Instinct Raw Boost, Natural Dry Cat Food with Freeze Dried Pieces, High Protein, Grain Free Recipe – Real Chicken, 5 lb. Bag

Great food
We use this food for our ferrets. They love it! The little bits are freeze dried chicken that they go for first. This has a lot of protein in it which makes it great as an alternative food for ferrets.

Pay Attention for Bad Batches
Normally my 1 year old Bengal loves this food. She eats the raw pieces first then munches on the small bits. Before switching her to this (this is her first adult food) I read the reviews and noticed a few about bad batches. This is only my second bag but this time I received a bad batch. She grazes so I didn’t want to say it was at first when she wasn’t eating the raw pieces but now that it’s been a month she is leaving all of them behind and spitting out the ones she does try to eat. Unfortunately, they would not send me a replacement as I’m just out of the 30 days so I have an expensive bag of cat food that will in part go to waste. Other than that I have no complaints about this

Healthy
Smells good cat loves it, value for good quality product

Use Caution…
I am a Registered Veterinary Technician who has not had any luck treating my 11 year old cat’s IBD. I used the steroids and prescription food for 1 year, but he still vomited every day and had a huge problem with hairballs. My other cat had hairballs, so I put her on this food too. She is 10 years old, and they both have had all the required tests to establish there are no other health conditions.I bought this because of the high protein / low carb percentages. Cats still need up to 12% carbs in their diet, plus a minimum of 45% protein and moderate fat. Unfortunately, 98% of kibble on the market has 25 – 50% carbs and less than 40% protein. Since I already tried prescription food and medication, I decided to limit his carbs and increase the protein since it is much harder to digest carbs.I slowly transitioned to this new food over 3 weeks. His vomiting and hairballs stopped by week 6. There are off-white poops in the litterbox now. I’m hoping it’s his hair finally able to be passed like it should (he’s a bright white cat). Although, light colored poops could indicate an absorption problem – I now have to check that out at work.Why 3 stars? One reason is the white poop thing. But, remember I said I put my other cat on the diet too? Well, I rarely believe in coincidences – and this would be a HUGE one:My other cat Ziva was transitioned just as slowly. That first week after complete transition, she started vomiting. She wasn’t eating for about a day, then one night we heard a yowl – then nothing. We found her face down in her own vomit and she went into a seizure. Her x-rays showed her entire GI tract was full. Her stomach was still full after a 16-hour fast.You could actually see all the “raw” pieces on the xray in the exact shape they are in the bag, filling up most of her stomach. The next day she went into cluster seizures for over 30 minutes until they were finally under control. There was no mechanical blockage, but it took so long for all of those “raw” pieces to clear out of her system. She is permanently on wet food now (best food for cats, just expensive).Cats do not chew a large percentage of their food (that’s why when they vomit their food within 2 hours of eating – it’s always kibble shaped, just puffed up from the stomach juices). The “raw” pieces are no exception. They are dehydrated! So, guess what happens when you put something dehydrated in a stomach full of juices and the water they drink? They puff up so big it fills their stomach fast!Again, we cannot connect her sudden onset seizures to her inability to clear the “raw” pieces from her GI system for several days – but that’s one hell of a coincidence in my book! We immediately removed all the “raw” pieces and are just feeding the kibble to my IBD cat. But, the “raw” pieces are where the high protein percentages come from, so I will be transitioning my IBD cat to the Instinct Ultimate Protein line once the white poop mystery has been solved.

I should’ve checked the size but this bag is half the size of what I normally get for less money. VERY overpriced for what it is.

My cat was ok with the previous food but upon eating this batch my cat vomited everyday. Switched to a wet food diet for a few days and the vomits stopped immediately