# ibd cat and fancy feast classic?



## Risami (Nov 18, 2007)

I may end up doing a chicken fancy feast classic trial again for my cat but i'm worried about diarrhea. i'm wondering how much cans should i feed her if she is about 11.5 pounds it would like to get to to 9pounds as she is pretty round around the area. this may be messy if she has diarrhea but i'm hoping it will settle for her in the time. so how many cans should i feed her if i want to get her to 10.5 pounds i won't want to underfeed her .
i know fancy feast is not that great but all the cans she ate she had heavy bloody diarrhea. i want something low carb. I may end up giving her a bit of dry food for a snack not alot.


oh another question
how can i get my cat use to feeding schedule?
she only eats about 4oz a day i break it down to 3 feeding schedules but she ends up going crazy at night when there is no food out she broke my tv in the process cause of it >_< thought it landed on her but thankgod it didn't and she almost knocked down my sewing machine.


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## cinderflower (Apr 22, 2012)

i'm not quite clear on whether your cat was diagnosed with IBD and that's why she had heavy bloody diarrhea when she ate fancy feast or if that's a conclusion you reached just putting two and two together. you know IBD is different than IBS (inflammatory bowel disease vs. irritable bowel syndrome). the latter is what some people call spastic colon, they get diarrhea when they're stressed or nervous about something, not necessarily from a food allergy or specific food they're intolerant of. cats are the same. so you'd probably want to figure out if she's actually allergic or if it's nerves.

you want your cat to be about the same size as one of mine. he's 11.3 right now and we're shooting for 10.8 or so. I can't remember exactly how many ounces he's eating because I measured starting about a year ago (because I went all canned) but I just eyeball it now. the other two cats lost weight on canned food (well, one has other health issues and that's why, but the young one was getting a little pudgy and LOVES dry food so when I cut it out, he slimmed right down to a perfect size).

if you want to feed her FF classic, I can't remember if the classic flavors are grain-free, but I think they are. they may contain gluten though. if a particular food gives her grossly bloody diarrhea, I wouldn't be feeding it to her. there are just some foods some cats can't eat. it's lotus for me, it gives all three of them terrible diarrhea so i don't buy it. you don't need a very long trial. if it happened to her before and you do it for two days with the same result, i wouldn't buy any more of it. if cost is an issue, you can get wellness 12.5 oz. cans of the grain-free and it's reasonable. especially with only one cat. my older cat was vomiting every time she ate more than a tbsp. and I started feeding her all grain free and I think she has thrown up twice in the last year (once was just a couple of days ago, i'm hoping it was a freak occurrence and not a new pattern).

most indoor cats don't eat nearly as much as it says on the cans to feed them, but you have to factor age, size and activity level. the starting point is 30 cal. per lb., but I would guesstimate that to be a very active cat under 8 years old. my 6 year-old is the one I have on a moderate diet, and I probably feed him about one 5.5 oz. can of something like weruva. I just bought a scale too, but I've only used it a few times and I don't use any 3 oz. cans of anything, those cost more. I buy the biggest cans i can find of the brands i use, plus i make a lot of their food. but 5.5 to 6 oz. of food a day might be a safe starting point. if she still doesn't lose (slowly) cut it down by a couple of tsp. each meal.

as far as getting her used to a feeding schedule, just do it. i have an old cat who insists on eating every two hours (that i'm awake anyway ) so all of the cats eat small amounts very often. i give the other two cats a little more and skip their meals sometimes, she just hardly eats much at once, but they're food hoovers. i don't know how i did it, I've just had my cats on a minimum of three times a day for years, even dry. do they ever get hungry between meals? sure. the one that's a perfect weight would eat constantly if i let him. the one on a diet is satisfied, i can tell because he doesn't bother me. if he actually does come and beg, i know he really is hungry but i still make him wait until regular times. play with her right before bed to try to tire her out, also, if you work, feed her before you leave, when you get home, and then right before bed. just divide the total into smaller amounts. this kind of fools cats do because they can't measure, they just think more often = more food.

put anything away that she can break or turn over, she'll settle down pretty soon if you just never leave food out. i don't know if they forget or not but i think they probably do. even if they don't, no opposable thumbs means no can opener and no opening refrigerator so there's not much they can do.


