Wet Food... Confused... Please Help!

ej x

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hi guys, so one of my cats (maybe you read about Luna in the health forum) is in risk of developing mega colon. Vet said to try some fiber or miralax, so I have her on 1.2gr of miralax daily and after a few weeks I will switch to soluble fiber (more natural I guess)

So right know I give her wet food as a treat in the morning and then mostly kibble. One loves cans (the fat one), other cat loves kibble (the thin one who might develop MC)... My luck...

But now I am thinking instead of as a treat, feed them 50/50.

But the more I research wet food the more confused I get...

So kibble will be rotation between acana and wellness core

Wet food, I can't afford super expensive but don't need to go super cheap.

I was thinking Weruva or tiki but then read, they are too low on calories..
Then Wellness (not core too expensive) but read some bad reviews about it.
Then American Journey (Cheweys brand) but they have almost same calorie content as weruva, and oh! the cranberries.
Fancy feast? but it has wheat gluten or corn starch, and then why buy grain free kibble and feed grains in food, no?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

KarenKat

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When it comes to calories, I calculate how many I should be feeding and then see what is in the can. Which means I may feed more out of one can if it has less calories. So no need to discount lower calorie food, just make sure you feed enough.

I don’t know what your criteria is on food, but this is how I go about it. I avoid carrageenan but not agar-agar or guar gum (some people do). I look for grain-free, and that meat is the first couple ingredients. The foods I feed Olive are a rotation of Dave’s Shredded Chicken Dinner, Life’s Abundance (the overall favorite, even for the other two cats that don’t eat wet food), Only Natural Pet Turkey Pate and I’m trying to work on more. She is not a picky eater and deals with switching it up a lot just fine. She loves Lotus Just Juicy Chicken Stew for Cats but I buy that sparingly because it’s kind of pricey.

Anyway, that’s my rotation. I don’t feed any kibble at the moment because Olive aka Porky Cat will gobble it up and she got quite round after we got her. We sometimes use kibble in a puzzle feeder and give her lots of treats. We feed about 70 kcal of canned food three times per day, and she’s about 10 lbs.

Hope that helps, there are so many options on wet food and so many ingredients people avoid or prefer that it gets overwhelming. Hopefully others will chime in with the foods they feed and you can start narrowing what you like down. Good luck!
 

lisahe

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Fancy feast? but it has wheat gluten or corn starch, and then why buy grain free kibble and feed grains in food, no?
Just to add that Fancy Feast Classics don't have wheat or corn ingredients. They're pretty decent food (and calories) for the money. Some of Sheba's foods are similar.
 
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ej x

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Thanks to both: I will include Fancy feast to the rotation, def love the price. Can't find Dave’s Shredded Chicken Dinner in stock, checked 3 sites it is out of stock.

What about this american journey brand? are the cranberries a deal breaker?
Any other recommendations?
 

KarenKat

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Yeah I noticed that chewy was out of stock. I just bought some off of petflow.com. Unfortunately I haven’t seen samples anywhere.

It’s also those processed chunks. Shredded is a stretch in my opinion. But my girl doesn’t seem to mind it, although generally she prefers pate
 

lisahe

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Thanks to both: I will include Fancy feast to the rotation, def love the price. Can't find Dave’s Shredded Chicken Dinner in stock, checked 3 sites it is out of stock.

What about this american journey brand? are the cranberries a deal breaker?
Any other recommendations?
I know, Fancy Feast is a great price. I just added in a can a week and love the price, too.

I don't much like cranberry as an ingredient, either, but do feed some foods with it. It's hard to avoid completely but I figure it's one of those ingredients that's good to limit.

As for other foods, our cats love Nutro Natural Choice. The chunky chicken, sliced turkey, and minced chicken are big favorites, though one TCS member recently contacted the company to ask about carbs and was told the minced chicken has very high carbs, something in the 23-24% dry matter range, which is crazy. They're asking more questions. Chunky chicken is very low carb, though! NNC is mid-price, small cans only. We also feed some Weruva Cats in the Kitchen foods; yes, they're low-calorie but they're pretty decent foods. (Some people don't like the gums...) Wellness Core kitten food and turkey/duck are also on the menu. The other brands are Koha (duck stew, larger cans are $1.69 or so, this is a fav), Rawz (though currently on hold for lack of current interest, ha, around $2.19 or so a larger can), and Feline Natural (costliest and low-cal, though I forget the price; the cats love it). Oh, there's also Fromm turkey/duck (I think? it's the green label and I don't remember the price for larger cans). We only feed one canned meal a day so I definitely try to mix things up in terms of brand, price, protein, and ingredients I don't like. Things like cranberry! By "small can" I mean the three-ounce-ish cans and by large I mean the six-ounce-ish cans.

Good luck!
 
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ej x

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Thanks!

What about Dr elseys clean protein. Seems pricey but per oz is almost the same as NCC.

And has a lot of cals so less food. Seems legit. Only I wish they had variety packs.
 

KarenKat

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You actually can order a variety pack of Dr Elsey’s from their website. I ordered one to try out for my girl and it just shipped! I hope she likes it, the ingredients looked pretty good.
 
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