The Flexadin Advanced Joint Care Chews for Cats is a month's supply of soft, chicken-flavoured chews from Vetoquinol, built around undenatured type II collagen with methionine, manganese, omega-3 and vitamin E, given as one chew a day whatever the cat weighs.

Key Features

• Undenatured type II collagen, which Vetoquinol brands Col2v and UC-II. Undenatured means the collagen has not been broken down by heat or acid, so it reaches the gut intact — that structure is what the research is built on, and it is why the dose is measured in milligrams rather than grams
• UC-II chicken cartilage powder at 4.8% of the chew, containing 0.15% undenatured type II collagen
• Methionine at 12 mg and manganese at 1.9 mg a chew. This is where the cat formula differs from the dog one, which uses Boswellia serrata instead
• Omega-3 at 25.42 mg a chew, including 2.37 mg of DHA from fish oil, alongside linseed oil
• Vitamin E at 7.7 IU a chew, as an antioxidant
• One chew a day whatever the animal weighs. There is no loading dose and no weight chart to work out
• Soft chicken-flavoured chews. Vetoquinol's palatability testing reports 82% acceptance in cats
• Made by Vetoquinol, a French veterinary pharmaceutical company founded in 1933 that sells through vets in more than 100 countries

Composition

• Brewer's yeast, oat flour, oat flakes, rye middlings, glycerin, chicken liver powder, linseed oil, UC-II chicken cartilage powder, fish oil, pectin, sucrose, maltodextrin and calcium sulphate dihydrate
• Analytical constituents: crude protein 25.5%, crude fat 11%, crude ash 7%, crude fibre 1.5%, moisture 15%
• Contains chicken and fish. Not suitable for a cat on a poultry or fish exclusion diet

Giving It

• One chew a day whatever the animal weighs. There is no loading dose and no weight chart to work out
• Give it during or just after a meal
• If the cat will not take it whole, break it up and mix it into wet food. It is a soft chew, so it crumbles rather than needing to be crushed
• Aimed at adult and older cats rather than kittens
• Supplements of this kind are judged over weeks, not days. Give it a couple of months and keep notes on what the animal can actually do, because day-to-day change is easy to imagine either way
• Always leave fresh, clean drinking water available
• Store in a cool, dry place with the bag resealed. These are soft chews and they dry out once air gets to them

Good To Know

• A pet that is limping, stiff after rest, reluctant on stairs or slower on walks needs a vet to look at it first. Joint pain has several causes, and a supplement is not a diagnosis
• Arthritis in cats is badly under-recognised because cats do not limp the way dogs do. The signs are subtler: no longer jumping onto the worktop, sleeping lower down, a scruffier coat because grooming hurts, or going to the tray less. Those are worth mentioning to a vet
• This is a complementary feed, not a licensed medicine. It does not replace anti-inflammatory pain relief prescribed by a vet, and it should not be used to put off a consultation
• Most of the published research on undenatured type II collagen has been done in dogs rather than cats. The cat formula is a reasonable extension of that work, not a separately proven one
• Keeping a pet lean does more for sore joints than any supplement on the market. If your dog or cat is carrying extra weight, that is the first thing to deal with
• The pack's 82% figure is Vetoquinol's own palatability testing — how many cats ate the chew, not how many improved. Cats are harder to please than dogs, which is why the number is lower
• Tell your vet what you are giving. Vetoquinol states it can be used alongside glucosamine and chondroitin, but your vet should have the full picture, particularly if the animal is on medication
• Not intended for kittens or growing cats