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## Risami (Nov 18, 2007)

yes feeding scheudle sucks and i think i meant ibs not ibd i get confuse with the 2 
well my ibs cat is roundish and she is like a small cat for her age. i just want to stick with a wet food she can tolerate. may end up getting this animal essentials she may need enyzmes. she mostly eats dry thats wht gives her good firm stool. i like to see firm stool on wet thats for sure. i may end up finding duck but the evo duck is expensive  she may be combine wet/dry cause of the expense


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## cinderflower (Apr 22, 2012)

you have a lot of good canned foods to choose from. if she likes a more bland food, merrick is good. unfortunately my cats didn't really care for its Before Grain line but it's discontinued anyway so maybe it was a good thing they didn't really like it. I pretty much got the ones down that they like and stopped trying. the only one I left out is fussie cat because the 3 oz. cans aren't very economical and the large cans are outrageously expensive in the states for some reason. plus it's mostly all fish and mine already get most of their fish allotment from weruva.

there are charts at catinfo.org and other places, just google cat food nutrient composition charts and see what comes up. not all of them are correct but I know the one I just cited is good and there's another one at catnutrition.org. there might be one at littlebigcat (?I think that's the right name.)

my cats like rabbit flavors, unfortunately it's not that easy to come by. maybe I should buy it and just cook it myself, if it would even be affordable to do it like that. I know it isn't with buffalo. the only duck food I ever bought was blue buffalo and my cats wouldn't eat any of their canned food. it seems reasonable to me that pheasant is more expensive but I can't figure out why duck is.


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## JungliBillis (Mar 20, 2013)

You can also try Natural Balance. They have Duck and Pea.


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## howsefrau32 (Mar 6, 2013)

My youngest cat is still a kitten, eats a little more than my two older cats, and they get three meals a day. The first meal a pretty normal size meal, the middle one, smaller, and the biggest meal for the kitten is at night. I have found he sleeps better if we fill his belly up at night before bed. 

Just do it, get them on a schedule and if he cries for food, try to play with him, try to ignore it. I had to put one of my cat sup during her transition to wet food because she drove me insane at night, there is nothing wrong with confining yours to a bedroom or bathroom at night and putting a fan on to block out the pitiful yowling. Your cat is better off on a wet food, the best you can afford. If you can only afford ff classic, then so be it. But if that is making her have diarrhea, then you probably do need to try another one. Yes, maybe the dry gives her firm stools, but it also is not giving her enough moisture in her diet, she needs water. I have a friend with this problem IBS for her cat, and the only food that works for her is Venison and Green Pea by Natural Balance, or you can also try duck and green pea. It is not as expensive as some of the others. When I got my 14 pound cat off of dry food that she free fed on all day long, she dropped to 9 pounds over a year. She has been on wet food for 6 years now, has maintained about 9 pounds, she eats 3 times a day. Her meals are a little smaller than my other two, she probably only eats equivilant to one can a day (5.5 ounce size). I mix water in her food also. She does get about 10 kibbles of dry food in the evening, as a snack, because she was so addicted to the stuff, and I do this for her still, since she has never had any issues with bladder problems. 

Your kitty should not lose weight quickly, you don't want that, not healthy, but by putting her on a schedule, of say three small meals a day, like one can a day divided up 3 times, and maybe let her use her kibble as a snack, as I do with my old girl, she will slowly lose that weight and be so much better off. Yes, she is going to drive you nuts and convince you she is dying, I promise you, she will do this. You have to be tough and like I said, even if you have to lock her butt in the bathroom at night, it's worth it. I still run my fan near me to block out the noise that she used to make, just out of habit. We probably had to lock her up for a few months until she got used to the routine. Every now and then she will still wander in at 2:00 am yowling, but I just put that down to being a cat


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## 3gatos (Nov 28, 2012)

I agree with the duck and pea natural balance. It's what I use when my kitties are sick. Palatable and easy on the stomach


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