Ha ha !   He seemed pretty articulate.  Funny that I gave them the wrong codes and they let it go.

Carol,

Oh, thanks!  I've been transitioning to better foods but making only tad small steps.
Giving the kitty that collapsed after fancy feast and had to have Fluids (whether or not the FF caused it)...........anyway, now giving her cottage cheese with flax oil, tuna, baby food, some table scraps.  I understand that raw meat is best and now I'm giving cooked.  Plus giving her a few pouches, not the best.  Sticking with Friskies for now.

She is doing much better.  Now the diabetic cat is harder.  Trying to cut out carbs. Not doing as good with him.  Vet wants him on W/D and insists he will eat it at home if he eats it at the clinic but he won't always do it.    With him, I have to feed him kind of along with the insulin. 

Today I finally sat and read one of the diabetic websites the itchmo people gave me.
Read about how to make food.  This might take me a year to learn all of this info.

Keep in touch!  Thanks.  I got the coupons for FF for 24 crates today---I honestly think I won't use them.  I have one kitty who likes it - will get her about 5 cans a wk.
No more. 

Barbara, Larry, and Cats

Mandycat, catbird, and Lesliek(?)---

Hope I got the names right----Gosh, glad you all told me about bottom of the can.  I think the Rep I talked with at FF said "down there at the bottom" and I read the UPC codes.  I wonder why he didn't tell me it did not sound right.  I read those numbers like 50000 004080 or something like that.  He just said okay.  Then later said that location had no problems.   

Wow---okay the cans I still have that they don't like are 1160.    The ones that seem to be just like they always were are 1162.  Both are dates in 2010.

Mandycat - I was just like you - I never had a problem with it and thought it was the best thing in the world.  Which maybe it is.  But when this happened, I still think it's a possibility that it was something different about that crate.  I am telling the truth - the one day I had 7 hungry demanding cats who turned down two plates of it.  Then I gave 2 cans, one cat seemed violently sick and Charky seemed ok.
Then the boarding.  Then another can to Charky - she was so hungry I know as I had slept longer than usual after the trip - she fought another cat for it.  A couple of hours later she couldn't do anything & we think she was the one that threw up violently tho we weren't in the room.  .....Maybe not the food, true.

Before this happened, I was just like you.  Even with the recalls, I did not even listen to some of the petowner reports.  They seemed exaggerated.  Now, I have one cat who still insists on FF Gourmet Chicken Feast - so I got her a few.  Very few cans.  I had been buying oh 4 crates of 24 a week and now I only got her 5 cans at Walmart.

Lesliek--Yeah, I think you are right.  When we do go up to Louisville, there is Feeder Supply which is great.  We thought we might buy some foods there from now on.  We only go up once every 3 months.
I might look into a Farm store near here as I haven't lived here all my life, just 3 yrs. 

By the way, the man I spoke with a Petsmart said to ask for a free crate a certain way, but to be honest, I didn't want a crate from there.  Just got dry foods and didn't ask for it.  I didn't think either person really believed my story or maybe they hear things like that a lot.  Nobody seemed stressed out or freaked.

No, I've had them like foods, not eat flavors, etc....I'm 64 and over 64 years, various cats go off a flavor. This was pretty drastic.     Yet, there is always another side to the story.   So I'm feeding mostly Friskies now to the 2 cats who can't chew the dry----also am trying to do table scraps, real meats, tuna, and different things like that. 

Barbara, Larry, and Cats

Hi,

I have a question.  I think in previous posts people talked about getting the FF that was problematic allegedly---from certain plants like 1160 or something like that---how do you know?

Yesterday when I shopped, I got other brands at Walmart since the crate that my cats did not want and threw up after---was from Petsmart.  I did go to Petsmart for my litter and dry foods.  Ok.....I read the labels that are scanned for price.  It's odd because the two crates I had trouble with---just from memory as we threw out one crate yesterday something like 50000 004080 and 5000 04060.  I still have the crate that ends in 4060.   

Now, the part I don't understand is - the cans in both Walmart and Petsmart now are completely different numbers----such as 50000 42994 or various larger numbers.
Can someone explain what the 42994 means?    There are no more ending with 4060 or 4080 anyplace anymore!...........does that sound like those two crates were older foods or do they stand for a location of a warehouse? 

