Don't want to be an alarmist...but if you have Cats on this food please monitor them..

[KoKo]

Since the cat food recalls my cats have been on Francy Feast because Purina had not recalled any of their food. Their website said they did not use the "wheat gluten" from China in their products and all their products were made here in the US. All my cats for years have eaten Purina products but the Fancy feast seemed to have less byproducts in them so I switched them over.

This Sunday both my cats stopped eating their Purina "Fancy Feast" and one of them would only eat a little of her dry Purina (I give a little chrunchies to the one of them because she likes it) the other one is 15 years old and has some kidney problems so he only gets wet food. By this morning my younger kitty was vomiting white foamy fluid and my cat with the kidney problems was listless and looking like he was going to go into kidney failure.

I just got back from my vet and she gave them some fluids and an appetite stimulus along with the KD Diet (that they never eat) and said to watch them for 24 hours.

Why I'm posting this is that both cats wouldn't go near the three flavors of Fancy Feast (that are the ones they always eat) for two days. What I did notice is that the three flavors for some reason all looked the exact same whereas they have all been different consistencies and colors in the past. They were very dry instead of being moist, also. None of them had any off odors that I could detect but cats somehow sensed something.

These are the flavors you might want to watch out for if your cat is on "Fancy Feast:" Turkey & Giblets, Liver and Chicken Feast and Gourmet Chicken.

Neither of my cats ever go outdoors or are around other cats so it would seem it was the food. I'm going to send a query to Purina...but wanted other DU'ers to be alerted. No one needs to be having sick kitties and pay $127.00 in vet bills because of tainted food.

[Why Syzygy]

1. Don't know about FF,

but, I'm receiving a refund from Iams because my cat won't eat it. They offer 100% satisfaction guarantee.

A food called "Aristocats" (Disney) evidently provoked an alarming allergy reaction, wherein he coughed and hacked all day and night.

Check Fancy Feast website and see if they have a guarantee. It may be that you got bad batches?

[MADem]

2. My poor dead cat ate fancy feast. He liked it, too.

He died before those food scares.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. You might want to contact Fancy Feast

and let them know, at the very least, about the difference in color and consistency in these cans. Take photos if possible.

[havocmom]

6. and if OP still has cans/labels, might be good to include any #s on them

If there is a bad batch, the numbers may help ID the problems. Purina foods have been pretty reliable. Hate to thing that company has gotten generally bad too. Perhaps it was a batch problem.

[KoKo]

15. I just e-mailed Purina at their site and put in the Product Codes & Manufacturing

Codes. If I don't hear from them I will call them at the phone number on the can. It's really upsetting to think we can't trust any products these days. Even ones we've used for years. Purina might not have been using products from other countries back during the pet food recall but I notice they are now called "Nestle/Purina" and I know that I've read complaints here on DU about Nestle using some stuff from China in their products. It could be melamine or tained chiken from some part of the world they are using now. Or, maybe even tainted chicken from here in America. I always wondered what they did with the tainted beef and chicken when there were recalls. :-( Since Bush they don't even worry about lawsuits. His "tort reform" seems to have taken the fear factor out of any company having liabilities that are enough to scare them.

[GreenPartyVoter]

64. Keep us posted on what they say.

[islandmkl]

4. i hope all turns out okay...

the food supply questions are scary...and we know that pet food has a built-in 'excuse' since it is being consumed by 'animals'...when an animal won't touch food you know something is up...i always imagine some corpexec just shrugging and saying, "What's the f***ing cat going to do, complain?"

thankfully, you caught the situation before it advanced...

[No.23]

5. Just want to recommend...

Nutro to anyone who has a four legged friend at home.

We've been fostering for several years... tried several brands.. and Nutro is a good one to use.

The stools tell it all.

:)

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. I just googled Nutro....many customer complaints popped up.

I was not happy to find Sciece Diet on the China melamine list either.

I think what I used to know as a good pet food brand has had formula changes, now that most everything comes from China.
We use rice and meat scraps a lot more for all the fur children, mixed into their dry food, no canned food anymore.
Oh, and Brewer's yeast. Always have used that.

[No.23]

14. I shoud've added a caveat...

to my recommendation.

