Savage Pet is the latest cat food brand to recall some of its products due to the possibility that it is contaminated with bird flu.
On Saturday, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a recall of large and small boxes of Savage Pet’s raw chicken cat food.
The recall is for 66 of the company’s large 84-oz boxes and 74 of the company’s small 21-oz boxes. They have a lot code/best-by date of 11152026.
The affected products come in cardboard boxes with handles that make the shape of a cat’s head. The chicken one is indicated by the color yellow outlining the company’s logo on the box.
The cat food boxes were distributed to retailers across five states: California, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
The FDA warned those who may have purchased the affected cat food to not feed it to their pets or donate it but instead to return it to the retailer in exchange for a refund. Customers who may have fed the food to their cats should look out for any symptoms of the bird flu, also known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1.
Symptoms of bird flu include “fever, lethargy, low appetite, reddened or inflamed eyes, discharge from the eyes and nose, difficulty breathing, and neurological signs like tremors, stiff body movements, seizure, lack of coordination, or blindness,” according to the FDA.
Any cats experiencing these symptoms after eating the affected food should contact their veterinarian immediately.
Although no human infections have been identified, pet owners should also pay attention to their own symptoms that could be experienced after handling the raw food. The symptoms include “eye redness or irritation (conjunctivitis), cough, sore throat, sneezing, runny/stuffy nose, and muscle/body aches.”
The news of Savage Pet’s recall comes after Wild Coast LLC dba Wild Coast Raw announced a recall on its frozen Boneless Free Range Chicken Formula raw pet food for cats, also over the possibility of it being contaminated with bird flu.
The affected products came in 16-ounce or 24-ounce packaging and were sold at pet food retailers in Washington and Oregon. The frozen products came in a small round white plastic container with a green label on it.
Recalled cat food containers can be identified by the numbers 22660, 22653, 22641, 22639, 22672, and 22664, and the Best By date of December 25. This recall also affects any “raw material sharing similar production dates and lot codes as 22660 and 22664.”
This recall was initiated after sampling by the Oregon Department of Agriculture revealed “the presence of the same strain of H5N1 in the affected cats and these products as well as sampling by the Washington State Department of Agriculture.”
The American Veterinary Medical Association had previously issued a warning about the bird flu outbreak affecting cats.
“Cats were already known to be susceptible to the H5N1 virus, with several feline cases linked to poultry or wild bird exposure before the outbreak in cattle began,” the organization said in a statement on its website.
“Cats appear to be particularly susceptible to severe illness, often resulting in death. Whether infected cats can infect other cats is currently unclear; however, that possibility cannot be dismissed.”