I am still keeping the 4060 crate because a few cats will nibble on that one without throwing it up.  Not sure what is going on.

Thanks.  I thought of sending this as a separate thread, but I have rambled on long enough on this thread.  Ha ha.  Oh....all of the cans I get say St. Louis so maybe that is the home base of the company.

Barbara, Larry, and Cats

JustMe, and MandyCat,

Thanks for the input.  I sent the websites to myself (ha ha) and will work on those tomorrow or Monday!

Someone asked what he eats - just about anything. Wet and dry.  The tech at the vet's said she gives him 1/2 can twice a day and leaves the dry down when she has him.  His sugar runs 187 then.  When I took him in, he had gotten a bunch of someone else's food that day and was 300.

Someone (worker at the vet's) said I won't be able to check him at home with urine because I have 8 cats and 12 litter boxes.  So I can't be sure it was him.

Oh, and he uses PZI insulin, 5 twice a day.  I have heard the Drug Rep says we might have to go on the other type of insulin in the future as she won't be able to get PZI any more.  Have you all heard that?

After Alex eats W/D for about 7 days, he starts to bury it and spend the day trying to figure out ways to steal someone else's plate of food.  Again, thanks.

I have a diabetic cat - giving insulin and can't seem to do it right.  When I took him for boarding recently they said his sugar upon intake was 300.  (might have been checked the next morning).........Someone said they could not understand how it could get like that as he eats W/D quite well for them.

After that, again, I tried putting him back on W/D but since I have 8 cats what he does is just chew a little on the wet W/D and concoct all types of ways to finish off every helping of any other cat, or if any dry is down at all, he eats that.   I do not test the sugar at home.

I try everything - putting one in a room, shut door, then another one in a room, shut door.  I can't lift Alex---he's too heavy, though.   It's so hard to never leave a few spoons of a plate of food in some room.

When I was using regular catfoods for him that I thought he liked, he seemed to be doing better.  I just tried to make sure he only ate a normal amount and he went off and minded his own business.

Also, do you all give the food first to make sure the cat eats and then the insulin? Someone told me recently that I should give the insulin first, put down the W/D, and then he would go and eat it.  He has been phased out (some wackiness and howling) every since I switched to that procedure.  He has been on insulin - offhand, maybe 6 months.  I would have to look it up.  Maybe a year. 

Am thinking of dropping the use of W/D and trying to go back on just controlling portions. 

Historical info:  He's about 11- when I got him, he was a "ringworm" tiny kitten  that had lived in a vet's office in another city while the employees tried to "save" him. 
After that, he ate tons of prescription food they told me to give him, got fat, and ended up with heart trouble at age 8 (?).........is on heart meds and has been since about 2003.  He actually looks good and is real cute acting.  Not feeble at all. His name is Alex.

Thanks.  Any links or ideas is appreciated.  (PS I'm the one who posted about the other cat collapsing after eating Fancy Feast last Saturday).............

Barbara, Larry, and Cats

Hi,

Oh, I see MandyCat that it wasn't about your cats.  Sorry. I always had used Fancy Feast before, too. 

To me, it still seems like it was that case of 24 that caused the problem, but the official word from the vet is that since she had bad bloodwork before and has it now, that it wasn't the food.   Longer analysis than that, but that's the gist of it. 

It still seems to me that the food should have been checked, though, but I could be wrong.  If 6 humans eat potato salad and 3 throw up and have to go to a hospital, they don't say it was because they were sick last year, they check the mayonaise, I thought.  So with cats, I was shocked it wasn't checked.  But they had their variouis reasons ie. I wasn't sure all cans in the case came from the same location as it wasn't a sealed case.  (no plastic)  The cans said St. Louis and the man told me that location never had even one complaint.

That is my version, anyway.  The vet sides with the company---she thinks she just relapsed due to some type of cancer.  Yet, she was energetic and totally active before she was boarded, active the morning she came home, and collapsed after the food.

So, who knows.............anyway, I am so happy that she is back home, very weak, and not her old self, but she's coming back.  This morning she woke us up screeching (her usual personality) though a weak screech.....and even *ran to her food down the hallway so cute.  I don't know if this will continue but at least she did good today. She's 18, so we shall see.  I will be thrilled if she returns to being "Miss Brittles" even though her name is really "Charky" after a clump of charcoal.  She has a real pretty color.