Nutro is a good stool solidifier and maintainer of firm stools.

Many of the cats and dogs that I've fostered have had stool problems.

And Nutro brought them back to the world of firm stools.

I'm referring to the hard Nutro cat and dog food, not the canned items.

I didn't use canned food for my fostered friends.

[GardeningGal]

21. Just an FYI ...... my dogs ate Nutro for a few years

Then one of them started having seizures. They only eat dry dog food and it was not on any of the recall lists. I switched them to Innova and the seizures went away and he is not on any medication.

[No.23]

25. Thanks for the FYI.

I'll remember that should I ever return to fostering four legged friends again.

I had to stop because my daughter wanted to adopt every cat and dog that we were fostering.

Thanks again.

[DeschutesRiver]

30. Same with Nutro and the seizures

Right before the recall, the Nutro was giving both my older dogs light vomiting and their water intake increased dramatically. My dh's boy dog had had mild seizures for years, but his sister had none until right before the recall. She had her first and it wasn't like her brothers - it was violent and bad and scary and took her more than a week of severe disorientatin to recover. At that time, I quit feeding Nutro and was so scared I started them on a homemade diet.

My girl (age 12 then) had one more horrific seizure episode at the end of Nov 2007; then an even worse one in February, 2008 from which she never recovered, dying here at home a week later (almost 13 then). So seizures started for her late; yet her brother who'd had mild ones since he was 5 has never had another one since I switched foods, almost two years.

What I know from the breeder that my dogs littermates ended up with some that were seizure prone, so we had was a litter with a genetic defect. Of our two from that litter, our boy developed them at 5 and his sister not until 12 (which is unusual). I think some tainted ingredient in the Nutro was a trigger for a dog who is prone to seizures (explaining why our boy begain seizing at 5, yet once the Nutro was stopped, has remained seizure free for 2 years. And his seizures had actually been increasing in frequency from 10-12). I think my girl's seizure threshold, for a dog from a seizure prone family tree, might have been higher than her brothers and unaffected by the food until there was some serious increase in the seizure causing ingredient. And that at her age, it did more damage such that she just couldn't recover fully.

Her brother will be 14 in May - for his age and size (80+ pounds), he is pretty healthy. I still can't believe his seizures switched off like a lightswitch. He goes for a walk daily, even in the snow, and runs fast enough that we cannot keep up with him (and he is deaf to boot!). He is definitely aging fast, and won't be with us for long enough, but he is a happy old fart. But I know in my heart now that had it not been for that bad batch of food, my best ever girl dog's bad part of the gene pool probably would have never activated itself, and she'd still be here running with her elderly brother. At the time, I thought was giving her the best food out there, and instead, I fed her stuff that ultimately caused her death. Thinking it through now, I would never take the risk again of feeding a dog food that I hadn't researched fully or knew with confidence that they wouldn't cut corners on what was put into it. Until things went wrong, it just didn't occur to me that pet food was an industry first and foremost. By the time I understood that, it was too late for my girl. I am still sick in the heart about it.

Since these events, I have read a lot online re the propensity of some dogs on Nutro (and I've heard it about Iams as well, which is what we fed prior to Nutro) to develop seizures, even after eating it safely for months or years. So I am betting some kind of cost cutting happens now and again which allows something bad to be introduced to batches of those foods. Nutro can't afford ingredient X, so they substitute X from a cheaper source, who probably gets the protein ingredient cheaper because they buy rendered animals with medications in their systems that should not be used even for dog food. Dogs who may react adversely to this then become sick or develop seizures. If better ingredients are available, then the Nutro goes back to being safe for awhile. After all, for some companies, my beloved dogs are just a money making business.

It is up to me to figure out what is safe or not, and not just make assumptions anymore. There are responsible companies out there, you just have to dig up the facts, and then keep up to date on whether anything has changed for them and their business model.

[appleannie1]

57. My cat won't eat ANYTHING except dry cat food. Not even tuna, salmon,chicken livers or shrimp.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

62. There's lots of great dry foods out there

Evo, Innova, even Wellness.

