Looking for a new cat food for Ginger

[KimandAutumn]

He's currently on Chicken Soup and does well on it, or so I thought until he had his vet visit a short while ago. The vet felt he has some food allergies because he's got some scabbing on his chin and nose.

Just looking for some recommendations for him. Vet discouraged me against Orijen for cats, said the dog food was ok but she has seen a high number of cats in the past several months with liver problems and the one common denominator was that they all were fed Orijen. Kinda scary.........

[mika140]

I've got my cat on California Natural Herring & Sweet Potato. She loves it and I've heard good things about it for cats with food allergies/intolerances because it has fewer ingredients than most other products.

[Kristin7]

Mine are doing well on Wellness Core. They both have nice coats and no digestive issues.

[sugarcatmom]

What about a good grain-free canned food like Wellness or By Nature Organics? Dry food is so very over-processed, which can result in some cats developing allergies to the denatured proteins. Also, cats really need to get their water intake from their food and if they're fed only dry, will become chronically dehydrated. You can read more about why wet food is better for cats here: http://www.catinfo.org/

[woof99]

A friend of mine went to see Dr Tony Yu, the derm specialist at Guelph university for her cat, he was really crusty! So, they tried around 6 different diets and her cat did best on Royal Canin Sensitivity RD-(rice and duck)- The cat is now crust free and he loves his new food! Only the vet sells it though, but she had tried so many diets she says it is worth it!

Best thing to do is have a look at what you have fed your cat in past, look at ingredients, especially the meat sources, then you need to find a diet that does not contain any of the meat proteins you have fed him in past. This is called an elimination/novel protein diet. Basically your cat is allergic to a protein in his food and whatever he has been exposed to in the past is likely to cause a reaction.

This is one of the reasons why all the new diets that have 3-5 different meat sources are bad, because finding a diet that doesn't have the proteins your pet has been exposed to is hard!

Good luck and all the best to you and your cat!

[onster]

hmmmm..did he have any ideas as to why orijen would cause ( if it was in fact linked) liver damage?

As in, is it just that its such a high protein content, or is perhaps a contaminated ingredient???

That really is concerning because I fed my cats Orijen for quite some time and hoped to go back to it after some weight issues were dealt with.

[KimandAutumn]

I don't think it was the high protien that bothered her, she really likes the dog food. I got the impression it was an ingredient(s) but could be totally wrong.

No offense but I would not feed any of my animals Royal Canin. When I picked up Blaze (Dalmatian) from the rescue she was on the Gastro formula and though she didn't have bloody diarhea her body condition was disgusting. Ok ok I know she is old but still no need to have to see her ribs and spine protruding out. Shortly after we brought her home we switched her Chicken Soup senior and what a huge difference; good weight, beautiful coat, nice skin.

[erykah1310]

My cats were all eating Orijen for months, but my goodness they were getting fat! I mean FAT
So I "downgraded" to Chicken soup... they had basically starved themselves to avoid eating it... over to Wellness I went.... the RUNS and I mean the runs!
So I bit the bullet and went against everything I had learnt about cat foods and dog foods and baught a big bag of the costco brand ( if they didnt do well, I was going to donate it like I had with the other bags I had tried) well... Im happy to report they are ALL doing wonderful on it, I add in some fish oil to it but other than that I am pleased with the results.
It depends from cat to cat.
While yes mine did wonderful on Orijen (both the cats and the dogs) everyone was getting far too fat!:sad: too bad because I really liked that food.

[Love4himies]

Originally Posted by KimandAutumn

Just looking for some recommendations for him. Vet discouraged me against Orijen for cats, said the dog food was ok but she has seen a high number of cats in the past several months with liver problems and the one common denominator was that they all were fed Orijen. Kinda scary.........

That is interesting about Orijen, did he say what was in Orijen to cause this?

[KimandAutumn]

Originally Posted by Love4himies

That is interesting about Orijen, did he say what was in Orijen to cause this?

She didn't say only that in the last couple months she saw several cats with liver problems and the only thing in common was all cats were fed Orijen so she is relating it to the food. I don't think it has anything to do with the high protein content as she knows Autumn eats Orijen dog food and does extremely well on it.

Last year when Autumn was a puppy she got really sick right after we brought her home. Initially it was thought she had Giardia but fecals later came back negative. She asked what I fed and at the time I was using the same brand food the breeder had her on which happened to be Solid Gold Mmillenia. She said that she had recently seen several dogs with gastro problems and all were fed the Mmillenia. I went home and checked Solid Gold's website and noticed they had a recent formula change. Could be that the breeder had her on some old stuff prior to the change and the bag I bought had the formula change incorporated causing the reaction.

I guess what I'm saying is who knows what these dog/cat food companies do? They change formulas from time and to time for various reasons and sometimes our pets react to the change.