Original Grain Free Recipe Variety Pack Natural Wet Canned Cat Food by Nature's Variety, 3 Ounce (Pack of 12)

This is a great food and my cat loves it! The only thing that seems a bit strange to me is the difference in consistency between batches, and even the difference in consistency between the 3 ounce cans and the 5 ounce cans. Seriously, it looks like a different food, with the 3 ounce cans looking much smoother in texture, and the 5 ounce cans looking much more "grainy". I hope that the following review will help someone with a cat that has stomach issues similar to mine... I have tried many, many products aimed at helping with digestive upset for my cat. Her pain and suffering was so great that I thought I was going to have to put her to sleep. I went to multiple vets and had thousands of dollars worth of diagnostics done to try and find out why she was having acid reflux, crying and subsequently vomitting (endoscopy, xray, ultrasound, bloodwork, etc). One vet told me to just give her pepcid. This worked for a while, but then became completely ineffective after a while. The same vet then told me that she probably just has food allergies and would have to be on steroids for the rest of her life, and thats all that could be done, and prescribed different kinds of Science Diet (which we all know is actually a terrible food for cats with digestive problems). Well, what do you know, the steroids didn't help AT ALL. I tried probiotics of various brands for pets, I tried digestive enzymes, I tried many different natural products designed to help ease digestive / intestinal inflammation.... I tried a homiopathic vet (the only one in my area) and spent a few thousand more dollars rerunning tests and running other tests for pancreatitis, etc. I tried MAKING her food from raw meat to try and eliminate food allergies to commericial foods as a potential problem, etc. I TRIED EVERYTHING, but still my cat was constantly licking her lips, then crying in terrible pain and vomitting very consistently, and now was losing interest in her food and was losing weight and starting to look boney. I was determined to not give up on her though. I had just lost my wife to infection during a failed bone marrow transplant / cancer during all this, and was not about to give up on my girl. I stopped making her food and started getting her Natures Variety canned Rabbit formula and the duck formula. She loved the food but it did not seem to be helping her feel all that much better, even though a lot of other people were having great success. I then found a site called wellvet dot com that said that this Ulcinex was very effective at repairing ulcers and the stomach lining in pets. It also said that it was very effective at controlling vomitting that occurs a few hours after eating, which is EXACTLY what was consistently happening, and no other product that I had found so far claimed to do same thing. I was skeptical as soon as it started talking about chinese herbs and such, but I figured it was worth a shot. I started giving this as prescribed from wellvet ALONG WITH Georges Aloe Vera juice (the one without preservatives and no taste), which is said to help a lot for acid reflux sufferers (I found a few people that said it worked great for their cats), and continuing the rabbit / duck formula. All the while praying, within a few days I started noticing a drastic improvement. She was licking her lips less, and was able to relax for longer periods of time without jumping up in pain and crying. She vommitted once within a several day period. Several days later, NO MORE CRYING, and instead of hiding behind the bedroom door licking her lips the whole night, she started sleeping with me at night like she used to. Now, several weeks later, she is literally 90% better. NO MORE VOMITTING AT ALL, is in very little pain, VERY little lip licking and only very occasionally at that. She also gets much more rest, and has put on several pounds and is back above her normal weight and has a nice chubby belly. My cat suffered daily for 2 long years during this whole process before I found this and the other two mentioned products. The aloe vera juice on its own didn't seem to completely do the trick, so I think its the combination of the three things that is really effective. I only hope that no permanent damage has already been done, but now I have my cat back and don't have to suffer through losing a great wife and a great cat. If you have a cat with severe stomach issues, you owe it to yourself and your cat to try this along with the Georges Aloe Vera and Ulcinex. Metagenics - Ulcinex - 90 Tablets Warren Laboratories - George's Aloe Vera, 64 fl oz liquid

My cat loves it! I am also pleased with the ingredients and quality. There's lots of nutrients in these cans. The size is perfect as well, and soft enough to scoop out easily, without mess. He's a picky eater, and I'm so glad this switch was easy to make. He eats it all happily and without fuss.