[paulsby]

69. my cat

(the psychotic one) will eat practically anything.

he frigging LOVES gouda, for instance. i can't eat it without him trying to steal it out of my hand/mouth.

i think he is part deer, because if anything has salt in it, he goes right for it. he licks the bottom of my popcorn bowl. not sure if it's the butter or salt.

we give our cats a small portion of fancy feast each night, to supplement their dry food.

thx for the info.

[tblue37]

72. I said in an earlier post that my younger cats don't like table scraps, but

that's not entirely, true. My Paris also loves salty snacks: popcorn, saltines, chips. She ahs to have two or three pieces of popcorn whenever I have it, and the equivalent of one chip, broken into pieces.

Another cat I had before she died at 19 loved saltines. Whenevr I had soup, she ate a whole saltine square, broken into pieces. She also liked stir-fried vegetables.

I had a Tonkinese who loved tomato juice and apples, chewed into chunks and handfed to him. They do love to be waited on that way. He also liked tomato sauce, which he preferred to lick off pasta rather than having it separately.

[tblue37]

71. LOL--I have two young cats who really like their dry catfood, but my 16-year-old

cat likes wet catfood, too (and she loves table scrap treats!).

My younger cats don't like the wet much, or table scraps at all, but they demand that I offer wet food to them, too, when I feed Lila--they just seem to like the routine. They will nibble a tiny taste and then walk away or go to their dry food bowl. But every time Lila gets her wet food, Tango and Paris are there demanding theirs, too--even though they are never going to eat more than a tiny taste of it.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

51. Innova is a great food

That's what we have our puppy on, but we think we're going to switch her to the Taste of the Wild duck when she goes off the puppy food. She does well on that one, also.

Our other dog eats Evo and Taste of the Wild Salmon.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

50. So does Wellness Simple, Evo and Innova

Better ingredients and wasn't affected by the recall.

[Blue Diadem]

31. Darn it, we just switched grandkitty to science diet

My post is downthread about him getting sick 3 weeks ago. He'd been on fancy feast. He's so picky it's hard to find a food he likes and he did eat the prescription science diet so we switched to their minced food.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

52. My cat used to be on the Hills prescription food for his IBS

It was making him fat and had a lot of junk in it. We switched him to Evo canned, and no more IBS symptoms and he slimmed back down. It might be worth looking into. It's cheaper than the prescription food, too.

[Blue Diadem]

55. Thanks Haruka, I'll tell my daughter.

I found their website and see there's a location not far from here where we can buy it.

I've noticed that kitty is gaining weight since the food change. He's about 4 yrs old and was always a thinner cat but now he'd getting quite the belly.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

56. No problem

My cat is the same age and he's always been super thin, and he seriously porked out on a couple months of that food. He lost the weight again when we switched him to the Evo. Innova is made by the same company, and he does well on that, too, but I like that Evo has more protein in it.

They used to have coupons on their website, but I'm not sure if they still do.

[cascadiance]

68. My cat died recently of cancer after being on Science Diet/Hills R/D formula for a while...

Not sure if there's cause and effect, but other people online have posted similar concerns about their cats eating this formula and getting these kind of diseases... He was overweight and overeating, which might have been a symptom of earlier onset of intestinal cancer, but then again, it could have been the diet food itself that caused the cancer too. He'd been on it for over a year at the point we'd diagnosed him with the cancer.

http://cats.about.com/b/2007/03/31/hills-recalls-sd-prescription-diet-md-dry-food.htm

[jmowreader]

44. I'd be hesitant to use Nutro canned

Menu Foods makes at least some of it.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

49. Nutro used to be decent, but I wouldn't trust it after the food recall

We put my one cat on it figuring it was better than what he was getting. And, then it ended up being recalled. Ever since then, he's had bad IBS. We were finally able to get it under control with Evo.

[DevonRex]

7. Thank you for the alert KoKo. :) Mine doesn't eat that but my sister's cat does.

I'll call her right away. That cat of hers is the best mouser she has ever had, and it's the cutest little thing.

[tosh]

8. Thanks for this KoKo. I am all too familiar with the white foamy.

I finally weaned my Fancy Feast-addicted 16 y/o off of it about a year ago, but I occasionally give it to my ferals.

