purina dm wet alternative

hello everybody,
My cat is still on a purina DM wet diet. I have been reading how there are cheaper (my cat eats 3-4 cans/day and is very expensive for me) and better options on the commercial can food market and breaking my head over janet's and brinky's table. It seems to be that two alternatives jump out: the merrick cowboy cookout and the nine lives tuna flakes in sause. In terms of prot/fat/carbs these are the numbers for both: 52/42/5 (merrick) and 69-29-2 (nine lives). Merrick is double the price of nine lives ($22 versus $11 for 24 cans of 5.5 ounces). To be honest, the nine lives option seems to good to be true. Does anybody know anything more about this? Are there any options I am missing? I like a lot of proteins, not too much fat and of course very low in carbs. I wish I could afford raw meat but I can't. I worry that the nine lives numbers are off, 69% proteins and only 2% carbs is crazy and sounds like a too good to be true deal.
Any opinions?
thanks so much and happy holidays!
kiwi and sandra

 

Well depending on how low you want to go in carbs...Yep 9-lives is really that low, but my diabetic Max will hurl everytime I feed it, and up until a few days ago I had one guy that was allergic to fish. (he passed due to a brain tumor). So not much tuna served here.

But I do have 10 cats, 9 civies and 1 OTJ diabetic. Everyone here eats either 9-lives or Friskies on Binky's list that are 8% or lower in carbs. Max (my diabetic) is doing great on it. Not a single one of my cats would eat the DM. To feed 10 it runs me about $4.50/day. We feed about 12 (5.5 oz) cans a day. Trust me no one is starving here either on that as 3 of my boys are well over 15lbs and Max is catching up fast. ( 10.5 when adopted a month ago, 13.5 now).

Although we put it to a vote today and paws down all 10 like Friskies over 9-lives ...of course they would as Friskies is slightly more expensive...lol They all would love me more if I would hand over the Fancy Feast but I'm not popping 24 cans a day. So they have to suffer with a bad mommy that makes them eat Friskies.

Mel & Max.

If you want the exact list of flavors I feed send me a PM and I'll give you the run down.

 

There are an absolute TON of options...anything under approximately 7 to 10% of the calories from carbs as a start...I would stay away from foods that are made entirely of fish. From there you look at biproducts vs muscle meat, other additives, fat content, affordability and whether your cat will actually eat it.

 

Spitzer seems to be doing OK on the Friskies Turkey and Giblets mixed w/ the Special Kitty Turkey, and we may be switching entirely to the Special Kitty as it is lower in carbs.

 

I can't help laughing when I imaging you busy popping cans with 10 cats all meowing loud around you...

 

Thank you so much for your replies. It takes getting used to the fact that cheaper food might be of better quality that the purina dm. My worry about the friskies is that those that are low in carbs seem high in fat. Should I worry about fat content? I hadn't even considered the fact that my cat might not even like the food (sofar he has been eating anything that he was ever presented with) so we will have to experiment, thanks for bringing that to my attention. Is there a problem with not feeding enough carbs? Is 2% too low? What is the problem with fish?

 

Fish has mercury and just like humans, tuna should be limited to once or twice a week. The other issue with cats is that some kitties decide fish is all they want to eat, once they get a taste, and that you have trouble varying their diet.

I didn't worry about the fat content. I do think if your kitty has kidney issues, you would look at that closer.

2% is fine as is 0% - just not all fish.

 

thanks so much, it does make a lot of sense with regards to the fish. Kiwi does not have kidney issues. He did have pancreatitis when first diagnosed.

 

When I searched, I find that pancreatitis might warrant lower fat also: http://petdiabetes.wikia.com/wiki/Pancreatitis

 

i have come to find that the petsmart brand sophisicat is working very well for us....
i have 2 cats that eat this and i get the huge soup can size (i think 13 oz) of the turkey and giblets and the mixed grill and i use roughly one can a day for the two of them....i actually havent purchased food in over 2 weeks....very moist and they love it...
and its actually saved me alot of money, the big cans are 78cents...his levels have stay consistantly lower on this kind (i think both are zero carbs)

 

That petdiabetes wiki site is very good. Yes it seems that for cats with diabetics/pancreatitis it might be better not to give them too much fat. It's a problem because most commercial foods that are both low on fat and on carbs seem to be made of fish. So I was thinking that I will have to mix things up, giving him fish once in a while, some low carb meat ones with a bit more fat and maybe continue also give him the purina dm that does not have too much fat either. One more question that I have, is it actually ok to give cats food from different brands? Assuming that you introduce each new brand slowly with additional BG testing?

 

We tried to feed Yittle the expensive stuff early on, he wouldn't have any of it. Hated it all with passion. We ended up feeding him Friskies, 9-lives and Fancy Feast. With 7 cats it wasn't feasible to feed them all Fancy Feast so what we did was feed everyone breakfast and dinner of 9-lives or Friskies. Yittle then got the leftover bit from those meals as a later meal, and we'd pop open a can of Fancy Feast for the rest of his 6-12 meals a day. (I know... but he prefered smaller meals more often and simply would not consume more then 1/2 a can of FF or 1/4 a can of Friskies at a time. Usually he'd eat 2/3-3/4 of that serving and not even finish it).

So in any given day he'd have 3 brands of cat food, slightly more of it being some chicken, turkey or beef flavor, with about 1/4 being some sort of chicken/fish blend and the other 1/4 fish. We did limit tuna to a few small servings a week or less then 10% of his diet. Slightly more fish then some people prefer but he did well on it and ended up in diet controlled remission for the last 6 months of his life before he died of cancer.

We never found any issues with swapping it up that much brand wise. What we did was keep a list of each brand's flavors that he would eat and its relative carb content. We would then pick what flavor he got based on his blood sugar at the time. If he was running high it would be a 0-2% flavor, normal would be 3-7% carbs, and if it was a bit lower then we'd go 8-10% carbs. Plus we kept some 14-18% on hand for when he was going off Lantus and he'd start to hypo on us to announce it was time to drop the dose. We kept a diary of what brand/flavor he was eating at every single meal and how much he ate. Trust me when I say there was no pattern except those based purely on carb content.

 

DM is convenient and the work has alreay been done for you, but it is expensive, the cats get bored with the same thing, the ingredients are not particularly high quality, and it does contain too much liver to be a good sole food source. Lots of commercial brands are better and more expensive, but lots are better and less expensive.

If it eases your mind at all, the patent holder for wet Purina DM (Dr. Hodgkins) tells her own patients to skip the DM and use Fancy Feast or Friskies.

Oh- and to answer your other question, yes- feel free to mix and match brands. I routinely buy Special Kitty, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Compliments and President's Choice.

 

So for the last 3 meals I have been replacing a little bit of purina DM with nine lives tuna flakes in sauce to see how Kiwi reacts to it and this morning he is ill, lethargic and vomitting. His BG was a little higher than usual (281, usually he stays in low 200's), I tested for kitones (though not directly yet, I found wet urine in the litter box which is not as reliable but he hasn't peed yet) and no kitones. I did get him to eat a little bit of dry purina dm that my vet gave me once and so could give him his shot. I am very worried because he has been DKA in the beginning he was diagnosed and this is how he behaved. I gave him 1/4 of 10 mg of pepcid. I hope that it is the change in diet that caused him to be ill. Of course this happens on a saturday when my vet is closed and the only option at the moment would be to take him to the emergency hospital where the fees are huge.