Wet food and going on a trip

[Athenaglaukopis]

Hey guys. I’m going on a trip for 2 weeks and will have a sitter coming to check on the 5 fur kids every day.
Now: fluffy is diabetic and off the juice. lucky is allergic to lost of things.
3 other cat crew memebers are normal.
They have special microchipped feeders for each group. The idea is dry food goes in the feeder and at night when the sitter comes he would put down some wet food that allergic, diabetic and normal cats can eat. Sooooo... my question is, is merrick lid turkey a good option for my diabetic cat? I can’t quite understand the nutritional info. It says that is has: carbs are 3.6% as fed and 16.36 on dry matter bases. Phosphorus is 0.33% as fed and 1.5 on dry basis. I don’t quite understand what does that mean, if anyone could explain that to me it would be awesome!

 

[Juls and Billy]

Are you talking about the Merrick LID dry food? If so, that's a lot of carbs for a diabetic kitty. From the ingredients list, all of these things are carbs: potatoes, peas, potato protein, pea fiber, and flaxseed.

If you are talking about the canned food (you probably are) you can find the calories from carbs on this food chart. (the dry matter percentage numbers don't give you calories from carb without doing some serious math.) It looks like all the flavors of the LID canned are good except the duck. It has 15% calories from carbs. The chicken flavor is a bit high in phosphorus.

What I dislike about these Merrick canned foods is they get most of their calories from fat instead of protein. Depending on the flavor, the protein ranges from 26- 32 calories from protein, and the fat ranges from 59-68. Some food companies like to lace a food with fat to make it more palatable for cats, but it isn't good for them.

In my opinion, and it's just one woman's opinion, you'd be better off with Fancy Feast than this stuff.

 

[Athenaglaukopis]

Are you talking about the Merrick LID dry food? If so, that's a lot of carbs for a diabetic kitty. From the ingredients list, all of these things are carbs: potatoes, peas, potato protein, pea fiber, and flaxseed.

If you are talking about the canned food (you probably are) you can find the calories from carbs on this food chart. (the dry matter percentage numbers don't give you calories from carb without doing some serious math.) It looks like all the flavors of the LID canned are good except the duck. It has 15% calories from carbs. The chicken flavor is a bit high in phosphorus.

What I dislike about these Merrick canned foods is they get most of their calories from fat instead of protein. Depending on the flavor, the protein ranges from 26- 32 calories from protein, and the fat ranges from 59-68. Some food companies like to lace a food with fat to make it more palatable for cats, but it isn't good for them.

In my opinion, and it's just one woman's opinion, you'd be better off with Fancy Feast than this stuff.

Thank you! Yes, I was talking about wet. So anything below 10% is fine. (The as fed and dry matter do confuse me, I’m going to re read the link you pasted).
I wish I could tell my sitter to feed them all fancy feast but then my allergic cat would have a terrible skin reaction that generates lumps under her skin, open wounds and infections. I’m trying to find a viable option for those 2 weeks I’ll be away that goes well with the diabetic cat, the allergic cat and the normal cats. Thank you again!

 

[Juls and Billy]

I got you. The Merrik (except for the duck flavor) Is quite low carb and will be absolutely fine for your pet sitter to feed to everyone. Yes, it's higher fat, but that won't hurt anyone short term. I'm just still a little mad at Merrick because they discontinued a food my little ferret boy loved, and I couldn't get it for him when he was a sick little man.

 

[Deb & Wink]

Could you tell us what your allergic cat is allergic to?

 

[Athenaglaukopis]

Could you tell us what your allergic cat is allergic to?

Sure! She is allergic to fish, fish oil (yes, it’s rare), chicken in any form. Sadly these are the most predominant components of cat food. The allergic cat is not the same as the diabetic one though. I even tried fancy feast turkey with her but, their “by products” include chiken and she got a strong reaction from it. she currently Eats (wet food) merrick lid turkey, and ziwi peak lamb. At $3,50 a can for ziwi peak I can’t afford to feed all the kitties that during my trip. Merrick is about $1,55 per can.

 

[Deb & Wink]

Most of the Fancy Feast foods have fish in them.
No chicken either. Lots of foods are going to have chicken liver also. Guessing that is a trigger too.
I bet you read lots of food labels.

Is Turkey too close to the Chicken and causes issue for your allergic girl?

The one big limitation of Dr. Lisa Pierson's food chart is that it does not list ingredients. You have to search the list for foods appropriate for a diabetic cat (<= 10%) and then find ones without fish, fish oil or chicken for your diabetic girl.
Don't know of a list that has those various limitations. Afraid it's work for you, it's reading a lot of ingredient labels.

Maybe start with a search on the words "limited ingredient" on that food chart, and then look at the ingredient labels on-line.

For example, Koha, Merrick, Natural Balance, Nature's Variety.

You have your homework cut out for you.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

The Merrik (except for the duck flavor) I

There is at least one error on Dr. Lisa's list, and the Merrick LID duck is one of them. It is in fact low carb and low phosphorus food. I fed it to Neko and it did not impact her blood sugar. Tanya has recently updated her US cat food list (within the last month), and the Merrick LID duck is shown as having less carbs that the salmon, which would make it around 4%. And is the lowest phosphorus food Merrick has, at 0.8% on a dry matter basis (you want under 1% ideally).