KITTEN FOOD ALERT !!!

[ccmacey]

Right so its just complamentry foods that are affected? All complete foods are ok?

[Gillian Harvey]

The thing is - even if companies are members of the PFMA - it doesnt mean their foods are 'complete' - for instance Hi-Life (town and country foods on the PFMA list), as Mark pointed out, not all of their foods are complete. Just got to read the labels, which of course a lot of people wouldnt.

Will Whiskers kitten food be ok?

whiskas is manufactured by Mars - they are on the PFMA list - I'd reckon it was a complete food, but again you've always got to read the labels.

[ccmacey]

Will Whiskers kitten food be ok?

[Ela]

Ok thanks Ela!

Of course that is only the manufacturer mentioned on here, we don't know which manufacturer supplied the food for the kitten.

[Team Svartalfheims]

Going to email MPM later on and ask them for clarification of this

I confirm they have advised me verbally this morning that they are now putting complementary on the labels with it will take a while to reach the shops, which I am sure we understand the reasons for that.

Ok thanks Ela!

[Ela]

Going to email MPM later on and ask them for clarification of this

I confirm they have advised me verbally this morning that they are now putting complementary on the labels with it will take a while to reach the shops, which I am sure we understand the reasons for that.

[Team Svartalfheims]

I've just checked the cans I have in the cupboard and applaws says it is a complementary food

My cans don't say that Susanne. The kitten Applaws I bought I bought because I was told it was a complete food and good for weaning kittens on! Going to email MPM later on and ask them for clarification of this.

Just wish we knew exactly what brand this was about!

[Ela]

Shame the little one died because of confusion

We have to remember that we do not know which brand was involved.

[CurlyCatz]

Oh well thats good that they have taken the matter seriously.  Shame the little one died because of confusion, clearly the owner prob thought she was feeding the best not realising or had wrongly labelled tins.

[Ela]

The company have phoned me again, and I have put on here what they have to say so they will leave it. Once again he assured me that labels have been changed and should be in the shops soon. Now the problem is many people don't read or understand the difference, but that obviously is not the companies fault.

[Ela]

The said company have rung me, they would like to put a statement on here but and as I would not tell them which site I  saw them mentioned, (I don't want to cause problems for Purrs), I   suggested they send it to me and I will post it.  They did say that new labels are now going on the tins and should be in the shops in about 8 weeks time.

[Ela]

It is all in english.

Mine is

[CurlyCatz]

I think any brands wanting to be registered by what would appear to be a governing body (that pfma) would have to meet the standards of british labelling. 

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

Having said that, the applaws I currently have in was bought from zooplus (I usually buy it from a local pet shop or cat shows) so maybe the labelling is different on cans sold in Germany?  It is all in english.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

But does that only cover UK produced foods?  Almo nature is an italian brand.

Applaws definitely says it's a complementary food - it's in small print on the back.

[CurlyCatz]

OK this may help a little, i found the pfma website and they list all the members so obviously this dodgy labelled food cant be one of them.

http://www.pfma.org.uk/overall/about-us.htm

[Ela]

Just looked at the chicken breast too and no mention on that label either.

[Ela]

says it is a complementary food

No mention of that on mine. Mine is chicken and cheese.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

I've just checked the cans I have in the cupboard and applaws says it is a complementary food but almo nature says it's a complete food.  They are almost identical though (if not completely identical!).  I treat almo nature as a complementary food.

[Ela]

I don't think it is a complete cat food. It states in the label it is a completely natural product and the chickens are fed on a completely organic feed. No mention of a complete cat food

[Dawn F]

mmm I wondered about applaws or almo as I often see them at shows and to our eyes they do look like good food.  I have to say until I joined cat chat I had assumed that all food was complete and I'm sure I'm not alone. 

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

I was going to say the same - of limited use without knowing which food!  I wouldn't be surprised if it's applaws or similar, as those foods are sold at cat shows a lot (and not too widely available elsewhere).  I can't remember whether they say on the can they are complete, but I think almo nature do (or did) and I emailed them to question it as they dont' have any added nutrients.  They replied rather vaguely saying that it was complete (that the method of cooking preserved nutrients) but that they recommended their dry food be fed alongside it!  I consider those foods to be complementary, regardless of what they say.  I think the important thing is to bear in mind that many of these foods are fine but should not be fed exclusively.  I feed a variety of different foods for that reason, making sure most are complete foods.  All foods have a slightly different nutrient profile so it isn't always a good thing to feed only one brand, even if it is a complete food.