This weaning was after a week of fluids and antibiotics around Christmas 2007.

Edited to add: She had thrived on FF for years. I am not bashing the brand, but thought it was time to get serious with finding the right healthy/tasty food for her.

[jsamuel]

9. switched my cat to Iams natural cat food

http://www.iams.com/iams/en_US/jsp/IAMS_Page.jsp?pageID=PL&productID=403

[Junkdrawer]

11. Looks like you may not be alone....

http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/10791

[KoKo]

16. That's pretty scary. Sad, too, because both my casts are Siamese...

:cry:

[Junkdrawer]

19. I have a 16+ yr, old cat who has eaten nothing but Fancy Feast for 10 years....

Think I'll try to switch her feeds until this is acknowledged and resolved.

[superduperfarleft]

12. Thanks for this.

My girls eat Fancy Feast (different kind), and one of them has started spitting up the "white foamy stuff" quite a bit, as well as diarrhea. Despite the fact that I don't believe 99% of what's on the internet, just seeing your post, I'm almost positive it's the food.

I only fed them that crap because they wouldn't eat anything else, but it's definitely time to switch.

[devilgrrl]

13. My cat eats Bench & Field Holistic Natural Feline Formula and people chicken & salmon

He cannot stand canned cat food! :puke: He won't touch it.

http://www.benchandfield.com/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=731

[hamsterjill]

43. What kind of salmon do you feed?

Curious as I'm trying to get mine away from so much canned food.

I weaned mine off FF last fall. My vet calls FF "kitty cocaine" because once they start eating it, it's difficult to get them to eat anything else.

After the melamine scare, I started looking more closely at cat foods and for that reason (and others) moved mine to Wellness. It took a while to get them to eat the Wellness and we went through a period of time of having to mix a little FF in with the Wellness.

In my area, a large can of Wellness is comparable in price to what 4 cans of FF would be, so the price hasn't been too much of a burden.

I try to supplement with "human" foods about 3 times a week - and salmon might be a good menu item for that purpose.

[devilgrrl]

54. I feed him pink or red salmon

usually boneless. I read that if you're going to feed your cat fish, make sure it's fresh water fish.

[Peregrine Took]

17. A tip for kitties who have kidney problems - brush them!!!! The brushing

stimulates the skin and that stimulates the kidneys.

I found this out, accidentally, a few years ago when my cats BUN numbers were off the chart. He was getting IV's at the vet in their IC unit and I used to go over and visit him every day and brush him with his favorite brush.

Not real hard brushing but not real soft either. Long, firm but loving strokes. I used to do it a couple of times a day for 1/2 hour and play classical music at the same time. He loved our sessions together, too.

In one week he was back home and the vet said they never saw a cat recover from such a severe kidney problem. When he went home his numbers were back to normal.

[Terran]

34. Wow, that's cool.

I do fairly regular grooming on my three kits, especially the Ragdoll as he's prone to getting knots in his fur without a litte help. Good to know there's an extra benefit involved.

[JanMichael]

39. I have to push this brand:

http://www.solidgoldhealth.com/products/

Scout has been on it for years; cleared her skin up in months, has never had a problem.

It's not that expensive (we live off one salary, and are pretty poor)

Glad your kitties are better!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

79. That's what my cat eats

His previous owner fed him cheapo supermarket crap, but the nearby pet supply store owner gave me a bunch of free samples of human grade goods, and Solid Gold's Katzenflocken was the clear winner.

[schmuls]

41. Thank you very much for mentioning this...I'll try this on Mittens

[doodadem]

18. Make your own

It's the smartest thing to do. My cats get chicken livers and eggs for breakfast, boiled chicken and a little canned Purina for dinner. Dogs get eggs, milk, oatmeal, and barley for breakfast, dinner is beef kidneys, veges, and pasta. All of the eggs come from our own chickens. Cats should have 100% protein--all that crap you read about "healthy" foods containing veges and fruit is hooey. Cats can't digest it. The only kind they can digest is the stuff that has been "pre-digested" in prey animals' stomachs. A good rule of thumb for dogs is 40% protein, 30% veges, 30% carbs. I'm feeding 7 house cats, and 4 dogs, 2 small, 2 large.

