One of my cats has been diagnosed with early stage kidney disease, and the vet recommended putting him on a prescription kidney diet. I’m looking for recommendations for which brand to try. Which brands have you tried, and how did the cat react?
So far his only symptom is peeing too much. He’s still happy living his farm cat life, good appetite, good energy, and I want to keep him this way as long as possible.
You’ll want to read this
IRIS Kidney - Education - Diets for Cats with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) (iris-kidney.com)
That said, I tried several CKD feeds, dry and wet, and our cat hated all of them, which seem to be one of the bigger issues - palatability.
Is he at least eating wet food currently? If you go ahead with KD feed, maybe start introducing it very very slowly into his current food, and maybe he’ll take the transition well.
Something that my vet mentioned once, that might be useful to keep in mind, is the hardness of your water. Hard water and water treated with water softener are hard on kidneys and he recommended giving pets with kidney disease purified, distilled or reverse osmosis water.
Try them all. Both my cats have early stage renal failure and after much trial and error they will eat Royal Canin.
K/D they would eat half heartedly and it gave them loose and ungodly stinky stool. Purina N/F they wouldn’t touch but they will eat and Sammy actually likes the Royal Canin.
There are three different types of canned. E, A, and T.
E is a pate, the other two chunky. Sammy likes the T best but in all honesty, the ingredients aren’t listed and it may be exactly the same as A.
Good luck with your kitty! Hopefully yours isn’t as picky as mine. 
Tanya’s Comprehensive CRF site has a page listing nutritional composition of cat foods. You can check the phosphorous levels–some much more palatable commercial foods meet the low phosphorus requirement.
I wonder if it might help prevent kidney disease to give purified, distilled, or reverse osmosis water.
My cat that had kidney disease was a very picky eater (he wouldn’t really eat any wet food). I got Hills K/D dry food for him and he ate it fairly well. I was shocked because he was such a picky eater. My other cats didn’t seem to like it much.
I’ve had some really good feedback here–thanks everyone!
@JB the article about kidney diets was very interesting. I had wondered if a low protein diet was a good idea for cats, and the article addresses this issue. Apparently it’s somewhat controversial. But, I have to make the best decision I can based on the information available, and peer-reviewed studies support using a kidney diet. So for now that’s what I’ll do (and we’ll have to see if the cat agrees).
The IRIS information on staging was also useful. My vet did a basic CBC and chem panel but not SDMA, urinalysis, or blood pressure, and the diagnosis was made on the basis of the BUN and creatinine. My cat’s creatinine was 2.1 mg/dL, which according to the IRIS guidelines puts him in the stage 2 category. His potassium and phosphorus were well within the reference ranges.
@cardinale, thanks for the suggestion to check out the nutritional composition of commercial cat foods. I hadn’t thought of that, and it’s definitely something to consider if he refuses the kidney diet.
This cat is an indoor/outdoor farm cat, and he lives with 2 other cats, so it won’t be possible to totally restrict his diet. He gets both wet and dry food, and he generously supplements his diet with mice and rats that he catches. I only noticed that he was peeing too much because he’s been inside more due to the cold weather. Of all the cats I’ve had over the years, he is the least picky about his food, so I hope I can find a kidney diet he will like.
I agree, try them all - you never know what they will want (and what they will want from day to day).
My cats loved Royal Canin - they make 3 or 4 different varieties of their kidney diet. Neither Mick nor Nigel would touch the Science Diet; Nigel disliked the ProPlan as well.
Honestly, when Mick was on her kidney diet, I just left the dry food out for everyone to eat. It didn’t make any difference. They all liked it. It was expensive, but worth it.
According to my vet it should at least reduce the risk. Our city tap water is considered “liquid rock”, so we bought an in-home RO water unit and now our entire household (cat included) stick to RO water.
Hugs to you. All of my three kitties (a mom and her two kittens) eventually succumbed to chronic renal failure. The Momma cat Essie lived to be 17 and her daughter Stinkerbelle lived to be 18 years old. The other daughter, Mukluk, was diagnosed at age 6 and lasted for several years. Mukluk did not care for any prescription food I tried but maybe they taste better now? She needed Subcutaneous fluids as her illness progressed but was very tolerant as I think she knew that it made her feel better. Wishing you the best of luck with your kitty. I hope she has as good a life as possible for as long as possible. I still miss my three very much.
My oldest cat, Ollie, was diagnosed this summer. He’s an Erin cat for those of you around long enough to remember her. We started with the prescription foods from but my vet actually recommended that I join an online CKD group as they would probably have better suggestions. I also have a multi-cat household so I needed something that would work for all ages.
I joined this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/felinecrf/?ref=share
They’ve been great. You post your cat’s labs and they can recommend the best foods for your particular cat. They have extensive food lists so you can try different things to figure out what will work. It’s a scary diagnosis but having this resource has made things a bit easier.
We feed our CKD girl KD. Her kidney issues were precipitated by kidney stones that blocked a ureter and chronically damaged one kidney, and our vet said the KD is also good for breaking down crystals and preventing stones (6 years later, her ultrasounds have stayed clear of stones, so that has been true for her).
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