Anyone Tried Chewy's American Journey Grain Free Dry?

beckbjj

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My kitties eat primarily grain free canned food, but also get a small amount of dry food (1/4 cup or so per day; and if we're out of town we set up an auto feeder in addition to our cat sitter feeding wet food, to give them something to do). I prefer to feed dry foods with some dl-methionine, just to be safe on the urinary side of things.

I was trying to get them on Wysong Uretic, which is primarily decent ingredients, albeit with some hippie-dippy ones, but the cats are not having it. I've found a number of other possibilities, but am particularly interested in Chewy's house brand American Journey Grain Free, as it is the highest protein of the ones on my list.

Does anyone have experience with the feline American Journey Grain Free foods? If so, what flavor(s) have you tried? I'm sort of leaning toward the duck and/or chicken, as my cats like both the Natural Balance LID duck and chicken (alas, too low protein, too many peas!).
 

duckpond

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i looked at the American Journey, when they quit the Evo, but have not tried it. my 4 had been eating Evo dry, and Dr. Elsey's dry. So far i have stuck with the Dr. Elseys, and an occasional bag of Farmina or Crave. But i would also like to hear what others think of American Journey.
 
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beckbjj

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I think I'm going to go ahead and give the duck one a shot, especially since they give half off the first bag. I like it because the first three ingredients are meat/meat meal before they start getting to the goofy stuff. I'll report back on it, but it may be a little bit because at first I'll need to mix it with the Wysong we still have.

I'm glad you mentioned the Crave, though, as that was one I hadn't checked out and it does contain the dl-methionine and looks pretty good if the AJ doesn't work out. I may also take another run through the Chewy website to find things that meet my criteria because I realized that a couple I thought were okay actually aren't what I was after (Dr. Tim's Chase All Life Stage and First Mate Chicken Blueberry LID), leaving me with only one other option besides the AJ from my original list (Nutrisca Grain Free Chicken, and even that has more peas/chickpeas than I prefer).
 
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beckbjj

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As promised, I'm back to let folks know how we did with the American Journey food. I introduced it slowly by mixing with the old food (Wysong Uretic) that they didn't like (they still didn't like it even when mixed :lol:) but would still kind of eat. We have now transitioned to all AJ as far as the adults' daily dry food snack, and they ALL absolutely love it. We did the AJ duck, and it's a nice smallish round kibble, which I prefer to the X shapes and such, since sometimes they swallow without chewing. :eek: Ingredients are quite good for a dry food, protein is nice and high, carbs pretty low for a dry food. One other nice feature is it's an "all life stages" food, so it is suitable for kittens, so I'll be transitioning my two kittens (now 8.5 mos. old) from Merrick Purrfect Bistro kitten food (which is also really great food the kittens love) over to the AJ as we start to run low on the Merrick. (They have already sneaked some of the AJ from the adults and they liked it.) Anyway, the cats are very happy and so am I. :yess:
 

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As promised, I'm back to let folks know how we did with the American Journey food. I introduced it slowly by mixing with the old food (Wysong Uretic) that they didn't like (they still didn't like it even when mixed :lol:) but would still kind of eat. We have now transitioned to all AJ as far as the adults' daily dry food snack, and they ALL absolutely love it. We did the AJ duck, and it's a nice smallish round kibble, which I prefer to the X shapes and such, since sometimes they swallow without chewing. :eek: Ingredients are quite good for a dry food, protein is nice and high, carbs pretty low for a dry food. One other nice feature is it's an "all life stages" food, so it is suitable for kittens, so I'll be transitioning my two kittens (now 8.5 mos. old) from Merrick Purrfect Bistro kitten food (which is also really great food the kittens love) over to the AJ as we start to run low on the Merrick. (They have already sneaked some of the AJ from the adults and they liked it.) Anyway, the cats are very happy and so am I. :yess:
I
 

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I bought a bag of AJ Duck last week. All of my 3 cats like it. I will still be rotating Farmina ND Chicken, Dr. Elsey’s Chicken and 2 Instinct Ultimate Proein flavors: chicken and duck. Dry food is 25% of their daily diet. 75% is premium canned food. They are on a rotation diet.
 

