Probiotics are so important for all animals (and humans too). At Adored Beast, we have 6 different probiotic formulas for kitties. And because of this variety, we routinely get asked which one is the best probiotic for cats? Or if certain ones are better for certain situations.
To help you and your feline friend out, we’re breaking it down to make it really easy for you to find exactly what your cat (and their gut!) needs.
But first, a little back-to-basics…
Why are Probiotics Important?
Your cat’s gut is home to as much as 80% of their immune system. A normal digestive tract contains both “good” and “bad” (pathogenic) bacteria.
And when the gut is healthy, it helps the whole body stay healthy and thrive!
Unfortunately, many things damage the gut environment, causing it to become ‘unbalanced’ and creating many of the chronic diseases we see in our cats today. This includes:
- antibiotics
- non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and steroids
- over-vaccination
- processed food
- stress
- grains or beans (anything with lectins)
These things can cause the bad bacteria to start overwhelm the good bacteria, the gut can really start to take a beating.
Enter probiotics!
Probiotics, or “friendly” bacteria, act like the gut’s defence system against “bad” or dangerous disease-causing bacteria. They are the gatekeepers that stop intruders and keep the mucosal lining healthy. It’s also paramount in converting and metabolizing our food into vitamins and bioavailable nutrition.
For example, when you eat a carrot (packed with vitamins A, C, K1, calcium, iron, biotin, potassium…!) there’s a complex process that happens to allow your body to use that nutrition. The same goes for your cat!
The facilitation of this process is one of the important jobs of the friendly gut bacteria.
A gut that has a bountiful amount of this healthy, friendly, live bacteria enjoys wonderful health benefits.
As our fearless leader Julie Anne Lee always says, “You can feed the absolute best nutrition on the planet, but without a healthy gut much of that nutrition goes to waste along with the time, money, and concern you spend getting the right food for your pet’s optimal health.”
The Best Probiotic for Cats
For over 20 years, gut health and research has always been a passion of Julie’s. Each one of these formulas comes from the knowledge, expertise, and experience of working with probiotics in her veterinary clinic. She has handpicked each individual ingredient. This includes each and every probiotic strain for its effectiveness with particular diseases she saw in her practice. In our opinion, each of these top the list of best probiotic for cats.
1. Love Bugs
This is our flagship pre and probiotic blend. It features 14 diverse strains with 30 billion colony forming units (CFUs). We also added larch arabinogalactan for its potent prebiotic properties. And that’s important – prebiotics feed probiotics, allowing them to flourish in the gut and deliver those benefits you’re looking for.
Love Bugs is a great starter probiotic for cats. It’s ideal for minor health concerns like mild itching or tummy issues. It supports the gut, the immune system, and can be very helpful for allergies.
Love Bugs = a good choice for daily proactive health.
2. Feline Gut Soothe
This one starts out with Love Bugs as the base, but we’ve added several different anti-inflammatory herbs and nutraceuticals, such as slippery elm, l-glutamine amino acid, deglycyrrhizinated licorice, marshmallow root, and more! It even contains beef liver glandular to make it tasty for picky cats.
Feline Gut Soothe is tailored to those cats with tummy troubles. It can help significantly with things like diarrhea, leaky gut, vomiting, allergies, lung issues, irritable bowel disorder (IBD), acid reflux, and just general inflammation of the digestive tract. It can also be valuable for cats with respiratory issues such as asthma and even for hairballs!
Feline Gut Soothe = use it regularly, or even just keep it on hand for flare-ups.
3. Healthy Gut
This formula also starts out with a Love Bugs base, with the added benefits of digestive enzymes like bromelain, papain, and pancreatin.
Heathy Gut is really good for all animals who are eating kibble. It’s helpful for those cats who have trouble gaining weight, have large stool volume, or are malnourished. The digestive enzymes help your cat’s body to absorb the nutrients from their food.
It’s also really good for healthy cats, though! Even cats on raw food lack the digestive enzymes they would be getting from whole-prey nutrition. Therefore, Healthy Gut gives the added boost they need.
Healthy Gut = use it regularly, or rotate with the others on this list.
4. Easy Peesy II
With this formula, we again start with a Love Bugs base, but then add special herbs and nutraceuticals like cranberry and n-acetyl glucosamine that target the urinary tract.
