Cat Foods - WHAT is good??

[Zippy]

I have feed iams,meow mix,and purina for a while.I now feed nutro nautral choice complete care adult.Zippy and Pumpkin love it the best of all foods.I give natural choice wet food and iams wet food off and on.They do the best on Natural choice there coats are beautiful and they are healthy.They also eat pounce cat treats,greenies cat treats,whiskers cat treats,animal planet cat treats and get catnip too.

[Don Juan's mom]

Don Juan and Zerlina eat Nutro Complete Care Indoor Formula, with a few Pounce Tartar Control Treats mixed in at dinner. They both look great and, judging from the amount of time they spend chasing each other, they feel just fine. It also seems to help keep Don Juan at a healthy weight.

Special for CCL: Petsmart has Nutro marked down on a pretty regular basis, at least around here.

Zerlina also gets a little pouch food (Nutro, Iams or Fancy Feast) as a treat. For some reason, Don Juan doesn't go near the stuff, but he does like Temptations (THANK YOU SO *%^$ MUCH, CATMANDU ). I have to dole them out carefully, as more than 3 or 4 give him an upset tummy. He also gets Feline Greenies.

All cats are different, though. My brother Jim has his three kitties thriving on Iams Senior Formula.

Liz

[pet detective]

I feed 7 month old Milo Iams kitten dry food, and the vet said that was a good choice. Haven't had any problems or allergies yet.

[JenBKR]

All of my critters eat Chicken Soup

[Crazy-Cat-Lover]

My three are eating Summit Indoor Cat.

[Logan]

Has all this information helped or confused you, Kay? LOL!! It is a very deep subject and I've gone around and around on it. I truly believe that every cat and dog is different and what works for one might not work for another.

I did a little research, hoping to find something for Butter that might help him with his constant skin problems. Today, I had my feed store guy order California Natural Chicken and Rice food for Butter. We'll have it next week. We've tried the Science Diet food (can't remember the name), hoping that would help him, but he wouldn't eat it. We've used the Pro Plan Turkey and Barley food, which he is "so so" about, but didn't love it. I'm going to try the California Natural food because it really is natural. My Golden Retrievers are doing great on the California Natural Reduced Calorie Lamb and Rice product, so after doing a little investigating, I figured I might as well try it for Butter, too.

By the way, California Natural food is made by the same company that makes Innova. I really have never compared ingredients, but for some reason, I think the CN is a bit less expensive. Wonder why? They are all discussed at www.naturapet.com

Logan

PS. I should add that Butter's favorite food is one of the cheapest, the Meow Mix Seafood Medley. He loves it!

[carole]

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but thought it an ideal thread for me to keep asking about the science diet, Lexie was put on Science diet prescription s/d to dissolve her crystals and yes you guessed it she does not like it even mixed in with her old ones, rang vet today and she said they quite often don't like it, silly making something cats don't like and suggested because she had very few crystals she go straight onto the maintenance one C/D and she should be fine and like it, so does anyone else have experience with either of these foods, or my problem or rather lexie's wee problem ,excuse the pun, i am keen to try the Royal Canin, can anyone tell me if it is much more palatable and their cats love it, much appreciated, thanks.

[jenluckenbach]

no experience with the Royal Canin, but I have 16 current cats (and 6 RB cats) who eat/ate it. No one refused it

[kittycats_delight]

i am keen to try the Royal Canin, can anyone tell me if it is much more palatable and their cats love it, much appreciated, thanks.

I have heard and experienced time and time again cats disliking science diet but I have yet to ever hear of a cat that turned their nose up at royal canin. I know here you can get small bags of roayl canin even the prescription food of 400g. I would suggest getting a small bag and giving it ago. I would pretty much stake anything that Lexie will love it.

[xcolbi]

Well I used to buy Whiskas for my cat, and she got fat. So we tried a bunch of other cat foods, one was Cat Chow, but she didn't like that one very well.

[carole]

what i like about the royal canin is it prevents against both type of crystals, also the vet said the science cd makes them fat, well my lexie needs to loose weight not gain it, and even though she said it would be fine to put her straight on that i have to really wonder, as those crystals need to be dissolved, she seems to think they will be fine, but there is always that bit of doubt, besides i cannot afford any more testing right now,we can only buy it at our vets but i will see if they do offer a small bag, probably a good idea,the only good thing about science is their money back guarantee. Thanks for your input, as i am so confused as which way to go really, but i had better make my mind up soon i guess, the other good thing is the science comes in bigger bags, so less trips to the vet to pick it up and is readily available, not sure if royal has to be ordered or not.

Has anyone tried the new purina natural blends,? well it is new here anyhow, it has cranberries in it, which is good for keeping urinary health up to scratch, my other cats really like it, again it is the most expensive food in the supermarket you can buy.,even more so than the excellence i had Lexie on,it was especially formulated for urinary tract care and has no preservs, colours etc, but according to the vet it does not lower the PH level , so that is why Lexie cannot stay on them, pity as she loved them so much and was very content on them,still my others love them too.

[kittycats_delight]

Carole I know you can get Royal Canin in large bags too. Here we can get small bags of 400g right up to large bags of 10kg. I would be weary when it comes to urinary health. Crystals can become a serious problem. Hopefully not in Lexie's case but I would be more the type to play it safe now than sorry later. Even the slightest chance would make me want to go with the prescription food. If Lexie doesn't like the Science Diet then money back guarentee or not it doesn't matter much. My cats have not gained any weight on Royal Canin. And they have been eating it since we came to Italy a little over a year ago. I am personally not fond of purina products because pretty well all of then contain BHA and/or BHT. And that stuff is far for benificial to your cat. But the ultimate decision is up to you or rather up to Lexie cause if she doesn't like it then it's a no go.