I switched when all of the melanine scare was going on. It's easy to do, and everyone looks/feels great. Totally got rid of bladder stones/FUD problems in the cats (all male).

My vet told me back then that canned Purina was the best choice as all of their ingredients were made in the U.S. I haven't had any problem with the little bit that they do get.

Dry catfood is never a good idea, for many reasons.........

[sandyj999]

20. My cats eat Fancy Feast Chicken Feast in Gravy

And now I'm concerned about that because the last batch I got didn't look the same either not being as moist as usual. Usually there is a fair amount of gravy which is all the one cat will eat. I give him the gravy, and the other two split the can. A week ago he stopped eating and was one sick cat. My vet checked his pancreas and took xrays to see if there was any blockage. None appeared. He was on fluids all week and I was giving him injections twice a day to prevent nausea. I was also feeding him A/D with a syringe.

As of Friday my cat is himself. He is eating and acting normal. I changed the dry food thinking maybe he had developed an allergy to that. Now I'm wondering if it is the Fancy Feast. Thanks for the "heads up" and I may be cooking for my cats.

[KoKo]

45. Thanks for relating that....I've e-mailed Purina. When I hear back I will post.

What worried me was the change in the three flavors I've been giving them...so if yours with the gravy was different, too...then maybe they had a manufacturing change. Switched to some company who isn't following standards...

[sandyj999]

58. Please Let us know If you get a reply.

I did find one type of Fancy Feast with no gluten. It's Gourmet Chicken Feast. It appears if there is gravy there is gluten. I bought a couple of cans and will see if my three will eat it. It's sad that we try to do our best and this problem comes along.

[Lisa0825]

78. Yes, I read that it's usually the ones with gravy.

I currently have 8 fosters. I occasionally give FF as a treat. But I have found that (through various litters of fosters), about 25-30% of them do not like the canned food that has "cuts" or "chunks" with gravy. So I have stuck with the "pate" types. Thankfully when the recalls came out, most seemed to be the ones I was already avoiding.

[sandyj999]

80. Eight fosters? Wow!

I'll be trying the "pate" type this morning and see what happens. They have really good dry food that they can eat whenever they want it and giving the moist food in the morning is a habit "I" started. I may end up with three unhappy cats in a short time from now.

[Lisa0825]

82. Hey, I am down for a high of 13! LOL

Yeah, that is like what I do too. They have kibble out all day, but in the morning and when I get home from work, I split one large can (or 2 FF cans) and spread it out around the edge of 2 dinner plates. They come running, and all huddle around to get about a tablespoon each of their "treat." Except for Sylvia. She's funny. She is very aggressive play-wise, and often challenges my alpha (Jennings), but when it comes to food, I have to feed her separately, or she won't compete for it. So she jumps up on the counter with me while I am preparing it.

[sandyj999]

84. Well the pate went over really great with two of the three.

The guy that was sick last week and only liked the gravy took one look at it, gave me a strange look and went downstairs for a while, to pout I guess. He will just have to be happy with the dry food although he is getting some pate put in front of him again tomorrow. I can be persistent.

[Vinca]

22. Thanks for posting. My cats eat Fancy Feast, but usually only

a few of the seafood varieties. Let us know what happens. Is there any chance you might have picked up a partially opened can? When I was shopping for cat food one day I discoverd a couple of cans on the shelves had been popped just enough to lose the seal. I turned them over to the store office, but I was kind of surprised to find them in that condition.

[Junkdrawer]

23. See Post #11. n/t

[Vinca]

26. Yike! That's one that my cats eat. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

[KoKo]

46. No...they were all recently purchased and I kept opening can after can

and they refused to eat any of them. Three different flavors...but all looked the same which was what made me think something was wrong with the ingredients or processing, when my kitties refused them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. My cat refuses all canned cat foods (even the natural, human-grade brands)

but he likes Katzenflocken, a human-grade dry food sold by a pet supply store in the neighborhood.

He also gets a raw egg in the morning, meat scraps when I cook with meat, and canned chicken or turkey when I don't.

Since I acquired him in December, this rough-coated, lethargic cat has become silky smooth and active (maybe too active, such as getting into racing the length of the apartment at 3AM).

