Hey!

Our kitten came to us (from the shelter) on Purina ONE kitten kibble. They said to buy any wet food, so we chose Wellness Kitten. He had no issues. But once the Purina ONE ran out, I was shopping around for a new kitten food. The vet recommended Science Diet, so I bought that wet food and Eukanuba dry. The kitten had constantly loose stools, which is nasty if he steps in it in his litter box - which he does!! So I ordered Chicken Soup for the Soul both wet and dry kitten food. It took forever to arrive, so in the meantime we needed a little dry food because we were running low.....so we got a sample of ACANA grain-free cat food (all life stages)...it just lasted a few days while we waited for the Chicken Soup for the Soul to arrive....but the kitten's litterbox trouble was fine! No more runny stools!

Trouble is, I can't find ACANA anywhere and it's not available online. So anyways - the Chicken Soup food arrived and he's been on the Chicken Soup wet and dry kitten food for a few weeks now. Nasty, loose stools! He just stepped in it this morning and got it all over his paw.

I don't really know what to do when it's time to reorder kitten food. Should I just go back to the Purina ONE and the Wellness kitten? Wellness is kinda pricey, and we're trying to cut back on our spending. But I mean...I can't keep having these nasty poop issues.

Anyone have any suggestions of a kitten food that worked, especially anyone who has/had a kitten with loose stool issues? This is my first kitten so I really know nothing about cats.

Thanks!!! :)

I'd go with what works, and if the Purina ONE is working, go with it. I am not familiar with that particular grain-free food, but I have yet to find a discount grain-free food, so I doubt the ACANA would do much to save you money. I'd stick with the Purina ONE and Wellness if that is agreeing with the kitten.

I would agree. You want to stick with what agrees with the kitten's tummy. You didn't mention if you did a transition from one food to the other. Abrupt changes in diet can cause tummy troubles and lead to loose stool. If it doesn't stop you'll want to consult your vet. Poor kitten! I hope he's feeling better!

Yeah we did super slow transitions....but the nasty loose stools are basically almost constant. The only time, since switching from Purina ONE, that he didn't have them was on the ACANA sample pack (lasted about a week)....but like I said - I can't find that anywhere. I think we're definitely gonna just go back to Purina ONE...I feel kinda guilty though, since our dog is on really good foods (Orijen, EVO, etc). But it doesn't seem like the good foods are really agreeing with the kitten!

I have run into alot of issues with Purina.. there are so many additives and just overall crap in the in food that my cat now has food allergies.

I have permanently switched to http://www.californianaturalpet.com/ which is working fantastically for my babies...

Also check out: http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/pages/Petsumer-Report.html

Read what is really in your pets food... I couldn't believe the absolute crap thats in the "brand name cheap stuff at Petsmart"

Here's a sample of their report for Eagle (which is good too)
Petsumer Report^TM Review of the Month
November 2008 Petsumer Report reviews 16 products from Bil-Jac Pet Foods - six dog foods, 4 dog treats, 3 cat foods, and 3 cat treats; 17 products from Eagle Pack Pet Foods - eleven dog foods, 3 dog treats, 3 cat foods; and 19 products from Nutro Pet Foods - 10 dog foods, and 9 cat foods; a total of 54 new products added this month. Petsumer Report^TM Online now has a total of 326 cat foods, 29 cat treats, 441 dog foods, and 93 dog treats reviewed. A grand total of 889 pet product reviews; providing subscribers with valuable information such as grade or quality of meat ingredients, U.S. or imported ingredients, red flag ingredients such as Menadione or BPA, and health promoting ingredients. If you're not a subscriber...you should be. It's very affordable, helps TruthAboutPetFood.com continue to provide pet food education, and most importantly helps you find healthier pet food choices for your dog or cat.

