Sensitive stomach cat food on a budget

Digestive sensitivity in cats is really common, and more often than not it comes down to a food intolerance rather than a true allergy — the good news is that limited-ingredient or novel-protein diets tend to sort it out without needing anything fancy or expensive. To point you in the right direction: what symptoms are you seeing exactly — vomiting, loose stools, something else? How long has it been going on? And what are you currently feeding?

That pattern — intermittent loose stools over a few months in a young cat on a rotating cheap dry food — is a pretty classic sign of ingredient sensitivity, most likely to the fillers and mixed protein sources that own-brand foods tend to use. Abyssinians can also have slightly reactive digestive systems as a breed. Before we go further: has anything changed in the last few months, like a new bag from a different batch, or has she been wormed recently?

Good — that rules out a few things. At your budget, I'd point you toward Applaws Natural Dry Cat Food. It's a high-meat, limited-ingredient dry food with a very short, clean ingredient list — typically one named protein like chicken or tuna, with no wheat, no soy, and minimal fillers. A 2kg bag runs around £8–10 and should last a solo young cat close to a month. It's not prescription food, but for the kind of sensitivity you're describing it hits the right notes: high meat content, no common trigger ingredients, and it's genuinely affordable. Transition slowly — mix it in over 7–10 days — and you should see loose stools settle within two to three weeks if food is the culprit.

For a sensitive stomach, chicken is the safer starting point. Fish-based foods are nutritionally fine but some cats find them harder to tolerate long-term, and fish is also more likely to be something she's already encountered in mixed-protein cheap foods. Starting with a single novel protein like chicken gives you a clean baseline — if she does well, great. If she doesn't, you'll know to look elsewhere. Stick with the chicken version for at least a month before drawing any conclusions.

Yes, absolutely — if you've done a proper slow transition and she's still having loose stools or diarrhea after three to four weeks on the new food, that's worth a vet visit. At that point it's less likely to be diet alone and could be something like IBD, a parasite, or a bacterial imbalance that needs investigating. But most cases like this do respond well to a diet change, so give it a fair trial first.