Easy Peesy II is helpful for cats who’ve struggled with urinary tract or bladder infections in the past, whether regularly or intermittently. It’s also particularly beneficial for senior cats to help strengthen the urethra and sphincter, two muscles that can weaken with age.
Easy Peesy can help to decrease pain/discomfort and inflammation in the bladder wall and smooth muscle, and support the transportation of bad bacteria out of the bladder through the urine, while slightly shifting the urine pH, thereby making conditions for bacteria growth less favourable.
Easy Peesy = use it regularly to give the bladder some love, or rotate with the others on this list.
5. Felix’s Flora
With this formula, we start with the Love Bugs pre and probiotic but then boost the probiotic power with 3 feline species-specific probiotic strains. That means that we have scientifically isolated the strains from the feces (yes, poop) of healthy cats. Sounds weird, we know, but research shows using these species-specific strains allows for unparalleled health benefits.
Why poop? Well, research tells us that probiotic bacteria evolve host-specific traits – meaning you want to find a strain or strains that have optimum efficacy for the host, body or species it’s intended for. We now know that while there is some commonality of intestinal bacteria between species, each species of animal has its own specific microflora. So going right to the source for host-specific strains, like the ones in Felix’s Flora, is going to deliver the most valuable probiotic benefits.
For example, these species specific strains are really useful for balancing the immune system (immune modulation). This is key for animals with any type of autoimmune disease such as allergies, cancer, or Cushing’s. Immune modulation even has the potential to derail many diseases before they take root! Felix’s Flora is definitely the best probiotic for cats when it comes to feline-specific strains.
We also added ancient minerals humic and fulvic acid to help support the body with chelation, a process where the body rids itself of things like heavy metals and toxins.
Felix’s Flora = good for animals struggling with a number of issues, or to just help get the body back on track after an illness, medications, or any kind of gut trauma. It is a go-to for any cat with allergies or an autoimmune disease. It’s good for a general all-around detox. Felix’s Flora also helps to replenish the natural species-specific probiotics that many kittens are lacking at birth!
6. Soil & Sea
These are the only soil-based probiotics in our line-up. They come from the soil, and are paired with chlorella and ancient minerals fulvic and humic acid. By feeding them to our animals, we are providing them with the essential bacteria that have been lost through the sterilization techniques of modern farming. These bacteria have been, and still are, incredibly vital for health and longevity.
The pre and probiotics in this formula are completely vegan, and come from lower down the food chain, meaning they offer a diverse variety of bacteria not found in our other probiotics. They provide the bacterial diversity that was once common prior to the introduction of sterilizing farming practices (washing our fruits and vegetables). This makes it a vital part of any probiotic rotation. The addition of chlorella and humic and fulvic acid also provide numerous benefits.
Soil & Sea = ideal for cats with SIBO (or suspected SIBO), IBS, digestive upset, good for inflammation, ulcers, acid reflux, detoxification. Use in rotation, particularly Feline Gut Soothe.
Rotation is Key
Maybe all of these sound great to you. And that’s good – it’s really important actually. But is one better than the others? What’s the best probiotic for cats on this list?
When it comes to gut health, diversity is key. By switching things up and rotating, you’re changing the gut’s focus and you’re working with different systems.
For example, Love Bugs covers your basics, but then maybe you decide to bring in anti-inflammatories with Feline Gut Soothe in the spring with the pollen count. Those allergies and all… Then all summer long your cat faces weed killers or other toxins brought in from outside, so you turn to Felix’s Flora for detoxification in the fall. Then of course Healthy Gut gives a little extra boost of digestibility throughout the year. See? Rotation.
You don’t want to keep using the same thing over and over. We shouldn’t be and our cats shouldn’t be either.
These products are built to support certain systems in the body. It’s always helpful to rotate so that each part of the body gets a little love and a little support, and then you move on to the next system. The more diversity, the more educated the gut becomes.
For healthy animals, for young animals, for senior animals, it’s healthy to rotate.
Whether you’re looking for something to help maintain good gut health, something to help calm a troubled tummy, something to help your cat get the most from their food, or something to really kickstart the health of the gut after it’s been damaged, we have the best probiotic for cats. And not just any cat – your cat! That’s our promise and our guarantee ❤️