[devilgrrl]

32. My cat can't stand canned cat foods! I think he knows that it can kill him.

I feed him people chicken and salmon. At age 16, he's chugging along.

[distantearlywarning]

27. Thank you for posting this.

My cats eat Fancy Feast food, and they have been completely rejecting it lately. I couldn't figure out why. Now I am concerned that maybe there is something wrong with it. Please keep us posted as to any further developments!

[Mist]

28. Thanks for posting this Koko--my picky older gal loves FFand it'll be

tough to switch her back to Little Friskies, which she ate, and loved, for years. I think I started giving my cats FF because my little calico started being picky. Even though the calico’s gone, my old gal has really developed a taste for FF. I just threw out the one can of Turkey and Giblets I had in the cupboard. I generally give her the ones that have “savory sauce” or “delicate sauce” in the names.

I haven’t noticed any health problems with my old gal and FF, but threw out that Turkey&Giblets to be on the safe side. I’d like to give her cat food from a natural foods store, like Whole Foods, but damn, the cost is high.

[Blue Diadem]

29. Our Grandkitty got sick too. He ate canned Fancy Feast.

He'd only eat the fancy feast gravy type, eating mostly gravy and nibbling a bit on the small pieces. He still eats FF dry. He got pretty sick about 3 weeks ago after a day or so of turning down canned FF food. He'd come to me and ask me to rub his tummy and then would let me rub his tummy. I could tell something was wrong. This is a cat who would never allow tummy touches much less rubs before and he wasn't acting like himself. He'd flip over on my feet, butt against my ankle and spread his legs apart showing me his stomach. When I rubbed his middle tummy he'd scoot around wanting me to rub lower. I told my daughter on a Friday night about it, that Sun., the cat got up on my chest and laid his head on my shoulder like he was so sick and by Sunday evening he began to throw up. 4 times that evening, then overnight and the next morning. We took him to the vet and he said kitty's gastrointestinal system was really inflamed. He could hear it and feel it. He told us not to feed him for the rest of the day, but then slowly give him bits of a prescription food. He gave him the rehydration injection and told us that had meds in it to help kitty's tummy and intestines. That was on a Monday. On Tuesday kitty was weak but beginning to eat bits of the prescription food and by Wed. he seemed to feel better. I'd say it took about a week for him to get back to his normal self. We switched him to science diet now. He'll eat their minced foods.

I'm curious about the FF food as well now. The vet said he felt it was something he ingested. This cat is also an indoor cat.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

53. See my response to you above

That's exactly what happened with my cat after eating recalled Nutro.

[KoKo]

61. After the "wheat gluten from China,thingy" I didn't give them FF with Gravy...

and thought I was being cautious eliminating the Wheat Gluten that was used in pet foods to make the gravy..but, they changed the "consistency" of their "all chicken/turkey" canned food..so who knows.

I do remember that "Pilgrim Pride Chikens" are almost out of business with some big recall of tainted Chickens...I wonder if those "tainted chickens" ended up in our pet food to pay off "Pilgrim's Pride."

BTW..Pilgrims Pride Brand has caused "Chicken Farmers" here in my state to go under...but if they had bad product (abusing their birds and terrible conditions) they should have gone under.

BUT...to make a profit for owners from "going under" what if they sold "bad birds" off to the Pet Food companies thinking they could still get a few "pennies on their dollar" as they lose their farms.

Whole thing is the sadness of Globilization, Animal Farming and the rest. In the meantime...the rest of us already hurting could lose our Family Friends because of something.

I can't say for sure it's "Fancy Feast" and that's why I didn't want to panic anyone...but if my cats "go down" and won't eat new cans of what they've been eating for a couple of years and I end up with sick cats and a $127.00 Vet Bill...for inside cats who don't have contact to have some other kind of "virus or contagion" from outside...then it seems it was the FOOD they REJECTED after feeling bad from the "first bites" of it and they didn't want anymore of it.

The only consistency in their stopping eating was the "Fancy Feast" which had somehow changed consistency over three brands and whatever they ate of it in the beginning made them SICK and they refused to eat more! That's all I can say..about what I observed with my kitties. :shrug: They don't go outside, don't have access to cleaning or other chemicals in my house...they live a golden, pampered life. But they BOTH GOT SICK AT SAME TIME...