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We did the AJ duck, and it's a nice smallish round kibble, which I prefer to the X shapes and such, since sometimes they swallow without chewing.
It's funny you say that because the smaller round shape is exactly the reason I don't like it as much as the larger X shaped kibble! On their previous X shaped kibble they would sometimes chew, sometimes swallow whole (never caused problems, just swallowing), but with this new round small kibble they almost always swallow straight away! Plus they get their kibble out of the puzzle ball too quickly now. So I'm going to transition my boys back to Simply Nourish once the bag is done.

Glad the new kibble is working out for you!
 

sabrinah

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American journey works wondefully with my girl who decided she's sick of Instinct. I also like the smaller kibble because she has a hard time eating anything even remotely large. Even Taste of the Wild Prey is too big!
 

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Ha, my cats are the same way EmmiTemmi, they prefer the bigger X's and circles of the olden days. They don't like the newer smaller kibble that all the companies are switching to. I'll have to check out Simply Nourish. Nutro Max is pretty good size, but it's not grain-free.
 

duckpond

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I dont use the american journey dry, but i have several friends that do. They like it, and say their cats like it a lot and are doing well. I do use and like their wet food.
 

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I just bought the Chicken flavor but can't find the magnesium level on the bag so I don't want to try it yet. I'd thought about adding it to their Blue but without that level, not sure I want to open the bag yet. Does anyone know what the magnesium is in this food. Our 7 all eat mostly canned but they do like to crunch once in a while..:flail:
 

duckpond

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I just bought the Chicken flavor but can't find the magnesium level on the bag so I don't want to try it yet. I'd thought about adding it to their Blue but without that level, not sure I want to open the bag yet. Does anyone know what the magnesium is in this food. Our 7 all eat mostly canned but they do like to crunch once in a while..:flail:
you can email chewy and ask them specific questions. I emailed about the ash in their wet food and they replied back in a day or two. This is on their website, under the chicken dry. The Ash content for the formula is approximately 7-9% on a dry matter basis. The Magnesium content is approximately 0.115-0.14% on a dry matter basis.
 
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maggiedemi

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I've been trying out the American Journey Chicken dry food this week and Demi pukes it up every time. I think the kibbles are too small, they are almost microscopic. He's just swallowing every piece without chewing. Today I switched to Crave, so we'll see what happens. Their kibble is quite a bit bigger.
 

sabrinah

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I've been trying out the American Journey Chicken dry food this week and Demi pukes it up every time. I think the kibbles are too small, they are almost microscopic. He's just swallowing every piece without chewing. Today I switched to Crave, so we'll see what happens. Their kibble is quite a bit bigger.
Taste of the Wild Prey also has large kibbles
 

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Funny how its different with different cats. My scarf and barf cat does not do well with larger kibble, he always throws up. Small kibble like AJ, or Dr. elses's is best for him, no barf :yess:
 

EmmiTemmi

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Funny how its different with different cats. My scarf and barf cat does not do well with larger kibble, he always throws up. Small kibble like AJ, or Dr. elses's is best for him, no barf :yess:
"Funny"? I think it's hilarious how different cats respond to different kibble! If my two boys eat smaller kibble (like American Journey, which I still have over half a small bag of because after 1.5+ months of feeding it, I still need to go really small amounts!) they are super sick the next day because they swallow it whole! Whenever they eat larger kibble, they seem much more happy with it, digestive wise. Not to mention, they end up biting into it more, not just swallowing it whole, which is better for dental health anyway (compared to kibble that's swallowed whole).
 

duckpond

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"Funny"? I think it's hilarious how different cats respond to different kibble! If my two boys eat smaller kibble (like American Journey, which I still have over half a small bag of because after 1.5+ months of feeding it, I still need to go really small amounts!) they are super sick the next day because they swallow it whole! Whenever they eat larger kibble, they seem much more happy with it, digestive wise. Not to mention, they end up biting into it more, not just swallowing it whole, which is better for dental health anyway (compared to kibble that's swallowed whole).
Hopefully between all the different brands there will continue to be different sized kibble, so no cat needs to barf! :banana1:
 
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