Good Luck and let us know what you and Lexie decide.

[carole]

Thanks i really appreciate your input very much, don't worry i am taking Lexie off her old food, thats a definite and going with the prescription food, that is not even in question, but i reckon i will try and get a small bag of royal canin, it was my first instinct after coming here to buy that instead of science, but because of the guarantee i chose the science, seems like that was the wrong choice for lexie,she sure is not fond of it, and has eaten only half her normal amount and very reluctantly i might add, still won't hurt her to loose a few pounds thats for sure,but i will be happier when she is,she is usually such a content wee girl.

Yes will let you know what i decide,i would dearly love all the cats on the best, but i just have to give them the best i can afford, after taking on the extra two that were abandoned, it has been a real struggle,one well worth i might add.

[kittycats_delight]

I understand completely about giving the best you can. The main reason we feed Royal Canin is because my Vixen is felv+ and needs to be on a high quality food with immunity boost for her immune system. It is costly no doubt as we spend 25 euro a month on just dry food. And an addition 60 euro a month on wet. They eat Almo Nature wet which is 100% natural. Only meat, fish, chicken or whatever the flavor may be 1% rice and cooking broth. And the canned is 1 euro a can. Good thing they only get one a day with their dry. LOL

If you cannot find the small bags of Royal Canin and you want to give Lexie a try on it. Just let me know.

Michelle

[NoahsMommy]

I will always ONLY feed my cats Royal Canin dry (I use Special for Micah and Noah's tum tums) and wet Innova. (I use wet as a treat about once a week...this enables me to sneak meds into their food when needed - sometimes it actually works! )

I know this is a different issue, but all of my cats are free fed and they've NEVER been food obsessed. The cats I've raised as kittens have never (at least so far) had a weight problem...I think this is why, they don't become food obsessed when they always have a bowl of dry laying around next to their water.

I swear by feeding my IBD cat Micah a raw diet every few months or so. Not only does it put his IBD in remission, but it also put his stomatitis (body attacking his poor gums) in remission too! My vet had never, ever seen Micah so healthy. She didn't believe in the raw diet because VETS ARE NOT TAUGHT MUCH AT ALL IN VET SCHOOL ABOUT DIET...only what the larger pet food companies mail to them (ie: Science Diet).

Personally, I wont give my furballs Science Diet. It made my Micah soooo much sicker (I/D, W/D, Z/D) and when Livvy was on it for her...ahem..."more to love"...she tended to eat MORE of it and lost NOT AN OUNCE! When she was on it, her fur became really flakey (those with black cats know what I mean) and lost its luster - Livvy was known for her super shiny coat amoung friends/visitors to our place. The second I put her back on the Royal Canin, she was back to her beautiful self. Who cares if she had a bit extra to love...if it did that to her fur, what did it do to her insides??

Kass is completely correct. Cats should live on a 100% meat diet. They don't eat flowers, veggies, fruits and grains if they were set free in the wild. The idea to is provide a logical means of what they'd eat in the wild. Because sparrows and cute little squirels wouldn't make the public happy being raised for kitty chow, chicken/duck/fish it is. Royal Canin and Innova use ONLY human grade ingredients. (There are potatoes, milk and I think cranberries in Innova, but they have beneficial qualities and don't act as 'fillers' - although, my furbrats tend to eat around the potatoes!)

Raw diet, like I said has been a godsend for my Micah. Like Kass (Nakita's Fabulous Meowmie), I did a TON of research. Mainly about the cons of eating a raw diet - first and foremost the thing I thought of (negatively) is, "wont Micah get sicker? Eating RAW chicken like that?" Answer to that is NO, unless you use pork and sometimes fish...because animals like dogs and cats have MUCH shorter digestive systems than we do, if by any chance there is salmonella or e. coli hanging about, its sped through cats and dogs GI tract/system so quickly, its dead in the grass or litter box before it knew what hit it.

The idea of the raw diet is to take the animal's diet back to a natural state, when we didn't have pre-packaged cat/dog/monkey chow. Cats, if left to their own devices, will hunt sparrows, bugs (eww), small rodents, small birds, etc. They don't fillet them and only eat the tenderloin; they eat the head, feathers, feet and all. (I'm sorry, don't mean to be gross. I'm just trying to show what the cats body needs/wants when it comes to diet.)

The only other "problem" was, how did I know for absolute SURE that Micah would get the proper amount of vitamins/nutrients he needed? How does cut up chicken and chicken livers give him that? Well, when you prepare the food, you order the "mix" from a company (I used www.felinefuture.com) that has all the vitamins needed, plus capsules of salmon oil for omega-3s, powdered bone for calcium - the liver I grind is essential for taurine cats require for vision (amoung other things). A lot of animals cannot simply just go on a raw diet with chicken as the protein source, I got lucky with Micah. I know a woman from when I worked at the vet clinic that has to feed her dog ostrich meat because everything else made her dealthy ill - ESPECIALLY packaged dog food.

How was all that randomness for an answer??

I'm apart from my furballs (Noah + Micah are with David, Phoebe + Basie are with my cat rescue friend Carol and Jonah is with CiCi)...I miss them so much. But, I still provide their food and like a few were saying, it IS expensive, but I feel its preventative medicine...feeding them healthily, keeps them that way.