Barbara, Larry, and Cats

I have a cat, Scraggles---you are right.  I have 8 cats total.

But the sick one is Charky.  (She looked like a lump of charcoal when she was little in 1990)...ha ha.  Her name at the shelter was "Snafu" situation normal all foulded up I guess but we changed it.  After that, we ended up working at the same shelter. Charky was the beginning of it.

Thanks for asking.  By the way, we do love this vet we have.  I had to mention that as I'm going to tell her about this website.  She's working really hard to help us.

Thanks to all of you guys.  Not sure yet what I'm going to do.  I just know FF doesn't want to test it - wrote down that testing website and will check it out later and come back in here! 

Today we have a couple places to go then at noon or later  we call the vet.  We don't know what we will be facing ie. suggestion to put her down, bring her home with sub q fluids twice a week back at vet's, or drive up to Louisville if my old vet would do 2nd opinion.  I want to try to save her!  To me, it just has to be that can of food I gave her, though she had another serving from same crate she tolerated.

This vet is waiting for blood work results from a lab as her in-house results were inconclusive with 63,000 white count one day and normal the next.  Wheat gluten--wow glad you said that this morning as I had thought about going to a store & getting tuna, chicken baby food, or a different brand of packets.  Will now read the ingred. and look for wheat gluten.  So far, I've had no trouble with Friskies packets.  This cat can't eat dry at all - bad teeth.  And now she's so weak she won't for sure!  Someone saw her stand up & eat baby food Monday they said.  But they bought some more and said she wouldn't eat it Tuesday.  I bet it is a different brand with added ingred. or different flavor. 

But I might stay silent this morning as I've been calling or going to vet's about every 4 hours and being a pest. 

This cat, even tho 18 and had something like pneumonia twice before,......has been high energy, fun loving, right up until that last can of food.  She even raced down the hall to get into the room where I feed her!  She's so tiny and cute!  I feel awful that I gave it to her but always trusted the brand and thought it had no recalls. 

Thanks you guys.

Talk to you later.....oh! Freaky thing is the symptoms are just like MandyCat's recent post---exactly. I think someone mentioned collapsed back legs.  Mine had that!  Violent vomiting way out across the room.  Same thing.  She is drinking water now and that lines up with burned esophagus.  Vet, I think, is leaning more toward cancer as diagnosis but we'll see................Later.........

I wanted to say that last week I bought a crate of Fancy Feast grilled chicken with gravy (lavendar cans) from Petsmart - my 8 cats refused to eat it - walked away - with the first two plates.  Then I tried another can later, and the cat who ate it threw it up 15 minutes later.  Another cat (age 18 and frail) seemed to tolerate it.  Then I boarded the diabetic cat and the frail one & left the other 6 cats with petsitter who happens to be a vet.   

Upon my return home 2 days later, the little 18 year old was hungry & I gave her one of the cans that were from the crate that I thought was bad, but thought she could tolerate it.........right after eating it while I took a nap, my husband said she got violently sick vomiting just all over.  When I found her she was in a closet, up against a water heater & couldn't stand up right. 

She is now at the vet's - has been since Sunday - she won't eat, is getting subQ fluids. I am so scared.  Called Fancy Feast and they took down the information but since the crate of 24 wasn't sealed and I wasn't sure all the cans were same lot #'s they said they don't want to test.  Said their location never had any complaint or any sick cat.
I felt so disappointed at that. 

Am thankful for your website and posts.  Now I don't feel alone.  Still, don't know what will happen to my cat.  I know I don't want any flavor of Fancy Feast again at this point - even though I've used it for years.  This is the first time I've had violent vomiting like this and collapse of a cat.  The vet's office thinks it might be cancer because she was sick with high white count two other times,....however,....they had her boarding and she was  fine, only 12 hours later after eating FF, she collapses.
All I did was give the catfood!  Still, if they tested it, not sure they would find out what the cause was.

Thanks for listening!  I have the rest of the crate, but there was no plastic on it and it had other cans stacked on top - that is why they won't test the remaining cans - they could have been from different crates. 

Barbara, Larry, and Cats