"Low Carb" Dry Cat Food????

Just got in from Petsmart and was perusing the aisles (and aisles and aisles...) of cat food and noticed this one...

http://bluebuffalo.com/cat-food/wilderness-chicken

...it's a dry cat food that is labeled as "Low Carb" and wondered if anyone had looked into it or fed it to any of your cats???

Does anyone know anything about this food? I can NOT keep up with Tiki's hunger as of late and was wondering if this might help when I am gone during the day.

 

I ran it through an online carb calculator and got 24%. My civvies eat EVO chicken dry- 8% carb. My understanding is ALL dry food, even low carb dry food is bad for FD because of the way it's metabolized. Can you use an auto-feeder with canned while you're away?

 

This is a very rough calculation since it's based on the "guaranteed analysis" vs. the "as fed" -- it comes out to over 28% carb. That might be a little high!

 

I ran the numbers and got the same results as Sienne. If you really want to know contact the company and get the "As Fed" or "Dry Matter" numbers rather than the "Guaranteed Analysis" max/min that is all they are required to publish. :roll:

Dr. Lisa discusses lower carb dry food, but there are trade offs. If the link doesn't take you to the right section it's a little over 3/4 down the page. The Evo does seem a better choice, but it is very high calorie.

 

wellness core (11) or evo (7) would be lower carb according to J % B charts

 

I guess I won't bother then and stick to the wet stuff. He is just hungry all the time and I feel bad for him. The other day I gave him 4 cans of FF and he licked every single bowl clean.

 

For many cats, they are ravenous until numbers start to stabilize and they are better regulated. With diabetes, the cells' food, glucose, isn't getting inside the cell. It's floating around in the blood. Since nutrients aren't getting into the cells, your cat is hungry. The more effectively that insulin is working, more glucose will get into the cells and appetite will get back to normal.

How about spreading food out a bit over the cycle?

 

He basically does that for himself - he grazes throughout the day. But it's always GONE the next feeding time, which had been at shot time and then he would get more at bed time but lately it's just been on a ravenous level. He wakes me up by cuffing me, as if to say HELLO I'M HUNGRY!!!

Tonight I gave him a whole can of Friskies - hoping that will tide him over.

In the meantime - why can't I get his numbers down??? I am starting to think it's WATER in that vial...

 

I just want to mention that in cold weather, cats' appetites increase as well. Seems to happen even with my indoor cats, although to a lesser extent. So maybe that's playing a role?

 

That's not alot of food - four 3oz cans adds up to only 12oz.
Before my Oliver was regulated, he was eating upwards of 30oz a day, and Shadoe closed in around 24oz a day.
Now, combined they eat maybe 20oz and some of that is stolen by a civvie Apple.

Before they are regulated, they are unable to extract what they need from the food you feed.
One thing you can do to stretch out the food is to add water to the food, which will help to fill up the cat.

If you were to use an auto feeder, the Petsafe 5section one, you could stretch out the 120z into several 1/2 can servings.

 

Wow - that's a lot of food! I guess I will let him have at it then. Guess somewhere I am just nervous that if I pork him back up it will be bad. I mean isn't the cause of the FD the fact that he was overweight?

 

couple of things to check out because yes, his numbers are still a little high. he might just not be getting a high enough dose of insulin - you've just gone to 1.5 and many cats need more than that.

is your insulin good? take a peek at the sticky on taking care of your lantus and make sure it's ok - was it new on 11/5? pen or vial?

is tiki getting most of his food (and therefore carbs) in the first 4 hours or so of each cycle? that lets the insulin deal with the carbs when it is most effective. depends on the cat, but many see better numbers when most of the food is early in the cycle.

a cat with high numbers is a hungry cat. they call diabetes a starving disease because they are eating a lot but it's not able to get into cells to do its thing. they are also dehydrated cats because they pee out all the fluids they take in. you'll see him eat less when his numbers get into lower ranges.

are you intending to follow the protocol? because if so, you want to adjust dose about every 3rd or so days until you're seeing better numbers. this is the part from the sticky that would apply to you right now (bolding is mine).

so you want to be looking at the nadirs over the previous 5 days or so - the lowest nadir i see on the 1.25 dose was 166 which you held for 23 doses, and many of them were in the 200's. looking at those, you would want to increase the dose by .25 every 6 shots. the risk of holding a dose too long is that cats seem to adjust to higher numbers and want to stay there. looking at his ss, i can't tell when his nadir is, whether it's early or late in the cycle, so you might want to see if you can get several tests in one cycle so that you learn that.

it's good you've increased him this morning - make sure you're staying on top of the testing so if this proves to be The Right Dose, you are there to see it and give him some high carbs if he needs a little help. getting his numbers down will help him feel better (after a couple of days of lower numbers) and will help with that hunger problem.

 

Julie - that last post of yours some how made all SORTS of things go CLICK for me! EPIPHANY central over here!!!! Initially, I was afraid to up his dose as I have been absolutely BURIED at work and have not been able to get many good tests in as I have been working 24/7 lately. That and we have had some absolute battles on the poking scene so I also (weakly) thought some time off would be good for him too. I was afraid to up the dose in case I should need to either be here or attentive to an emergency neither of which were really in the cards but this AM I said to heck with it and did it anyway. He is still breathing!!! So all went well. I guess somewhere I thought along the way the numbers would just start to BE better irregardless of how much insulin he is getting. Maybe not GREAT or PERFECT but at least better. NOPE....

The low and slow thing is always the best way to go, but I can't help but wonder if my vet was right in the beginning where I just should have started him out at 2 units and we would be so much further along by now.

20/20 hindsight I guess....LOL

 

well, super! sometimes i just throw out ideas and hope something hits the target, even if it's not a bulls-eye!!! :lol:

seriously, though, the great thing about this diabetes dance is that you get to do it all again tomorrow! so there's no kicking yourself for hindsight, it's all gathering information for the next day/stage. now you have some ideas for helping tiki get back on track. because cats are all so different, a lot of what you're doing in this first stage is learning about YOUR cat and what affects him. you'll be an expert in no time!