A diet for a sensitive stomach

[sunnyme_123]

Hi folks,

One of my 9 year olds, Twiggy, has a sensitive stomach. She has always been on Felix pouches, but she can't tolerate that or Wiskas any more.
I have been getting Royal Canin 'Sensitivity Control' pouches for her, and Hills dried food... She absolutely adored the pouches to start with, but just doesn't want to know any more. She eats mainly the dried food, but keeps trying to steal food from our other cat, Bertie - who is still on a normal diet of Felix.

Does anyone have experience of food suitable to sensitive tums?
If I cook chicken for her, she'll have it fresh from the oven, but then doesn't want to know after that either, unless it's from my plate! Cooked chicken from the supermarket doesn't cut the mustard either!

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received!

[MarkB]

The issue is, knowing what they are sensitive to, which can take some detective work. One of mine is sensitive to wheat - which, surprisingly, they put in Royal Canin sensitive. It could be fish in Twiggy's case. Although very cheap, I can recommend Co-op, Tesco, Asda etc own brand pouches. They are cereal free and free from preservatives, colouring etc. Depening on the shop you buy them from, some include fish flavours. When you said Twiggy can't tolerate Whiskas or Felix, do you mean the gravy ones? - the reason is that both include wheat in their gravy foods - unlike the own brand stuff - which appears to be made by the same company in Ireland - they do a jelly mix and a gravy mix - one of the few gravy foods on the market that doesn't contain cereals.

[Crewella]

I agree with Mark. I've had a couple of 'sensitive' cats and found that avoiding fish and cereals (as well as added sugars, colours and preservatives) helped enormously. As Mark suggests (and following his advice) I found most own brand jelly pouches were OK (as long as not fishy), as was Butchers Classic tinned food in jelly, and one of mine did well on RC gastro-intestinal pouches when he first arrived with a dreadful runny tum. For dry food, mine have all done well on Purina One Sensitive.

I did find that a limited diet caused problems in them getting bored and picky, so having a variety of as many possibles as you can really helps to keep them keen. Good luck.

[sunnyme_123]

Hi both, thank you so much for your replies. I will go shopping today for own brand food!
She has always seemed to enjoy the fish flavours, and they do say you crave things that aren't good for you, perversely, don't they?! Like me and blackcurrants She has always been on the jelly pouches rather than gravy, but I will give the own-brand ones a go. Being able to give both of my cats the same food would definitely help with the politics too!

[sunnyme_123]

Well I thought we were all sorted. Twiggy has been fine on Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Sensitive, mostly having the dry food. We had a new bag at the end of last week, coincidence perhaps but since then she has been back to being sick every other day, sometimes flem and bile, sometimes food.

Back to the vet tomorrow afternoon.

[LittlePenBigHeart]

White fish is a good move as well.

My last cat (sadly passed away in February) had tummy troubles. He kept pooing puddles of blood. We switched him to the Royal Canin Sensitivity Control bsicuits, just as you have but obviously it was a bit dull for him. We ended up giving him the biscuits for lunch, then for breakfasts and dinners it would be either chopped chunks of cooked chicken, microwaved frozen white fish, tins of tuna, or a tin of the Gourmet cat food. Obviously the tuna couldn't be given more than a couple of times a week at most because of the mercury but he loved it.

[sunnyme_123]

So sorry for your loss LittlePen.

Yep, boredom of the same food has been a problem already, and I've been supplementing her diet with chicken etc. She does like tuna occassionally, but her absolute favourite seems to be turkey ham!
I'm tempted to try introducing some of the Hills veterinary diet products too, to mix it up a bit, but I'll see what the vet says first.

[AndyMac]

Have you tried Encore cat food - its 100% natural. I give it to my cat now and then as she is a very picky eater and have a lot of different varieties at hand. Its available in Tesco - not sure about the other supermarkets.

[meriad]

Well I thought we were all sorted. Twiggy has been fine on Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Sensitive, mostly having the dry food. We had a new bag at the end of last week, coincidence perhaps but since then she has been back to being sick every other day, sometimes flem and bile, sometimes food.

Back to the vet tomorrow afternoon.

Good luck at the vet today - will be interested to see what they say? Wonder if the bag of food is off? Maybe contact Royal Canin and ask them - they may note something from the batch number?

One of my cats is intolerant to cereals and I find having him on Felix As Good as it looks and Arden Grange dry seems to work fine for him. One item of food that all love but two struggle with is dreamies; not sure what's in them but they get an upset tummy whenever they have them.

Best of luck - it's really a minefield trying to figure this one out

[MarkB]

You have got me wondering now Ria. Ever since we adopted him, Kasper has loved Sainsbury's grain-free Salmon dry food- but has suddenly gone off it. Maybe a bad bag? - I'm nt sure if I should buy more, as previously, he loved it too much. As for Dreamies, I don't give them to Kylie as I am sure they are mainly wheat.

[GillianH]

Arden Grange is very good for cats that have sensitive stomachs.

One of my boys had awful issues when I fed him Applaws. The meat content is very high and it was just too rich for him. I now give him Arden Grange, either the sensitive one or the ordinary chicken one and there have been no more incidents since!

[GillianH]

I should mention that often vets receive a proportion of money from "recommended" foods such as Royal Canin Vet foods purchased from the practice, I have read reviews too of this food which again can be too rich for some cats. It is really a process of elimination (no pun intended!)

[booktigger]

I should mention that often vets receive a proportion of money from "recommended" foods such as Royal Canin Vet foods purchased from the practice, I have read reviews too of this food which again can be too rich for some cats. It is really a process of elimination (no pun intended!)

I also found out last week that vets can only 'promote' one brand or the other - they can order the other one, but can only have a stand for either Hills or RC, not both.