Chicken & brown rice dry cat food

[Geff]

Hi Catmom, I'm no doctor but my understanding is that the type of vomit we're worried about with kidney failure is a clear liquid with little or no food in it.

As an fyi, the Cal Natural Chicken & Rice samples I've been feeding with no adverse
reaction has a pull date of 11/22/07.

When I run out of the samples (a kind store clerk gave me over 2 pounds of samples last week!) I'm hoping to find a bag with the same pull date.

What is the pull date on the bag you're concerned with? I have a suspicion that info is going to become important as we move through this with seemingly random batches being bad of many brands.

FYI, Veronica is also who I spoke with the other day, when I asked for reassurance after the NB recall hit.

[catmom5]

That's the vomit ~ clear but frothy that my ARF kidden had and massive amounts of it.  The date was 12.2?.07 so it's a different batch from yours.  When I fed the cats tonight everyone has eaten some and no problems.  Hope it was just an upset tummy and that a little Pepcid has helped.
Regardless, I was impressed with the way that Natura handled my concerns.

[Geff]

Please keep us posted & I hope your fur friends are ok!

[Geff]

That's the vomit ~ clear but frothy that my ARF kidden had and massive amounts of it.  The date was 12.2?.07 so it's a different batch from yours.  When I fed the cats tonight everyone has eaten some and no problems.  Hope it was just an upset tummy and that a little Pepcid has helped.
Regardless, I was impressed with the way that Natura handled my concerns.

Mine threw up once like that during this; IF I remember right, I THINK that was the last straw with the Felidae. 

[Davis]

Just to reassure everyone a little, it is common for cats to vomit for a variety of reasons.  I would not panic unless it is constant.  The different cats I have had over the years have always vomited periodically.  It can either be caused by eating to fast or swallowing food whole, eating too much, eating food they are not accustomed to, eating food that is too rich for them, hairballs (sometimes they don't come up, but the stomach keeps trying to eject them), allergies,  bacteria, illness, etc.  I would be most concerned about vomiting bile, which is a dark yellow or greenish liquid.  That is a bad sign.  My cat was vomiting that regulary on his old food.  It completely stopped when I took him off of it. He has only vomited once since changing his food about 3 weeks ago.  It happened a few nights ago.  I immediately started to panic and assume the worst, until I saw that he threw up two big hairballs.  That is nature's way of solving that problem, so nothing to worry about.  Vomiting alone, unless it is frequent, is far less of a concern than when it is combined with other symptoms.

[garypen]

OTOH, if multiple cats in the same household all vomit after eating a new food, I'd say it might be wise to avoid that food in the future. Not necessarily because of outright poison, but there is quite possibly something incompatible with that food and those cats.

[Caylynn]

Thanks for the reminder about cats and vomiting, Davis.  Cats do vomit very easily (according to my vet) if something bothers their stomach in the slightest.

My Sphynx vomits on occasion, but it's always after eating dry food too quickly.  The way my vet explained it to me is that when they injest dry food quickly, they tend to eat too much of it, and it expands in the stomach when it absorbs liquid.  Often, when the cat has eaten too much or too quickly, the stomach gets upset at this fast expansion, and will vomit the food back up.  She said it is normal, and nothing to worry about.

My Sphynx has also vomited clear liquid in the past, but again, my vet said it was nothing to worry about if it didn't happen very often.  It normally occurs when he eats something like a bit of fluff, or gets some fluff caught in his throat.  It is easy to see - the vomit is a clear liquid, but there will be a tiny piece of fluff or something similar in it.

[lacy]

Does anyone cats eat less on this food? I have noticed that this is the only food that they dont eat as much of. Is this normal??

[Geff]

Mine is pretty much eating normal quantities. He ate less then normal on the foods he didn't seem to be fond of, which was almost everything else we tried!

[catmom5]

Don't know if this is the place to ask this, but I contacted Natura about phosphorus levels of the Cal Nat.  The ingredient list on the website said .79% and today she emailed me another, much higher, percentage.  Of course I emailed her back immediately about the discrepancy.  Is there a formula or other statistical glitch that I'm not aware of?  .79 is reasonable for a recovering ARF kidden, but over that is not!  If you don't know, any ideas who might?  I printed the information from the website for my vet to look over and she said it looked okay (at .79%).  YIKES!!!  I'm running out of patience here and I really don't want to get into home cooked for 5 cats (and I'm a vegetarian so don't even have meat in my house).
Thanks

[lacy]

Catmom5, I noticed on the website that the Chicken dry was a lot less than the herring dry.  Did you specify which flavor of the food?  I hope that might be the problem. Also for everyone else, I called Natura to make sure that none of the ingredients in California natural were outsourced to China in any way and was assured that they are all from the U.S. I am really really wanting to believe this because this is the only food i trust right now. Its hard because I was lied to over and over again by Natural balance and now im waiting blood results for my three cats. I just pray California Natural is the right food for us!!

[garypen]

It better be OK! I just bought another bag. My first 4lb bag was dwindling down. So, while I was at the feed store picking up some wet food, whcih we had run out of, I picked up an 8lb bag of CalNat. Unfortunately, it wasn't made on the same day, so I can't be 100% sure of its safety.

Also, my cats seem to eat less of this than previous dry foods. They appear to enjoy it a lot, as they eat it with vigor. So, it's not that they don't like it. They just seem to fill up quicker.

I personally enjoy the fact that 8lbs of CalNat cost $15, while 7lbs of Royal Canin is $20.

[lacy]

Garypen, so your cats eat less of it too? I could tell they liked it becuase when i put it down all three went right for it. I just dont understand why they dont eat as much of it as all the different foods we have tried. I guess it has a little more protein in it, maybe thats the reason?

[Geff]

I bought a 16 pound bag today, I would have prefered smaller, but it was the only bag left with a pull date earlier then/the same as the samples I've been feeding. It's going to take awhile for him to to eat all that up, but that may be a good thing. I was using RC before all this, & I agree this is quite a bit cheaper.

[garypen]

Where do you see a "pull date"? The only date I see on bags of CalNat is the expiry date. I assume it's one year from the date of manufacture.

The date on my first bag was 3/7/08. The new one is 3/9/08. So, I'm figuring that it's ok. In fact, I'm assuming it'll be OK regardless of date, due to the ingredient list. Brown Rice and Flaxseed are the only grains. And, Natura swears there ingredients are US-sourced, not just purchased from US dealers. But, it's mainly that short ingredient list that keeps me using CalNat. (OTOH, it's getting very hard to trust these companies' ingredient lists being accurate.)