EDIT 3: After running out of cans, I ran to my local Petco. Once again, NV caused my cat to vomit, albeit I gave them one final chance and figured there may have been some soap left over from washing his plate. After testing my theory with a paper plate and getting the same result, I've finally given up on this brand. The numerous times I've had my kitty get sick from bad batches has made me lose my trust in this brand, especially since they rarely ever recall food despite numerous people complaining on amazon. I fed him tuna after the last 2 NV cans made him sick, low and behold he didn't vomit! Poor thing was starving. I've temporarily switched him to Wellness striped chicken and he hasn't thrown up. I advise anyone looking to buy this brand to look elsewhere. The company never replied to complaints on amazon right up until recently when numerous 1 star reviews started appearing. I still have the 2 empty sealed cans they packaged. One would assume numerous bad batches would imply amazon doesn't keep these properly stored, but if Petco is having bad batches too I am to assume either this brand has an ingredient that causes a reaction, or QC is slipping at NV which is very likely. Sayonara Nature's Variety, it was lit. EDIT 2: Got another empty can in my orders, this is starting to get ridiculous. Quality check is slipping at NV, you can't ask NV for compensation from their mistakes as they'll tell you to ask for a refund/replacement from your vendor. Yeah, because Amazon is seriously going to give you your money back for 1-3 empty cans or send an entire order to replace the rouge cans. Very disappointing customer service at NV, they happily send out free samples but no replacement for obvious factory duds? I paid for 24 cans not 22. EDIT: As of September and October I can no longer rate Instinct 4 stars, it's dropped to one. Being a faithful customer to Natures Variety since 2011 I've seen the inconsistencies between batches. I've seen cans come full, others quite full of gravy but moderate amounts of meat, to atrociously dented cans while the food remained intact and healthy. Whenever my little guy would eat instinct regardless of the flavor he would gobble it up. If he ever were to throw up it was his own fault for not taking it so slow. Not this time. I received packages from amazon, after my mailman lost my package once then delivered it to the wrong address, and one package had 2 rouge cans in one batch of 3 oz case of 24 chicken. One can had no label and the other was hollow! They actually delivered me a can that had no food in it but was sealed! By no means is this Amazons fault, both these batches were sealed by the factory. The other batch, a best by date of June 03,2018 had gone bad. The entire 24 cases were gray colored instead of the usual pink/brown you'd see. It had a bit of a pâté consistency. Absolutely no gravy whatsoever, and when trying to cut it up for my little guy it felt like the meat had gone bad at the factory before shipping. A very spongy texture. My cat ate a bit and had a reaction to it. He wouldn't stop licking his face and started to throw up. I figured it might have just been that one can but opening another one revealed the same thing. He refuses to eat them and would rather starve than eat that specific batch. I still had some cans from a previous shipment left over and he would happily eat those, they contain the old style of gravy/meat. I'm not sure if NV changed the formula or if this is a bad batch, but I'm willing to bet my money its a bad batch. I've sent a complaint to NV and encourage anyone else with bad batches to complain as well. Very good quality canned food. I had purchased this 3 years ago when I adopted a severely underweight kitten. This helped him recover to a healthy weight and he can't get enough of this food! The gravy may be inconsistent from batch to batch but overall should be there. The only thing I'm wondering is what caused Nature's Variety to increase the price. To the more exotic flavors I could understand but there's no shortage of beef nor chicken. Why the jumps in prices? The limited ingredients versions would be understandable but not this one. In their defense it hasn't increased exponentially to my knowledge lately, is it a union thing?

