Best freeze dried food

[mrw5641]

Hi all!

For those feeding freeze dried food (not frozen) which is the best one?

If your cat was overweight did they lose any?

I'm giving my cat primal freeze dried venison

 

[livismom1]

I hope you get great suggestions. I love the convenience of freeze dried. My cat will eat the Stella & Chewys duck duck goose and Turkey. And every once in awhile the same flavors of Vital Essentials.

 

[mrw5641]

Not many so far!

 

[lisahe]

Well, as always with "best," it depends a lot on what a cat will eat and what their special dietary needs might be! I avoid anything carby and can't feed anything that's too bony either. That narrows the choices considerably, particularly in terms of bone content.

That said, our cats love Primal pork for breakfast and Purpose chicken for lunch. I may bring back Northwest Naturals for them, too: I replaced it with Purpose at the beginning of the pandemic because of availability.

 

[LadyLondonderry]

Well, as always with "best," it depends a lot on what a cat will eat and what their special dietary needs might be! I avoid anything carby and can't feed anything that's too bony either. That narrows the choices considerably, particularly in terms of bone content.

That said, our cats love Primal pork for breakfast and Purpose chicken for lunch. I may bring back Northwest Naturals for them, too: I replaced it with Purpose at the beginning of the pandemic because of availability.

Sylvie loves Primal pork too. I hadn't ordered it in a while and noticed a recent Chewy review said that bone is now the second-listed ingredient (used to be third). I just emailed the company to ask for the percentage of bone content in all of their flavors; they redid their website and removed this information from the nutrition info section.

 

[lisahe]

Sylvie loves Primal pork too. I hadn't ordered it in a while and noticed a recent Chewy review said that bone is now the second-listed ingredient (used to be third). I just emailed the company to ask for the percentage of bone content in all of their flavors; they redid their website and removed this information from the nutrition info section.

That's very interesting, LadyLondonderry , thank you for mentioning this. (And now I'm remembering that Sylvie and Ireland have Primal pork in common!) I'd also noticed that Primal changed their site (and packaging, too) and now lists less information. Ireland seems to be doing fine, at least so far, with Primal pork, though she only eats it for one meal a day. Recipe changes like these are one of the big reasons we feed so many different kinds of food, much of it homemade and boneless, each day. If you happen to think of it, I'd love to hear how Primal answers your question about bone in the pork food.

I hope you and Sylvie are doing well!

 

[LadyLondonderry]

That's very interesting, LadyLondonderry , thank you for mentioning this. (And now I'm remembering that Sylvie and Ireland have Primal pork in common!) I'd also noticed that Primal changed their site (and packaging, too) and now lists less information. Ireland seems to be doing fine, at least so far, with Primal pork, though she only eats it for one meal a day. Recipe changes like these are one of the big reasons we feed so many different kinds of food, much of it homemade and boneless, each day. If you happen to think of it, I'd love to hear how Primal answers your question about bone in the pork food.

I hope you and Sylvie are doing well!

Thanks, lisahe ! I hope you and your girls are doing well too! We are fine. Sylvie had me concerned a few days ago because she spat up clear liquid a few times in one day, but then I read some vet blogs that said that was a common "pre-hairball" symptom. Sure enough, yesterday morning, while I was in the shower, she brought up a two-part hairball, leaving Part I on my pillow and Part II on the top sheet. I had been brushing her daily, but now I've upped it to twice a day. She's been shedding like crazy in the summer heat, and apparently ingesting too much of the loose hair.

I definitely will share whatever information Primal provides. I agree with your approach of covering all bases by feeding a variety of foods, though, as you know, it can be a challenge to find ones that our cats can both tolerate and enjoy!

 

[lisahe]

Thanks, lisahe ! I hope you and your girls are doing well too! We are fine. Sylvie had me concerned a few days ago because she spat up clear liquid a few times in one day, but then I read some vet blogs that said that was a common "pre-hairball" symptom. Sure enough, yesterday morning, while I was in the shower, she brought up a two-part hairball, leaving Part I on my pillow and Part II on the top sheet. I had been brushing her daily, but now I've upped it to twice a day. She's been shedding like crazy in the summer heat, and apparently ingesting too much of the loose hair.

I definitely will share whatever information Primal provides. I agree with your approach of covering all bases by feeding a variety of foods, though, as you know, it can be a challenge to find ones that our cats can both tolerate and enjoy!

I'm glad to hear you're both doing okay and that you're figuring out Sylvie's hairball problem! Edwina's like that: she'll spit up liquid, too, sometimes with just small amounts of fur, occasionally followed by a full-on hairball. She does pretty well, though, if she's brushed frequently.

Things are fine here, thank you, now that Ireland's used to her inhaler and we've gotten used to their most recent food rotation! I'm just crossing my fingers that nothing will change or get discontinued. I'll cross my fingers for you that brushing Sylvie will take care of the problem.

Thank you for letting me know about the Primal pork when/if you hear from the company!

 

[LadyLondonderry]

Primal responded to my inquiry very promptly! Here's what they said:

"Our frozen and freeze-dried nuggets are the same formula, so the bone content will be the same for each option. Here are the bone amounts for our feline formulas:

Beef & Salmon: 6%
Chicken & Salmon: 10%
Duck: 10%
Pork: 6%
Rabbit: 10%
Turkey: 10%
Venison: 7%"

I'm glad to see that the Pork is still listed at 6%. I'll also take a look at the Beef & Salmon and the Venison.

 

[lisahe]

Thank you so much, LadyLondonderry ! That's very good news, indeed. And it's funny: I thought the pork was a bit higher so am doubly happy to see the data! We did feed a bag of the turkey a month or so ago, when pork was in short supply. No problems, though I definitely like to keep the bone content down.

Thank you again!