Eagle Pack Pet Foods
Holistic Select Ocean Fish & Tuna Canned Cat Food
Ingredients: Ocean Fish, Fish Broth, Chicken, Chicken Liver, Tuna,Rolled Oats, Carrots, Peas, Potatoes, Guar Gum, Brewers Dried Yeast, Dried Egg Product, Cranberry Powder, Flaxseed, Dried Kelp, Choline Chloride, Carrageenan, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Taurine, Vitamins & Minerals.
Red Flag Ingredients: None
US Only Ingredients: Yes with exception of Duck from Germany, Lamb from New Zealand, some vitamin B's and glucosamine from China
Natural Preservatives: Canned N/A
Shelf Life: 3 Years
Crude Protein: 9% Crude Fat: 6.5% Crude Fiber: 1% Moisture: 78%
Plus: The Eagle Pack Representative told me the ingredients are human grade/quality. The mineral listings do read to be chelated or proteinated (for better mineral absorption). This pet food contains several quality animal protein sources - Ocean Fish, Chicken, Chicken Liver, Tuna, Egg. Contains Flax Seed & Kelp - quality ingredients.
Minus:
Rating: <img alt="paw print" width="48" height="48"><img alt="paw print" width="48" height="48"><img alt="paw print" width="48" height="48"><img alt="paw print" width="48" height="48">
Rating Note: The highest rating for a canned pet food is 4 paw prints - due to high moisture content of all canned pet foods.
For more information on Eagle Pack Pet Foods visit http://www.eaglepack.com/ (http://www.eaglepack.com/)
To explain the rating - only the first five ingredients - the majority of the food - are rated and listed in bold type. Grey Font ingredients imply inferior quality ingredients providing pets little to no nutrition, and Red Font ingredients are Red Flag ingredients that are potentially dangerous to pets. Quality ingredients are listed in bold black font. Five quality ingredients gives the pet food a five Paw Print rating. Four quality ingredients gives the pet food a four Paw Print rating, and so forth. Four Paw Prints is the highest rating possible for a canned pet food.
Petsumer Report^TM provides reviews similar to the above on almost 900 dog foods, cat foods, and pet treats. Petsumer Report is not downloaded to your computer. All subscribers access Petsumer Report^TM through a User Name and Password system. If you have not subscribed to Petsumer Report^TM and would like to - http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/pages/Petsumer-Report.html
(http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/pages/Petsumer-Report.html)





Pet Products that I Use

The most common question I hear from pet owners…’What pet food do you recommend?’ I’ve always hesitated to answer this question because I do not want to be perceived as endorsing any particular company. However the truth of the matter is that I DO support the pet food companies that use quality ingredients, from safe sources. I support their efforts of providing pets with a quality food or treat. These companies are the ones that should be thriving, instead of struggling to compete with the advertising strength of others. These companies depend solely on their quality and word of mouth advertising instead of television advertising. In fact, most can’t afford television advertising.

Every time I see a television commercial for a pet food that I know contains little more than waste, leftover from the processing of human food, I cringe. Every time I go into Wal-Mart or Target or Sam’s Club I purposely try to avoid the pet food aisles. I can barely keep my mouth shut when I see pet owners unknowingly spending their hard earned money on dog food or cat food made from ingredients they would NEVER intentionally feed their pet.

The FDA clearly supports large pet food manufacturing instead of protecting pet owners. The FDA blatantly ignores Federal law with pet food, and no one with authority seems to care. Federal law clearly states that NO food can be falsely labeled or have a misleading label, however the FDA allows pet food to “make misleading claims, either directly or indirectly” on a pet food label. A ‘misleading claim’ is no different than a misleading label. Many pet foods make claims such as ‘Premium’ or ‘Choice’ or ‘Natural’, but when the truth is known, these foods are far from premium, choice, or natural. Many of these ‘Premium’ pet foods contain cow and chicken intestines and worse. Innocent pet owners purchase these products believing what the dog food or cat food label tells them; believing that the FDA is protecting their pet.