[Blue Diadem]

65. I never thought of the food until I read your post.

The fact that you had two cats get sick at the same time after what we just recently had happen, tells me the food could be the cause. Our kitty also doesn't have access to cleaners or chemicals and is strictly indoors.

I just checked the 24 pk of FF we were using at the time. It's chicken/liver feast, turkey feast and beef feast. There are 9 cans left, 6 of them are beef, so he had been eating the chicken/liver and turkey when he got sick.

I don't feed him all the time, it all depends on who he can romance first in the kitchen twice a day. I do remember thinking the food appeared different one day when I opened a can for him, I just don't remember how close it was to his getting sick. I remember it appeared thicker in texture, almost clumpy and there was hardly any gravy. I also remember him getting a WTF look on his face like I'm not eating this and he didn't.

It's awful that we can't trust our food supplies, both for us and for our pets.

[Terran]

33. You should feed your cat a meat-only diet

Cats don't eat wheat or rice and yet most commercial cat foods contain these products. It's how cats become diabetic, for one thing. I don't know of any brand available in a market that's really well suited to a cat's dietary needs. I buy meat-only dry and wet food from a pet store and/or Petco. It's more expensive, but then what did you just spend at the vet? Not to mention the suffering your dear cats experienced.

[schmuls]

42. I know they should, but then again my vet prescribed that low

protein k/d diet. Mittens didn't get back leg weakness until he started that diet. Now I mix the k/d diet with regular food so he at least eats it. Don't know if I am doing harm or good.

[dysfunctional press]

35. one of my cats had the same symptoms about a month back...

and we do use fancy feast- but the other two were fine. and the one who was sick is fine as well.

could your cats have gotten into something else in the house? cleaning products or the like? :shrug:

[KoKo]

47. No...nothing they could have gotten into. All my cleaning supplies, etc.

are in cabinets out of their reach. It was the food they suddenly refused to eat no matter which of the three flavors they've always eaten I would put out for them.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

36. I sometimes give my cat Fancy Feast.

I removed a couple of cans of Turkey Feast from the larder and set them aside so I don't accidentally feed them to her. Keep us posted and thanks for the information.

[sakabatou]

37. Nope.

I don't have that food.

[crispini]

38. Thanks, I will stop feeding mine immediately.

Please keep us posted about it.

[marksmithfield]

40. Thank you for the post!

Those of us that love our animals appreciate any news on this subject. My problem is trying to find a cheaper food for both the dogs and the kitties. We (wife and I) along with the rest of the nation are getting to the point financially that we cannot afford Beneful or the better cat foods. Any suggestions as to safe cheap food?

[Lorien]

48. Know what you are feeding your pet:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=243&topic_id=4388&mesg_id=4388

[bvar22]

59. Thanks KoKo.

We have used Fancy Feast, and our cats favor the flavors you mention.
We usually bought by the case, and have had the same problem.
We would open a can of their favorite from a new case, and they would turn up their noses with an expression of,
"I can't eat THAT.
Its poison.
Give me some real food."

They would do this for every single can in that case.
We listen to our cats, and would give them something else.
We have since switched off to another food.

[KoKo]

60. Thanks...sometimes I'd buy the Packs from Target...this time the individual cans were from local

grocery store that seemed "all the same" that put them off.

I'm still waiting to hear from Purina on this. I hope they will check it out since I gave them the Product Codes and Manufacturing Codes. Now that they are owned by Nestle..../Purina under the old Bush Regime it will be interesting to see what they say...

[GreenPartyVoter]

63. Uh oh. My kittehs eat Purina wet and dry foods. Not FF but whiskas canned.

[donheld]

66. My cat has always refused to eat Fancy Feast.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

67. I will be looking for their response to you. I just bought a case of FF. nt

[Dem_4_Life]

70. My cats are super picky

They only will eat the FF in the green cans with the garden greens. I give them dry food as well and watch them just to be safe. A really good brand is the Dr Foster and Smith brand sold on their website as well. It doesn't have any wheat gluten and lots of nutrients.

