostly empty can to salvage the last few bits stuck in it, then mash the whole thing up -- Catcat can't curl his tongue the way most cats do, so a slurry, gravy, soupy mess is much easier for him to eat
It sure works for my guys. PLENTY of urine in the cat boxes. (Although somewhat less now that William is not trying to pee the sugar out of his system). If I give the boys the food out of the can without thinning it they won't touch it. They run to each others bowls looking for the "gravy". Then walk out. 12 hours later I dump the food and start over...with the extra water. Little tyrants!
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