Critique my (3) cats' diet please.

northbird

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Cat#1 Widget, 7/yo, no health issues but getting a little overweight. Had her since a tiny bottle baby.
Cat#2 Satan, took him in 3 months ago after a very dear friend died. Has had past issues with crystals/UTIs but none since I persuaded my friend to feed canned food at least once a day.
Cat#3 Maddie, about 7 months old, very healthy, tested, etc.

Luckily none of the cats are terribly picky about food; no throwing up and poops always look small and firm and very little odor.

Last spring I switched Widget to mostly raw (Darwins) and canned, she has slimmed down and took to that food immediately. But in the last few months since acquiring two new cats I can't afford to do the raw and premium canned. Which was mostly Koho limited ingredient.

So now I'm rotating between Darwins, canned (premium but sometimes it's Friskies because I figure cheap canned food is better than most kibble.) Also since the kitten is apparently a bottomless pit lol I sometimes throw some Iams urinary tract health kibble in the bowl. But mostly I feed them just twice a day. And with three cats it's hard to tell who is eating what. I'm not used to feeding multiple cats; I'm more of a dog person!

Any tips and criticism welcome!
 

Talien

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Tiki Cat is very good quality and more affordable than most high end canned foods, it's what I've been feeding mine since Balanced Blends went out of business. It's not as good as raw but it's close, especially if you get the after dark varieties or the chicken varieties that are completely free of all the plant based ingredients that are in small amounts in the seafood varieties.

Yes, Kittens tend to eat until they are so stuffed they can't eat any more, but that's normal and actually a good thing because it will all be used for their growth. You can't overfeed a Kitten so just give as much as will be eaten.

If you are looking for a bottom dollar budget canned food for when money is real tight you can't go wrong with special kitty, walmart's store brand. The ingredients aren't real great but it's comparable if not better better quality and cheaper than friskies, 9 lives, etc. $1.08 for a 22 oz. can? It's what I feed all my fosters and rescues.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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Since Maddie is now past 6 months of age, feeding only two meals per day is fine. What you were feeding, Darwins and Koho was great, but if you can't afford that anymore now that you have additional mouths to feed, just feed what you can afford. If you need to cut down on quality, I would try to still keep the carbs as low as possible. If feeding Friskies wet food, that means stick to the pates. Same with the Walmart brand. What you want to steer clear of are things like wheat gluten, corn, soy, potatoes. Those really up the carb percentage.
 

Talien

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Since Maddie is now past 6 months of age, feeding only two meals per day is fine. What you were feeding, Darwins and Koho was great, but if you can't afford that anymore now that you have additional mouths to feed, just feed what you can afford. If you need to cut down on quality, I would try to still keep the carbs as low as possible. If feeding Friskies wet food, that means stick to the pates. Same with the Walmart brand. What you want to steer clear of are things like wheat gluten, corn, soy, potatoes. Those really up the carb percentage.
Yes, definitely stick to pate. Avoid anything with "gravy", including "chunks in gravy" at all costs since those varieties tend to have higher carb content.
 
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northbird

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Ah I did not know that about the gravy type food! Thank you!
 
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northbird

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Oh and I can afford Darwins and better canned foods just not for every single meal. Sometimes I'll mix a can of Friskies or whatever with the raw just to stretch it out a bit. Luckily the cats aren't picky, and all the food gets eaten within 30 minutes or so.
 

Talien

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Oh and I can afford Darwins and better canned foods just not for every single meal. Sometimes I'll mix a can of Friskies or whatever with the raw just to stretch it out a bit. Luckily the cats aren't picky, and all the food gets eaten within 30 minutes or so.
It's actually better to find one food that is good quality that you can afford than to mix raw with junk. Doing that puts stress on them because they are constantly switching between an easily digestible food, and something loaded with plant based ingredients that is much harder to digest.

Foods like these are more affordable than raw and almost as good, so you might be able to feed something like this all the time instead of switching between raw and junk.


And while fish isn't really the best thing to feed a Cat all the time it's still better than plants.

Though you do have to be a bit careful with Tiki. It's their pate style and most of the fish flavors that has the carbs, the shredded is the good stuff.
 

