Friday, December 23, 2011

Pet Food?

Zephyrhills, Floria

We spent yesterday trying to finish up our Christmas shopping.  I found a few things for Mom, including a pretty orchid at a local flea market.  I think we’re about done!

Today, we’re going to have to go to Petsmart and see what kind of kitty food we can find.  We’ve been having problems with the cats (especially Baxter) throwing up their food as soon as they eat. 

We bought Blue Buffalo dry cat food, in an attempt to find a good quality cat food for them. It’s supposed to be high quality with the main ingredients being meat.  We had fed it to them before, but for some reason we changed to something else.  I think I now know why we changed the last time!

Lately, Baxter has been throwing up his food every morning and we just attributed it to the fact that he eats too much and too fast.  We’ve been limiting his food so that he can’t eat so much or so fast and we’re still having the same problem.  We’ve also had some problems with Chatty doing the same thing. I did a little research on the internet and found that a lot of people were having trouble with this brand cat and dog food, and some were very serious.  Vomiting it up seemed to be a common complaint.  A few pets died and the owners were blaming Blue Buffalo pet food.  I know you can always get a large variety of opinions on pet foods, but since our kitties are throwing up almost as soon as they eat it, I’m starting to question the quality of this food.  I checked the bag.  It smells normal.  The expiration date is in the future.  I don’t know what the problem is, but we feel sure it’s causing problems for our kitties.  Time to change food…but to what?

So, we’re going to take our brand new bag back to Petsmart and see if they will refund our money.  If not we’re still going to try to find something else.  The question is what?  Pet food doesn’t seem to be regulated at all and I know all kinds of garbage is put into pet food.  We buy them canned food as a treat and you can buy the same brand and flavor, and every time it looks and smells different.  I figure they’re just putting whatever they have left over into the batch.  We no longer buy Friskies canned food for that reason.

What do you feed your critters?

We finally got the rest of the motor home washed.  Since we have neighbors on one side, we kind of needed to wait until they weren’t sitting outside.  We thought it might be rude if we got them wet!   We started to apply more of  The Solution, but it started getting late and it was so damp, that we couldn’t get it to dry.  Our plan today, is to finish up that and then we’re meeting some old friends for lunch.   Another busy day! 

Two more days until we head south!  The weather has been wonderful and I sure hope it stays this way while we’re in the Keys.

15 comments:

  1. IAMS has been my pet food of choice for many years.

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  2. we feed Tucker the Blue wilderness food..he loves it..and as for Oliver..he gets Royal Canin Maine Coon food..no problem with that one either..I can hear him muncing on his crunchies as I type this!..
    hope this helps.

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  3. We feed Peanut IAMS in the morning and a pouch of Whiskas in the evening, but he only likes the poultry flavors. Hope you find a solution to that problem real soon. Have a safe trip south and a very Merry Christmas.

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  4. Hope you are able to find some cat food that will agree with them. It is so hard when they are having issues with it. We used to feed Whiskey the All Natural IAMS, not sure if they have a similar product for cats.

    Happy Travels!

    Kevin and Ruth
    www.travelwithkevinandruth.com

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  5. Don't know about cats, but with dogs changing the protein source can help. Chicken, duck, salmon, beef, etc.

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  6. Not having cats, I'm not much help. But our girls eat Nature's Recipe. We have to be careful with the protein we give them and the amount of protein they get or they get upset tummies. Sure hope you find something that works for the fur kids. Merry Christmas.

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  7. Our kitty gets a blend of Science Diet light hairball and Science diet light adult. She gets a total of about 5 tablespoons a day. 2 in the morning, 1 at noon and 2 in the evening. No problems with vomiting from the food, just the occasional hacked up blade of grass.

    I hope your kitties can keep their food down soon.

    Be safe and be well!

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  8. I don't know about cats but my little furbaby eat Nutra for sensitive stomachs...Travel safe
    Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
    Donna

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  9. Royal Canin is a great food Karen...its the US name for the vet food here in canada called medi cal...we were feeding our kids a hypo allegenic medi Cal but couldn't get that kind in the states so we've slowly been changing tucker and lilly over to the medical royal canin 'sensitivity'..so that once we hit the road we will be able to purchase it. We changed because we didn't want to load our storage compartments with dog food to do us the next 5 mos or so...a trick to slow them down eating that we've used in the past with some of our animals who seem to eat fast and gorge into it...we put the dry food on a pizza pan and spread it all out so that they would have to move around to get it and wasn't getting it all at once like in a bowl...Iams and Science Diet (not sure if they're available in the US but you could google it) is also a good food...if they are having tummy troubles such as vomiting I would choose a cat food labeled 'sensitivity'....there has been recalls on Blue Buffalo...good luck!! I'd also maybe use bottled water for their drinking or boil the park waters first...

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  10. We have gone thru that problem too and it is frustrating. Right now, this is what is working for us:

    Our four inside cats always have a bowl of Whiskas (Turkey & Chicken) flavored dry food available. They split a 3 oz. can of Purina Fancy Feast Turkey & Giblets Feast Classic twice a day. (Actually, Blackie only eats dry and doesn't like wet food!)

    The three outside barn cats are fed the same but only split a can of Fancy Feast in the evening.

    I like this website:
    www.petfoodtalk.com/catfoodreviews/ - it reviews all kinds of cat and dog foods.

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  11. If your PetSmart has the vet clinic in it, I'd probably ask the vet for their advice. Changing foods on cats is never a good idea if you are going to try muliple foods to see what works best. The food changes can cause crystals to form in their urine, which can be deadly. Good luck with them!

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  12. Karen, it takes a good vet to know this I guess. Cats easily develop IBS and other symptoms from weakened immune systems. According to him, it has to do with all the chicken and grain in even the best cat food. They become sensitized and allergic after years of eating it. I thought Jeremy was dying 2 years ago, had him on prednisone etc, recommended biopsies and surgery etc etc. Instead my vet here in Klamath Falls put him on "Limited Ingredient" food. Either duck and peas or lamb and peas or venison and peas. Dry or canned (I used dry). No more throwing up. Vet says NO grain AT ALL, and no chicken. Talk to your vet, it's worth a try. Even the best expensive foods have grain in them except for limited ingredient foods.

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  13. We feed Gingee Innova because it is absent wheat and corn which are the most common pet allergins. Innova is now sold at Petsmart. I don't know whether there is an Innova cat food. Gingee does great on Innova.

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  14. When we fed only dry food, we fed Premium Edge. As dry foods go, it's pretty good (no dyes, first ingredient is meat), and is less expensive than the Royal Canin we first got for our IBS kitty. All of our kids tolerated it well.

    These days we feed only wet, and have settled on the Friskies paté varieties that begin with a meat.

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  15. I agree limited ingredient is the key.
    Suggest looking at Wellness, they have an extensive web site, offer monthly coupons in their newsletter, and offer a grain free or limited ingredient dry food.
    I believe it is available at most Pet Supermarket, PETCO stores.
    Good luck, please keep us posted.

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