Felix grain free? Massive diarrhoea issues!

[Ruth B]

It looks like Purina One Sensitive is a complete cat food so theoretically it contains everything she needs and feeding her only on that won't do any harm, although she might get very bored with it. If she is fine with that for a few weeks, you might want to try mixing in other varieties of Purina One so at least there would be other flavours she could have. If she is happy and eating that fine then I wouldn't push the wet food. Just make sure she has plenty of access to drinking water.

It seems that opinions still vary about what to feed a cat. I know someone who was recommended to feed their cats only on special dried food, there wasn't any medical reason for it, it was just what the vet had recommended (personally I think the rep selling the food to the vets must have been one who could be very persuasive). Others seem to think that a mix of wet and dry is best. In the end I think the cat makes the decision, mine are offered both wet and dry (we only get Purina One as our dry choice, anything else is false economy as we just end up throwing it away), some cats love the wet, others seem to just want to eat the dried (Blue still prefered the dry even after having all his back teeth removed), so as long as yours is happy eating just the dry and it isn't giving her problems I would say just stay with it.

[MarySkater]

[Edit - cross-posted with Ruth B]

Is it okay to keep her on just dried food? Is this healthy?

That would depend on whether she drinks enough water. Some cats don't drink much, which can cause urinary problems. Wet food is a handy way of getting them to take in fluid. (Although dry food can be better for their teeth.)

If I had to feed a cat solely on dry food, I would look for some liquid that they would drink without getting stomach troubles - maybe watered-down cat milk or chicken broth etc. And of course always fresh water on offer.

Looked at purely as food, a good quality dry food should give her everything she needs.

[vanilla]

I did think it could be the fishy flavours... so I took her off the salmon and tuna etc... but she was still poorly with the chicken and beef! I think it's the FAGAIL in general for some odd reason! Literally was fine one minute with them and then the next she's mega ill! I mean can this even happen?! So odd xx

Glad to hear your kitty is feeling better!

If you look at the ingredients, even though it is chicken/beef, you'll notice that it contains 'Fish and Fish Derivatives'. Looks like your kitty may be allergic to fish. You can try Butchers classic cat food, that contains no fish derivatives. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product ... =255741818

I've noticed that some of the cheaper own brands contain fish derivatives. You just have to spend hours in the pet aisle reading all the small print!

I give my 8mth kitten a mixture of wet and dry food. Two pouches or more and around 40g of dry. I don't want him exclusively on dry as I don't want him to have urinary problems, which is more likely for a male cat.

[Kay]

there is one big advantage with dry food, I believe, in that it offers a much wider choice for senior cats, and for specialist diets, than wet food, and cats with, for example, renal disease, seem more willing to eat the dry renal food than the wet

I have been feeding my two, now 15 and 10, 4 different varieties of senior dry food, for years, and ordinary wet food, which gives me a wide choice, and they both drink water every day - several bowls in different places works, as they often have a few laps at any bowl they encounter

[Nibby71]

Dry food is fine on permanent basis and the purina one is a good one. Much better than whiskas! Glad your kitty doing better x

[Joe_Danger]

Sorry I didn't see this topic on time
I have my share of experience with kittens and soft stools, even diarrhea.

Had I seen this topic I would have immediately suggested the following:


- First you want to give them a syringe of probiotic mixed in with water, both human and cat probiotic are ok in my experience and they LOVE it, especially the human kind. REMEMBER NEVER FEED A KITTEN OR GIVE THEM ANYTHING TO DRINK WHILE THEY ARE ON THEIR BACK! IT CAN BE FATAL! Kittens are not babies and their lungs could easily fill up with the fluid, so NEVER have them on their back when feeding from a syringe.

- chicken breast for a few days until the stool starts taking shape again

- You might want to give the kitten probiotics once a day every day for a few days

- The stool should start taking shape in a few days, but even if it's still soft that's ok

- at this point you want to introduce DRY Sensitive food, now there's kitten sensitive foods and there's ones for adults.
In my country we seem to rarely get kitten sensitive foods, just the ones for adults but they work wonders anyway.
I usually feed Royal Canin Sensible tho Purina is probably better I don't know, whatever is available as foods are all imported here.

- You stick with this for as long as it takes for the stool to firm up, it could be from 2-3 days to 3 weeks even, but it will fix itself eventually if there's no other health issues.

- After this I would personally stay off wet food for a while. Weeks if needed and slowly start introducing normal, in your case kitten food by mixing it in with the sensitive/sensible food, each day you mix more and more kibble of normal food with the sensitive one until your sensitive supply runs out or 3-5 days have passed with no issues.

- Now you can start feeding kitten dry food/regular dry food whatever is needed.

I feed my cats dry food and give them wet food every day or every few days depending on the firmness, smell and shape of their poop, as soon as I notice it's getting too soft or smelly I stop the dry food immediately for a while.
At the beginning of the year, 2021, I noticed that all my 3 persians would get soft poop from Felix wet food, so for a while I cut that out of their diet.
My youngest, Spaska has a fairly sensitive stomach, her soft poops can last anywhere from 2 days to weeks, but dry royal canin sensible helps her a great deal, it's just if she eats something she isn't supposed to during the recovery period her poop softens up again, so we have to be extra careful.

If your kitten eats well, is playful, acts normal and the only issue is diarhea, the vet gives them a clean bill of health it's USUALLY, again in my experience, bacterial disbalance which gets sorted out by avoiding wet food, avoiding non sensitive foods and giving them some probiotics.

I'm no vet, just a dude who has raised a bunch of kittens over the years and I speak from personal experience
each situation is different and each kitten is different so what worked for me may not work for you, keep that in mind, but I do hope I helped a bit.