Babypinkweeb

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Also highly recommend Rawz 96% pates. They are much cheaper than Tiki and other top of the line (but less healthy) canned foods on a per calorie basis. Even some freeze dried raw options can be cheaper than Tiki unless it's a huge discount.
 

daftcat75

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Rawz is not cheap. But it's dense. So maybe on a per calorie basis, the statement above might be true. I found that Tiki shredded textures (or shredded textures in general) come in around 0.7 to 0.9 calorie per gram. Pates come in around 1.2 to as high as 1.4 calories per gram. Rawz is generally around 1.2 to 1.3 calorie per gram. Rawz is an excellent food and probably the best you can get this side of raw. A cheaper food than Rawz which might be good for the kittens are the Fancy Feast Classic pates in the non-fish flavors (chicken, turkey, or beef.) These are a bit better quality than Friskies.

The one thing you want to watch out with Tiki Cat, and they are generally pretty good about this, is the gums they use in some of their shreds or pates. Most of their foods don't use gums. Some do. If there is carrageenan or agar agar in the food--I don't care how "quality" it looks or claims to be--put that food back on the shelf. Those two are known irritants and should not be allowed in cat food.

I would avoid seafood flavors. Seafood is addictive and it's not an ideal protein for cats. Save the seafood for restarting a sick cat's eating or disguising medicine. Exceptional times require exceptional measures. If you feed seafood on the regular, you lose this "nuclear option."
 

Babypinkweeb

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Rawz is not cheap. But it's dense. So maybe on a per calorie basis, the statement above might be true. I found that Tiki shredded textures (or shredded textures in general) come in around 0.7 to 0.9 calorie per gram. Pates come in around 1.2 to as high as 1.4 calories per gram. Rawz is generally around 1.2 to 1.3 calorie per gram. Rawz is an excellent food and probably the best you can get this side of raw. A cheaper food than Rawz which might be good for the kittens are the Fancy Feast Classic pates in the non-fish flavors (chicken, turkey, or beef.) These are a bit better quality than Friskies.

The one thing you want to watch out with Tiki Cat, and they are generally pretty good about this, is the gums they use in some of their shreds or pates. Most of their foods don't use gums. Some do. If there is carrageenan or agar agar in the food--I don't care how "quality" it looks or claims to be--put that food back on the shelf. Those two are known irritants and should not be allowed in cat food.

I would avoid seafood flavors. Seafood is addictive and it's not an ideal protein for cats. Save the seafood for restarting a sick cat's eating or disguising medicine. Exceptional times require exceptional measures. If you feed seafood on the regular, you lose this "nuclear option."
Oh yea I don't mean to say Rawz is cheap, just that if they're considering home made raw and tiki cat/after dark, then Rawz is cheaper per calorie while still being a good food. In my own experience Rawz is about $0.013/cal without discounts, while tiki cat puka puka shreds with the best deal I can find is $0.014/cal (20% a case of 10oz cans) and I never found this deal again. Usually I can just find it 20% off the single medium size cans which end up around $0.017/cal. After darks are on average $0.023/cal. I don't see Rawz mentioned often in food recs when usually people recommend Tiki, so I just wanted to give them another option as well if it can save a little money and have more protein options 😊

I also supplement Rawz with Fancy Feast Turkey and Giblets pate as it doesn't have fish I believe! It's helps a lot with monthly expenses.
 

Talien

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The problem with rawz is they won't sell online or through larger distributors like chewy, petco, etc. and only deal with small scale stores. If you don't have a brick and mortar place near you that sells it then you're SOL, and your only option is to buy from resellers on places like amazon. I tried to find somewhere that sold it and the closest place is over 100 miles away.
 

daftcat75

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Rawz has several online resellers. My favorite is Incredible Pets which sells by both the can and the case making it easier to try the different recipes without having to commit to a whole case. But once you do find the Rawz flavor(s) you like, I recommend stocking up every chance you get. They are a small scale company that sometimes has production or supply shortages. But even for all it's inconvenience, Rawz can't be beat on quality. And when you have a cat with a picky digestion, it's worth it all to find a food that your cat can eat without any issues on one end or the other.

Where to Buy | RAWZ

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