Holy heck, in my house of very picky and frustrating eaters (seriously, trying to find healthy foods that all of my crew will eat has reduced me to tears more than once...) this stuff is crack. They literally line up at the bowls when they see the bag. All 5 of them!
The vet prescribed it for one of my cats who is probably the most finicky, seems to have a sensitive stomach (way more likely than any of them to vomit and/or have diarrhea...this is not a daily occurrence at all, he seems to go through phases and I have not yet been able to identify what causes them). But he is also a happy, playful guy who weighs the right amount and aside from his apparently finicky stomach, seems OK.
He is one of a set of 4 littermates and they are about 16 months old. Our 5th is a 5 month old kitten left over from a litter of foster kittens that we had recently -- we were able to adopt out the other 4 in pairs, but I really hate sending out a singleton into the world and since she was already used to me and our house....well, she's officially ours now.
Anyhow, the vet prescribed the Hills for the one cat, but said that the other 3 littermates could eat it as well. As you can imagine, it's hard to feed one cat a separate food and keep the others away if they all like it/want it. If it's a major illness and is absolutely necessary I would of course do it, but this doesn't seem like it's I desperately try (and have been trying) to keep the 4 older ones on wet food only, but they have different ideas. So Ive been on the search for the 'best' dry food to give them for one meal. When our one cat was prescribed this, it was right before we were leaving town, a lot was going on, and since it was the one food that all of them seemed to love, I have been letting them all eat it for about a month and a half now.
They currently get 3 wet food meals a day -- they only eat about half of a small can of wet food (if that) each at each feeding, which is why I do 3 a day. I have tried innumerable flavors, brands, types...and they defy my desire to feed them well. Sometimes they turn their noses up at the wet food altogether. I could fill an entire other post with my worries and woes and efforts at getting them to eat healthy (I thought if I started with 'the good stuff' when they were super young, they'd continue without problem...I didn't expect them to change their minds before they were even 8 months old and decide they didn't like what they had eaten happily before!) So, at the end of the day they each get 1/8 cup of the hills in their bowls, and as I said before, it's the most popular time of the day.
I have a perhaps irrational distrust of Hills -- perhaps irrational because I had one vet friend who thought it was crap, and that bias stands out in my mind. Looking at the ingredient list I'm surprised because there seems to be a lot in there that I thought I was supposed to be avoiding -- brewers rice, corn gluten meal, chicken meal, wheat gluten, powdered cellulose, chicken, whole grain corn, whole grain wheat....those are the first ingredients. There's also soybean oil a few more down the list.
I really started really looking at it because 1) life has calmed down from a busy end of summer and I feel like I can resume my exhaustive search to get these guys to buy in to my wet food only -- save for the new kitten who makes things tricky because I feel like I do have to offer her dry food during the day bc she really doesn't eat enough wet food at meal times for a growing kitten. She eats a kitten dry food -- she'll get a few bites of the Hills with the rest of the gang just to be a part of the group, but she certainly isn't getting 1/8 cup.
and 2) one of the older cats has started having bad blackheads on his chin and his cheeks. This isn't new, but they have gotten worse. I posted about this in the general forum -- the vet gave me some wipes but they aren't helping, and nothing I tried at home before that with gentle cleaning etc. helped either. The timing doesn't correspond exactly with when the Hills arrived at this house, but it isn't entirely opposite. The vet wondered about some allergy, so that got me thinking about what might be in this crack food. For wet food they really eat (or are offered, rather) a variety of brands and types, so it didn't make sense that any of that food would have all of a sudden triggered an allergy. And I don't know for sure that it is an allergy...but the vet throwing that out there as a possibility made me 'remember' that this dry food is the only semi-new variable in their eating.
Anyhow...a very long explanation, but wanted to get feedback as to whether or not this stuff really is junk and I need to ditch it, or if my biased view is indeed silly and it's a perfectly fine food to give in small amounts.
The cat it was originally prescribed for tolerates it well -- it hasn't completely cleared up any tummy issues, but they aren't terrible. I wouldn't be opposed to taking it away and seeing if it really helped if the experts on here feel that it's junk and not good nutrition.
The vet prescribed it for one of my cats who is probably the most finicky, seems to have a sensitive stomach (way more likely than any of them to vomit and/or have diarrhea...this is not a daily occurrence at all, he seems to go through phases and I have not yet been able to identify what causes them). But he is also a happy, playful guy who weighs the right amount and aside from his apparently finicky stomach, seems OK.
