I posted a thread that was moved several months ago and referred to above:
http://itchmoforums.com/pet-food-questions-and-researching-foodsingredients/weruva-wet-cat-food-t8269.0.html;msg120647#msg120647My cat was eating Fancy Feast for years (only the Gourmet wheat gluten free flavors and no fish) and we couldn't seem to find anything else she would eat regularly other than nibble on Natural Balance Duck and Green Pea dry food.
She's had severe skin allergies for over 5 years and has been on and off steroidal meds during that period to reduce the scratching caused by the inflammation, reduce her wounds and grow back her hair.
Back in April, she had a bad wound on the side of her face from scratching and a large icky bald spot on the inside of her hind leg from licking. A popular local holistic pet food store advised a raw food diet, which my vet was not in favor of (unless it's a diet of last resort and nothing else worked). They also gave me cans of Avoderm, Nature's Variety Instinct Rabbit canned, and Weruva. We didn't try the Avoderm, she would eat a little of the NV Instinct Rabbit, but LOVED Weruva Paw Lickin Chicken.
We changed her over immediately to just Weruva Paw Lickin Chicken. Previously, when eating other foods, she would continue to lick a small spot on her leg even when taking her Triamcinolone.
Since starting the grain free/preservative free Weruva, her skin has cleared up, and she's no longer licking and scratching. Little by little the vet has reduced her steroid dosage to the point where she's been on a very small maintenance dose for a month. That will hopefully be stopped next week. In the past we used to have problems giving her pills. We had to crush it into a fine powder and mix it in with Boars Head Low Sodium Turkey Breast. She loved Weruva so much that she even finished it when we mixed her pill with it!
One person here wrote that her cat lost weight on Weruva. If you go to the Weruva site, you'll see that this is a very low calorie food (84 calories per 5.5 oz can, and depending on who you listen to, a cat needs 1.5 or 2 cans a day to maintain their weight as the general rule is 15-30 calories per day per pound. At about $1.60 a can, it certainly isn't cheap, but if it means being allergy free and off medications, it's certainly worth the price. Remember that other canned foods are over 200 calories per can, contain less moisture and more fat, so that's why a cat can lose weight when switchng to Weruva. It's sort of like going from Swanson's Hungry Man TV dinners to Nutrisystem!
At first the vet was a little worried about her weight (she's steady at 8 lbs.) but judging from how her skin has improved, he's afraid to change her diet to anything else. I showed him the food, he checked the label to see if the proper vitamins were being added, and agreed it looked like an excellent food. If she's eating 1.5 to 2 cans a day, that's about 126-168 calories a day, which means that 8 lbs should be her stable weight. She looks like she's part Turkish Van, and the females are around 8 lbs.
As I stated in the aforementioned thread, Weruva is highly recommended by Tracie Hotchner who hosts the Catchat Show on the Martha Stewart radio channel. The owner of Weruva comes from a family in the food business and their plant in Thailand manufactures the same food for both human and pet consumption.
The one problem I'm still having is the opposite of the person who reported her cat getting diarrhea in a previous post. My cat is still only going once every 4-5 days or so. She just turned 12, and the vet thinks it might be a motility problem, but doesn't want to try anything too strong just yet. We're adding Metamucil Clear & Natural to her cans and an occasional treatment of Petromalt, although I would like to change it to butter or olive oil (I'm just afraid of an allergic skin reaction). The vet thinks the change in stool movements is due to a combination of her age, the high moisture content of the only canned food diet (Weruva is 85% moisture with a low fiber content of .5%) and he feels it must be very highly digestible. He felt around for stool and he couldn't feel any several days after her last movement. She used to drink alot of water when she was on Fancy Feast and dry food, but since changing to this high moisture Weruva, she rarely goes to her water bowl.
If you're still unsure of Weriva, I would suggest going to the Weruva site. They provide alot of information about the company and each food. Personally, I would prefer to add another grain free/preservative free brand with a higher fiber content to her diet for variety (Nature's Variety, Avoderm, etc.) but the concern about an allergic reaction is delaying any change at this time.