Thanks for the warning and I will keep watching for any updates that you post.

[lonestarnot]

73. Geeze. I hope nothing is wrong with it. That is my kiddlies fav., not

those particular flavors, but the brand.

[Holly_Hobby]

74. This is an important thread regarding pet food:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=243x38312

[StatGirl]

75. Can you post the batch numbers here?

I feed Gourmet Chicken to my little guy, but I haven't noticed a difference in the new cases that we just opened, and neither has he. The cans have an expiration date of Jan 2011, and the number *looks* like (small light font, aging eyes):

80161162 L21340605

[Maru Kitteh]

76. Thanks KoKo. A prayer for your kitties, I hope they're both Ok. Have you thought about

just feeding them regular, natural meat meant for human consumption till they get better?

What did your vet say about diet hereafter?

[nonconformist]

77. Thanks for the heads up... I give my 3 cats FF canned food as a treat now and then

They all really love Cat Chow Indoor Formula dry food as their regular diet, but once a week or so they each get some wet FF.

One of my cats is Siamese, too:

[stuntcat]

81. I hope your kitties are feeling better!

This would scare the shit right out of me.. that I could feed something to my cats that could just kill them.. with one can.

My 3 used to split a Fancy Feast every day but I just this weekend switched them to the bigger can of Friskies because I'm giving a little to the ferals I just had spayed. I hope Friskies is safe, and stays that way, I would just die if I killed the cats just trying to take care of them.

[indepat]

83. Tainted cat food (unnamed) cost us several hundred dollars and our Katie's

life. :cry:

[Robyn77]

85. Cats Refusing Fancy Feast

I noticed the same reaction to Fancy Feast from my cat in the last 3 months. I worried that something was wrong with the particular can and would offer her a new one. Sometimes she gobbled the new one down and other times she rejected it also. I wondered if she smelled something wrong with it. She was on Fancy Feast wet food for about 6 years. It is difficult to say if her problems were related to her food, but I began to wonder and found similar posts about cats eating FF and getting sick and/or dying.

In October, she began to drink lots of water after an operation for a tumor on her leg. All blood work was normal. She started avoiding her Fancy Feast also, but still ate some of it at times. She began to go downhill quickly after 12/31/08 with the same symptoms mentioned in other posts about Fancy Feast. The vets were puzzled and thought it might be lymphoma or a systemic inflammatory response. A sonogram showed that her spleen was 8 times its normal size. She died on 2/5/09.

Now my father's cat (whom I placed on Fancy Feast 2 years ago) is avoiding her Fancy Feast and is losing weight all of a sudden and very quickly. The doctor says that she has hyperthyroidism, so that might explain the weight loss. However, it is strange that she is avoiding the Fancy Feast when the vet expects her to have a raging appetite. Now I'm reading about cats with similar problems. I'm going to stop FF immediately and begin cooking most of my Dad's cat food. My advice (after losing my kittie) is DO NOT WAIT AND WATCH!! If there is ANY suspicion on your part, switch to homemade foods (using a good natural foods recipe book tailored for cats) and see if your pet gets better. I could not save my own cat, but perhaps my awful experience can help save others.

[illuminaughty]

86. Thank you KoKo! Just recently we started giving my two

a couple of cans a week. Shrimp/seafood, savory salmon this week, but I change it up. They were eating the Dry Fancy Feast to the point where they almost stopped eating the other dry food.

Now I have one that screams for the can food and comes running from outta nowhere when he hears me snap the lid. I've been buying the Medley version too. I have noticed there were a couple of cans they walked away from. And it is weird that you found a dryness in the product because I think that's why mine are so attracted to FF. It's so moist and they love the gravy.

Please keep us posted. I hope your babies get better. I appreciate the information greatly.

[Bluebear]

87. 'Francy Feast'? - shouldn't that be Freedom Feast?

[dddem]

88. If you can afford it, my cats get Newman's Own Organic

I started buying it during the last pet food recall, and now they won't eat anything else. i don't mind, really, they only get 1/4 a can per day, plus dry, and i know that the sales benefit charities.
Plus Paul is on the label, so it's all good.