dgk,
I would get her off of those foods you are feeding now, and this
includes ANY dry food, and try one flavor of Wellness (turkey, for
example). Wellness has very high quality, highly digestible ingredients
and zero grains, which is important as grains can be a *major* problem
for some cats. Switching foods all the time isn't going to help you
figure out which one is problematic and may actually be making things
worse, and it's better to start off with one brand and one flavor. I
would also recommend that for at least a few days you take her off of
*all* cat food and feed her a homemade diet specifically formulated to
deal with diarrhea. The amounts are as follows:

6 oz. ground turkey (boil and drain off water)
400 mg calcium carbonate
1/10 of a human multivitamin tablet

This will provide 284 calories, 30. 1 grams protein, and 17.3 grams fat.

Once the diarrhea has cleared up give 2 bonemeal tablets (10 grain or
equivalent) instead of the calcium carbonate.

Then you can try *slowly* mixing in Wellness a little at a time and see
if you can keep her diarrhea under control.

There are a lot of people on the IBD list that have switched to this
food and been able to manage the IBD better than with anything else
other than feeding a raw diet. If you are free feeding dry food stop
that immediately and get Jackie on scheduled meals of only canned or the
diet above so her digestive system gets a break. She doesn't need to eat
all day to maintain her weight. As long as she's getting enough calories
that's all that matters, and for her feeding 15 calories per pound will
be enough to maintain her weight. If she still has soft stools once you
make the switch you can try adding some plain canned pumpkin into
Jackie's food and adding a little slippery elm as a regular thing won't
hurt either. It does come in capsule form and adding a half capsule to
each meal would help.  

You might also want to check out http://www.catnutrition.org for info on
IBD and feeding home prepared meals.
I hope I've given you a place to start.

Megan

                                   

Hi there,

I don't know about the prednisone, but sounds like cutting back on so
many kinds of food is key.

I haven't heard the whole story on what is wrong with Jackie. We had a
cat with tricky digestion, possibly IBD. The vet put him on prescription
wet food, the kind used for cats with food allergies. I believe it was
IVD (it was awhile ago.) It contains one uncommon starch like peas, and
one protein. That really helped Bob.

I think buying lots of foods and charting them is a bit much. I've found
that most healthy cats will eat what's there when hungry enough.

As for the sick ones, our IBD/digestive problem kitties, that can take a
bit more work. If a cat gets an upset stomach after eating, many times
they will blame the food and not touch that kind again. We fought many
food aversions with Bob. The flare-ups were normally pancreatitus and
not related to the food, but he didn't know that. We had to be creative
-- like switch him to a different flavor of IVD and coax him at times.

It's good to transition them over gradually when switching foods. I know
switching them from one to another too quickly will give them mucousy
diarrhea. I accidentally did that to just-weaned kittens. Instead of
having them on one, good food, I put out three kinds and let them pick!
Yikes.

Good luck getting your kitties into a nice, stable diet.

Rhonda

him one in the puss. All five pounds of her smacked a cat twice her size and
sent him running. He has not forgotten.

I have noticed that females often dominate males in this way, from watching
my friends' cats. One got married and his wife brought an ancient female
persian to live with him and his big burly tom. The female slapped the tom
into submission the first day, and it was hilarious to watch him slink
around to avoid him.