[CurlyCatz]

I was wondering about some of those type brands aswell Mark as the popularity has really taken off and i got the feeling from the email it was one of the just now "in" type of foods.

[Mark]

Its the Pet Food Manufacturers Association.

I have been saying this for ages. I have a gut feeling it could be Hi-life as some of their foods are complementary. Not everyone reads small print and even then, some people might not know the difference between complete and complementary, bearing in mind the average pet owner just buys the food and feeds it without a thought.

[Desley (booktigger)]

What is the PFMA, and how would we know if they are members of it?

[CurlyCatz]

I know Desley but thats all i got i'm afraid, I shall of course forward any more info if i hear.  I suspect it hasnt been named for legal reasons perhaps but the main thing is to check to see if the food brand is a member of that "PFMA" that is mentioned as apparently if it is then it should be ok so its a company that isnt registered with them that is the problem.

[Desley (booktigger)]

Do we know which brand of food it is Lynn? We can't avoid it if we dont know.

[CurlyCatz]

Please see copy and pasted email forwarded to my laperm group mails.

This is a message from Andrea Harvey (FAB lecturer at Bristol) and I would
be very grateful if you could pass it on to other breeder colleagues of yours
to ensure that this does not happen again. A really sad story.

Best wishes,
Sarah

Sarah M. A. Caney BVSc PhD DSAM(Feline) MRCVS
RCVS Specialist in Feline Medicine

======================================================================

Dear all
I wanted to raise your awareness about a really sad case that I saw
recently and couldn't believe that this could happen. Essentially it was a
4 month old Birman kitten belonging to a reputable Birman breeder, that
ended up being euthanased as a result of severe nutritional secondary
hyperparathyroidism. The kitten was being fed a commercial diet. On
researching the diet it is essentially an all meat diet and contains
extremely low calcium: phosphorus ratio and yet is marketed as a complete
kitten diet.

It appears that more diets like this are arising and owners are loving the
look of them because they contain quality cuts of meat and are marketed as
being 'natural', 'holistic' and made of 'high-grade ingredients' with no
artificial flavorings or preservatives, but clearly are not balanced
complete diets!! These diets are apparently becoming popular with breeders
and are sold at lots of cat shows. This particular breeder had checked out
this diet before using it but had not checked the calcium/phos ratios and
assumed that was fine because it was a complete diet, but obviously it
seems we can not rely on what is written on the packet.

I have contacted the pet food manufacturers association about this and in
the first instance they are going to provide the company with the
regulations for them joining the PFMA and suggest they change the packaging
and marketing to say it is only a complimentary diet. If this is not
changed we can approach the food standards agency.

We are going to try and work with the PFMA to raise awareness of this and
see what else we can do, but also will put something on the FAB website and
journal. At the moment I just wanted to make sure that all the FEP were
aware of this and to spread this word around to breeders/clients/cat owners

The easiest thing to tell people is to check if a particular food
manufacturer is a member of the PFMA and if so then their food should be
OK, if not and it looks like a high meat diet the Ca:PO4 should be checked

I have now become obsessed with looking at cat food packets in supermarkets
and another thing that concerns me is that there are more and more
complimentary foods available, and the complementary and complete foods
even if correctly labelled are often not separated and labelled on the
shelf, and some companies are packaging some types of complete and
complementary in exactly the same type of packaging the only thing
distinguishing between them being the very small writing on the side.
Another campaign needed........

In the meantime I think we need to be aware that we could potentially start
seeing more of this problem sadly, and look out for people not feeding
proper diets!

Thanks
Andrea

--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Harvey BVSc DSAM(Feline) DipECVIM-CA MRCVS
RCVS Specialist in Feline Medicine
European Veterinary Specialist in Internal Medicine
FAB Clinical Fellow in Feline Medicine
Division of Companion Animals
University of Bristol
Langford
Bristol