He is one of a set of 4 littermates and they are about 16 months old. Our 5th is a 5 month old kitten left over from a litter of foster kittens that we had recently -- we were able to adopt out the other 4 in pairs, but I really hate sending out a singleton into the world and since she was already used to me and our house....well, she's officially ours now.
Anyhow, the vet prescribed the Hills for the one cat, but said that the other 3 littermates could eat it as well. As you can imagine, it's hard to feed one cat a separate food and keep the others away if they all like it/want it. If it's a major illness and is absolutely necessary I would of course do it, but this doesn't seem like it's I desperately try (and have been trying) to keep the 4 older ones on wet food only, but they have different ideas. So Ive been on the search for the 'best' dry food to give them for one meal. When our one cat was prescribed this, it was right before we were leaving town, a lot was going on, and since it was the one food that all of them seemed to love, I have been letting them all eat it for about a month and a half now.
They currently get 3 wet food meals a day -- they only eat about half of a small can of wet food (if that) each at each feeding, which is why I do 3 a day. I have tried innumerable flavors, brands, types...and they defy my desire to feed them well. Sometimes they turn their noses up at the wet food altogether. I could fill an entire other post with my worries and woes and efforts at getting them to eat healthy (I thought if I started with 'the good stuff' when they were super young, they'd continue without problem...I didn't expect them to change their minds before they were even 8 months old and decide they didn't like what they had eaten happily before!) So, at the end of the day they each get 1/8 cup of the hills in their bowls, and as I said before, it's the most popular time of the day.
I have a perhaps irrational distrust of Hills -- perhaps irrational because I had one vet friend who thought it was crap, and that bias stands out in my mind. Looking at the ingredient list I'm surprised because there seems to be a lot in there that I thought I was supposed to be avoiding -- brewers rice, corn gluten meal, chicken meal, wheat gluten, powdered cellulose, chicken, whole grain corn, whole grain wheat....those are the first ingredients. There's also soybean oil a few more down the list.
I really started really looking at it because 1) life has calmed down from a busy end of summer and I feel like I can resume my exhaustive search to get these guys to buy in to my wet food only -- save for the new kitten who makes things tricky because I feel like I do have to offer her dry food during the day bc she really doesn't eat enough wet food at meal times for a growing kitten. She eats a kitten dry food -- she'll get a few bites of the Hills with the rest of the gang just to be a part of the group, but she certainly isn't getting 1/8 cup.
and 2) one of the older cats has started having bad blackheads on his chin and his cheeks. This isn't new, but they have gotten worse. I posted about this in the general forum -- the vet gave me some wipes but they aren't helping, and nothing I tried at home before that with gentle cleaning etc. helped either. The timing doesn't correspond exactly with when the Hills arrived at this house, but it isn't entirely opposite. The vet wondered about some allergy, so that got me thinking about what might be in this crack food. For wet food they really eat (or are offered, rather) a variety of brands and types, so it didn't make sense that any of that food would have all of a sudden triggered an allergy. And I don't know for sure that it is an allergy...but the vet throwing that out there as a possibility made me 'remember' that this dry food is the only semi-new variable in their eating.
Anyhow...a very long explanation, but wanted to get feedback as to whether or not this stuff really is junk and I need to ditch it, or if my biased view is indeed silly and it's a perfectly fine food to give in small amounts.
The cat it was originally prescribed for tolerates it well -- it hasn't completely cleared up any tummy issues, but they aren't terrible. I wouldn't be opposed to taking it away and seeing if it really helped if the experts on here feel that it's junk and not good nutrition.
helped me realize that the problem was most likely the agar-agar contained in a couple new foods. I'd kept away from agar-agar for years but broke down and tried it after doing more reading -- it is now gone for good because even our cat who never barfs barfed at least twice after it was introduced! I'm can't be certain it was just the agar-agar that was causing the frequent vomiter's problem because there'd been another food change, too, so (long story short!) I started adding fish oil and more egg yolk to the cats' homemade food. (Egg yolk can help prevent hairballs from forming; Edwina had a few small hairballs, too.) Edwina's gone eight days now without throwing up -- this is her longest barfless stretch in two months. Egg yolk and fish oil are good for cats anyway so I'm more than happy to keep including them in the homemade food.