There are many quality minded pet food manufacturers, unfortunately again because of regulations that guide pet food, those quality minded companies are hindered from telling customers the truth about their pet foods and treats. Many pet food manufacturers use the same quality/grade of meat that you purchase for your family; many more use a grade of meat known as pet grade/quality. Despite Federal law, a pet grade of meat can be from any 4-D animal; an animal that is/was diseased, dying, dead, or disabled. Even though there is a huge quality difference between a ‘pet grade’ and ‘human grade’ of meat, existing pet food regulations do NOT allow a manufacturer to tell you which one they use. Every petsumer – pet owning consumer – deserves to know exactly what they are feeding their pet.

On that note, below is a short list of products that I provide my own pets and the companies I purchase from. If these products are not for you, Petsumer Report Online (http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/pages/Petsumer-Report.html) now provides a separate list of all of the dog foods, cat foods, and pet treats that I like and feel comfortable recommending to others.

Pet Food
I purchase my dog food and cat food and their treats from HealthyPetNet via the Internet and the 6 Fresh Fish food from Orijen locally. My dog eats Life’s Abundance dry, the Orijen Dry, and Life’s Abundance canned Turkey and Shrimp. My cat eats the Life’s Abundance dry (cat food) from HPN, Orijen 6 Fresh Fish Dry, and the canned HPN Instinctive Choice. Kirby (my dog) also eats the Porkhide bones.

I’ve been feeding the HPN food for over 4 years. Several things about this company make the difference for me…
• They use all US ingredients.
• They use all human grade/quality ingredients.
• And they can provide proof of the above. HealthyPetNet has gone to the effort of obtaining APHIS (Animal Plant Health Inspection Services – a division of the USDA) European certification. Any pet food that is made in the US that is shipped to Europe must have this certification that requires all ingredients to be of human grade/quality. HPN does not ship pet food to Europe, they go to the trouble of obtaining this certification to prove to customers the quality of ingredients. Plus, this certification requires that not only is the pet food manufacturing plant inspected, all vendors are inspected as well, by the USDA. Very few pet food manufacturers bother to have this certification.
• They control all warehousing of the pet foods, treats, and supplements. With almost every other pet food made, once the product leaves the manufacturer, they have no control as to how safely the pet food is warehoused; if it is subjected to pesticides, rodents, and/or extreme heat. The Petco warehouse problem earlier this year is the perfect example of what can go wrong. HPN on the other hand has three of their own warehouses across the country; all pest control is done outside the warehouse. The products are shipped directly from these controlled warehouses to customers front doors.
• Every customer is in a database with emails and phone numbers. No pet food company is perfect; all are subject to human error. Typical pet food recalls are announced very slowly through the FDA and then the media. HPN on the other hand can/could alert pet owners directly, immediately through email; hopefully preventing a serious problem should human error occur.
• The pet food formulator, Dr. Jane Bicks, speaks directly to customers, potential customers, and representatives every week on a national conference call. This is the ONLY company that I am aware of that allows customers to speak directly to, and ask questions directly to, the scientist that develops the products. If I ever have a question about the food or the treats with regards to my pets – I can ask the Veterinarian that knows every ingredient of the food; instead of trying to make sense of what a telephone spokes person tells me and that’s after waiting on hold for five minutes after each question. She’s not Miss Personality like those you speak with at other pet food companies, but she’s direct, straight forward, and honest; she tells me what I need to know.
• The foods use proteinated minerals (for better absorption), provide probiotics (friendly bacteria to help promote a strong immune system), and other health promoting ingredients.

There are many pet foods that I like, that have similar ingredients, some even have a few more ingredients of quality. But in my experience, none offer the complete package that this company does. This is why I’ve stayed with this company, purchasing their foods and treats for over 4 years.