Since I've been feeding premium foods to my cats, my cats have been living into their mid-20s, and with very few veterinary bills. One of them was only a few months short of 29 years old. So, the ingredients are my primary concern. Of course, good ingredients aren't useful if my cats don't eat the food. The ingredients in Instinct recipes look very good. For example, the first five ingredients in its Real Salmon Recipe are Salmon, Fish Broth, Beef, Beef Heart, and Beef Liver. That's great; all of the first five ingredients are real proteins from fish or beef, and there's nothing that looks scary in the rest of the ingredients. The first ingredients in cat food should always be meat, fish, or poultry, and broth is good too because cats get a large part of their liquid requirements from their food, which is particularly important as they grow older and generally drink less water. Real Duck Recipe: Duck, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Egg Product, and Dicalcium Phosphate as the first five ingredients. Perhaps not quite as good as the Real Salmon Recipe in that respect, but still very good. Real Chicken Recipe: Chicken, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Egg Product, Dicalcium Phosphate. This is pretty much the same as the Real Duck Recipe, only with chicken rather than duck as the first ingredient. I look for cat food without corn, soy, wheat, gluten, or by-products. While the heart and liver might be considered a by-product in one sense, it's a named by-product. When an ingredient is simply listed as "by-products" or "chicken by-products," the actual ingredient could be any scrap that would otherwise go to waste, so I don't buy cat food that lists "by-products" as an ingredient. On the downside, Instinct is far from my cats' favorite food, for reasons that only cats can determine. Sometimes they refuse to eat it, but, at other times, they'll walk away from it in protest only to return to eat it later. On that end, they prefer the Chicken and Salmon recipes to the Duck, and I've found that to be true for other cat food brands as well. They just don't care for duck. For some reviewers, this might warrant a poor rating. After all, if your cats don't like it, why give it a good rating? However, cats are fickle, and they are also individuals. The ingredient list is good, and your cats might love it. If this turns out to be the case, this will be a good choice for you. This isn't my first order. Besides my two cats (Ella, age 8, and Bubba, age 2), I feed a few feral cats as well, and, although they are not my cats, I don't want to feed them junk, so I look for something that has reasonably good ingredients and yet is affordable, and Instinct fits the bill. It's not nearly as expensive as some of the other cat food that I buy, and whatever my cats won't eat is set on the porch for the ferals, and they love it. Curiously, one of the most expensive canned cat foods I've ever bought was rejected even by the ferals, so it's not a given that the feral cats will eat anything. This is a good cat food. If your cats like it, you will be feeding them well without breaking the bank.

My cat has allergies to the most common ingredients in commercial cat foods. It took the better part of a year to figure this out with methodical elimination techniques. Anyway we figured out that he has no negative reactions to grain-free, limited ingredient food with a single protein source from rabbit. This means that I spend more on food for him than most people spend on food for their human children, but it keeps him healthy and happy. His coat is soft and shiny, his skin is great, he has more than enough energy for a 10-yr-old cat, no itchy or hairless spots at all. I used to give him the kibble version but he’s had a few dentals to treat tooth resorption so now he only has a few teeth left and the soft food is much easier for him to eat. He also LOVES it. Like he’ll hear me open the can from another room and he comes running. I also feed him another brand of freeze-dried raw rabbit-based nuggets so he has another texture - it’s softer than hard kibble but it’s still dry. But he prefers this wet food and he’d probably gorge himself if he had thumbs to open it. Also, before his last dental he was a little too chonky, but since we cut out the hard kibble and most of his diet is now this wet food, he has slimmed down to a healthier weight. He still eats a lot but it seems like it’s much better for him and more efficient for his body to use. He gets late-night zoomies and climbs and runs and scratches and jumps and knocks things off shelves. This food is *expensive* and if my tiny dude could do well with anything else I wouldn’t buy it. But because of his allergies and sensitivities and lack of teeth, he needs very specific food, and he absolutely thrives on this.

Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to give some context about how I started feeding Instinct and where I am now. I started feeding Instinct Grain Fee after my CRF cat spent several days in-patient at the vet after she had so much vomiting that she stopped eating altogether. First a little background, I have three cats. One, Steve, is CRF and gets subcutaneous fluids daily. The second, Zipper, has bowel issues and as a kitten was constantly underweight and dehydrated from terrible diarrhea. The third, Biscuit, is just fine *knock on wood.* When I adopted Zipper, I tried different foods to help her with her digestive issues. Finally I found a grain-free food, Wellness Grain-Free Canned Cat Food, CORE Chicken/Turkey/Chicken Liver Recipe, 24-Pack of 5-1/2-Ounce Cans , that addressed Zipper's diarrhea - however her stool was still very large and smelly. To stay grain free, I supplemented the Wellness CORE with Merrick Before Grain #1 Chicken Dry Cat Food, 11.1 Pound Bag . All three cats when on this diet and things seemed to be going along fine. Steve (the CRF cat) was most prone to throwing up (every two to three days) but I attributed that to her being sick and being on fluid. Earlier this summer, however, Steve started vomiting every time she ate and eventually stopped eating. She went from 7.5 lbs (down from over 9 lbs before she got sick) to under 6 lbs. I thought her kidney disease had advanced to a point that fluid wasn't helping and that she was a goner. Two overnight stays at the vet didn't get us any closer to a diagnosis - it turns out that all her labs were fine and xrays/sonograms didn't show any obstructions. So we put her on an anti-emetic to stop the vomiting and an appetite stimulant to try to get her to eat. I had been reading the reviews on the Wellness Core and it gave me serious concerns about the product. I started thinking about putting her on a raw diet, but I just don't have the time to do that. So I decided to find the closest thing to raw I could buy and changing proteins in case she had developed an allergy to chicken, I ended up feeding her Instinct Grain-Free Rabbit Formula Canned Cat Food by Nature's Variety, 5.5-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) in rabbit, lamb, venison and beef. It worked! She started eating again. After researching food, I learned that the Before Grain is one of the highest dry foods in carbohydrates, so I switched to the Instinct Raw Boost dry. Steve gets the Instinct wet in the morning when I am in a hurry, the Instinct Raw Boost is out all day (though I don't think Steve eats much of that) and then at night she gets Stella & Chewy's Chick Chick Chicken Dinner Freeze Dried Cat Food, 12 oz which has a 5+ rating from me. Steve is eating enthusiastically, has regained all the weight she lost (and more) PLUS SHE HAS STOPPED VOMITING!! One time, I thought I would "use up" the Wellness CORE I had on hand and fed it to her. She immediately threw it up so the rest went in the trash. So it has been over three months and the only time she threw up was when I fed her the Wellness CORE. She's been eating the dry Instinct Raw Chicken and the Stella and Chewy Chick Chick Chicken, so it ain't the chicken it's the Wellness CORE. Update on Zipper - since switching to the Instinct Raw Boost dry and the Instinct canned, her stool is compact and doesn't smell anymore. All three of my cats have very small ashy stools now with very low, if any, odor. Whatever Zipper's allergy is - grain, potatoes, gluten??? - this food has addressed that. Zipper and Biscuit have both lost weight putting them back into a good weight range and all three of my cats have better breath and very shiny coats. So if your cat has digestive issues - chronic vomiting of food (rather than hair - if your cat is vomiting a lot of hair, brush the poor thing) or poor digestion with loose, large or smelly stool - you should try this food. It took my cats a couple of feedings to eat the lamb and venison. See if you can get a couple of cans of each flavor at a local pet food store before ordering a case. You and your cats will be glad you did.

My cats love this food however I've noticed that over the last year the amount of water has increased and the amount of meat is disappointing. The small amount of meat is in a pool of water. Not worth the price.

I have a cat with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). His case is mild, and the only symptom was unexplained weight loss. After extensive (and expensive!) testing, we got the IBD diagnosis. Cats with this condition are notoriously picky, difficult to get to eat, etc. Vets will often recommend that cats with IBD have only wet food with no grain, and I've been told to keep this cat off chicken, turkey, beef, fish, and pork, as well, in case one of those aggravates his condition. He was eating a prescription duck food for awhile, but started refusing it. I was running out of cat foods to try and had been holding out on getting the Instinct because of the price. (For what it's worth, Amazon has the best price I've been able to find on this product, and I've done a lot of shopping around.) I finally gave in and decided to try the lamb formula because it did not have any other proteins in it (the venison and rabbit contain pork liver and the duck contains turkey liver). Well, my cat (Mr. Kitty) loves the Instinct lamb. This is a high-calorie food -- about 260 calories per 5.5 ounce can. Mr. Kitty gets one and a half cans a day, or about 390 calories. Please be forewarned that that is a LOT more than you would want to give a cat in good health and/or at normal weight, but Mr. Kitty has lost 1.5 pounds and I'm trying to bring his weight back up. (His appetite is increased because of a medication he's on.) I am very happy with this food. All wet cat food smells a little bit, but the Instinct lamb doesn't smell very much compared to some of the others I've tried on my cats in recent months. You see broth and fat when you open the can, but these seem to have attractive flavors for Mr. Kitty. The lamb is a little crumbly although the moisture level is not particularly low compared to what I feed another of my cats (75% for Instinct lamb versus 78% for Merrick Cowboy Cookout). The texture is also good for cats with tooth problems, for what it's worth. This food appears to be all meat, and none of those weird processed composite chunks you see in other wet cat foods. (Mr. Kitty has terrible teeth -- had six of them removed last month -- so this is a concern.) I do mash it up as it tends to retain the shape of the can. If I am taking it out of the refrigerator, I will heat it in the microwave for about 15 seconds, as Mr. Kitty seems to like that temperature better. My other cats are jealous of Mr. Kitty! I do wish this food came in a package that contained more than 12 cans, though. Update, January 11, 2013: Mr. Kitty has gained 0.4 pounds in about two weeks, eating 1.5 cans of this food per day. (He's also on prednisolone.) For an IBD cat, this is amazing, and is exactly what I wanted!