Changed Food & Now More Litterbox Odor?

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alanryder@aol.com - 06 Jul 2006 04:00 GMT

I just changed from a mostly corn and chicken by products meal dry
food, to another dry food that's healthier with table grade chicken and
chicken meal as the first ingredients. It's called Healthwise. My cat
loves it but there is a lot more odor from his litterbox. Is this
normal? Does it mean the food doesn't agree with him? Will it get any
better? He seems to also eat more of it. I thought cats ate less if the
food was of a higher grade, and supplied more nutrients. Thanks!

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Ted Davis - 06 Jul 2006 16:41 GMT

>I just changed from a mostly corn and chicken by products meal dry
>food, to another dry food that's healthier with table grade chicken and
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>better? He seems to also eat more of it. I thought cats ate less if the
>food was of a higher grade, and supplied more nutrients. Thanks!

Like as not, his breath stinks now too.

I feed a lot of cats, and have found that the real tests of a cat food
are "do the cats thrive" and "how much breath and litter odor", "how
fresh is it". I feed Walmart's house brand, Special Kitty - the first
ingredient is chicken byproducts meal. Fourteen of my fifteen cats
and kittens are thriving, only Spooky (elderly, ill, and missing
several teeth) isn't (even though he gets supplementary gooshy food),
and only one stinks. Most of the other brands I've tried have a
higher stink rate - some of the expensive brands had the highest stink
rate (which is fortunate since I can't afford to feed expensive food
to so many cats).

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T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu)

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Kiran - 06 Jul 2006 17:14 GMT

: I just changed from a mostly corn and chicken by products meal dry
: food, to another dry food that's healthier with table grade chicken and
: chicken meal as the first ingredients. It's called Healthwise. My cat
: loves it but there is a lot more odor from his litterbox. Is this
: normal? Does it mean the food doesn't agree with him? Will it get any
: better?

Very gradually, change to a good quality *canned* food: quality
protein, low carbs (<10% of total calories), low phosphorous. Use dry
for occasional treat or change of taste. That would be best for your
cat

: He seems to also eat more of it. I thought cats ate less if the
: food was of a higher grade, and supplied more nutrients. Thanks!

He may like the taste of this brand more. Also, he is getting a lot of
carbs with dry. They are junk calories for cat bodies, like potato
chips would be to you, so he is not satiated.

According to <http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/dryfood.html> this
formulation has 31% carb calories. In nature a cat would get around 3%
calories from carbs.

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