Below is a link to independent Reps of this company. You can contact the Representative from their website – click on the ‘Contact Us’ link – should you have any questions. Please direct questions to the Independent Rep, not me.
http://www.petsumerreport.com/hpnclickhere.htmlhttp://www.petsumerreport.com/hpnclickhere.html <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- Begin rnd.today=new Date(); rnd.seed=rnd.today.getTime(); function rnd() { rnd.seed = (rnd.seed*9301+49297) % 233280; return rnd.seed/(233280.0); }; function rand(number) { var result = Math.ceil(rnd()*number); if (!result)result++; return result }; var ad_cnt1 = 8; var ad1 = rand(ad_cnt1); var link1; var adBanner1; var width1 var height1 if (ad1==1) { link1="http://www.healthypetnet.com/HealthyPetNet/Home.aspx?realname=40050026&Ath=False&hdr=&cat=0"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==2) { link1="http://www.ritashealthypetnet.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==3) { link1="http://www.mikeshealthypets.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==4) { link1="http://www.donnashealthypets.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==5) { link1="http://www.trilogyonline.com/sheatina"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==6) { link1="http://www.lovehealthypets.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==7) { link1="http://www.allabouthealthypets.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==8) { link1="http://www.trilogyonline.com/dianebeland"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==8) { link1="http://www.healthypetsforever.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } if (ad1==8) { link1="http://www.livinghealthypeopleandpets.com"; adBanner1="http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif"; width1="220"; height1="50"; alt1="Healthy Pet Net - Click Here"; } document.write('<center>'); document.write('http://www.lab-retriever.net/board/' + adBanner1 + ' (http://www.lab-retriever.net/board/' + link1 + ')'); document.write('</center>'); // End --> </script>
<center>http://www.petsumerreport.com/HPN%20click%20here.gif (http://www.livinghealthypeopleandpets.com/)</center>
I've been feeding the Orijen Fresh Fish dog and cat foods for a few months too; providing a little variety for my pets. It is less convenient to me to go out to purchase this food (sure wish they offered it online), but the quality of the food is great.

Water
I’ve done quite a bit of research on electrolyzed water. http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/2/1/Is-Mars-Pet-Care-Not-Washing-Their-Hands/Page1.html. I firmly believe that this water can not only benefit pets, but people too. My entire family – those with two legs, four legs, and those with feathers – all drink this water daily. While one day I hope to have an electrolyzed water system installed in my home, for now we use Earth’s Balance concentrated water.
The product we use is called Fitness Fuel. The company makes a dog, cat, bird, and people version; however they are all the same. So, I purchase the human product only.
Link to people Fitness Fuel: http://www.earthsbalance.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=55&idaffiliate=25

Link to pet Fitness Fuel:
http://www.earthsbalance.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=39&idaffiliate=25 (http://www.earthsbalance.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=39&idaffiliate=25%20)

Probiotics
The best probiotic I’ve found is from www.mightymicrobes.com (http://www.mightymicrobes.com/). My dog, cat, and I take this product daily. It doesn’t taste very good, I mix it in cranberry juice for myself. I add it to canned food for the pets.

Fish Oil
The same company that sells the Life’s Abundance pet foods, also has a line of very good ‘people’ products. Sealogix Pharmaceutical grade fish oil is NOT cheap, but it is a very pure fish oil which is extremely important. If you have interest in this fish oil, the same individuals that represent HPN – links above – can provide you with information about this product. My pets and myself, takes fish oil daily. FYI – if you would like to read a great book on the benefits of fish oil, read ‘The Omega Rx Zone’ by Dr. Barry Sears.

<link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5 Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List">Bug Control in the house<o:p></o:p>
I hated using chemicals around my pets and my kids, but considering I live in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state> where bugs can take over your house and can literally carry away small pets and children, I used chemicals. But now, no more chemicals! I now use an electronic pest control gadget. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful I think these things are; needless to say, they work. You plug it into an electrical outlet and you are done.

Link to GoodLife electronic pest control Click Here (http://www.goodlifecompany.com/shopaff.asp?affid=1&directurl=http://www.pestrepellerultimate.net/pest_repeller_ultimate_at.htm)