Dry cat foods - my suspicions

[Renne]

First things first, I have no choice but to feed my cat dry food. She never learnt to eat properly, she doesn't use her teeth, she only licks and that only works for dry food. So please do not suggest that I use wet food as a solution, she can't eat it and she gave up trying.

Here's why I'm alarmed as far as dry food is concerned. E.g. it's written on a 5kg package that there's 25% of crude protein in this cat food. According to my calculations, it takes about 15kg of raw meat for it to be true. But there's no way that 15kg of raw meat costs as cheaply as this 5kg dry food package. So it's impossible that there's 25% of crude protein in this dry food.

Are we being deceived? Or is there anything that can explain such numbers and prices?

P.S. FYI, 100g of raw chicken = 12g of protein. Other meats have lower values like 8g.

 

[StefanZ]

it dont think it is crude protein from animals... Or almost everything is animal...
Cereals do contain quite a much protein them too, and in cheaper dry its quite a lot of cereals... Hopefully not wheat, but...

Otherwise, I agree with you, dry isnt terribly good, and often horrible...

Dont forget to give cat lotsa of water! Several plates with water in your home, or even a water fountain...

 

[Renne]

You're right, that explains it.

In that case, there's very little animal protein in dry cat foods. Not 25-40%, but more like 10-15% or less. That's said, because there are conflicting opinions on how well cats can digest plant protein...

P.S My cat is, fortunately, a great drinker! She loves water in any shape or form. She even loves to be sprayed with water, whereas all my previous cats were afraid of it. So no worries, we're good

 

[Furballsmom]

Are you stateside? Do you feed a rotation or a mix of brands? Members have commented that Dr elseys Clean Protein is a good dry and I like Halo and Blue sensitive stomach.

Some of the info in this article you already know or it doesn't apply, but there's some useful info also
How To Choose The Best Dry Cat Food? - TheCatSite

 

[Renne]

I'm not in the US, and unfortunately we don't have such cat foods imported to my country. Cat foods that I see in shops the most are Royal Canine, Pro Plan, Hills, and Monge. Afaik they're all average, and Monge is below average, so I usually order Farmina online. But I have to buy the Ancestral Grain series, because Farmina wants too much money for their grain-free products. Recently they started charging +30% more than a year ago for 5kg packages that I usually buy from them. Excuse me, but my wages did not go up by 30% along with the inflation...

Incidentally, I was talking about Farmina in my post, at least about their Ancestral Grain series. Not much animal protein there, although there's 40% of meat and only 20% of grain listed as ingredients, but I guess there's A LOT more protein in grain than there is in meat overall. That's the only explanation for such a discrepancy. (EDIT: I just looked it up, and sure enough, one of the grains listed as 10% has a phenomenal quantity of protein, 25g per 100g, in comparison with ox & beef meat of only 8g).

GO and Wellness Core cost the same as Farmina's Ancestral Grain and they seem to be much better, at least they're grain-free. But my cat stubbornly refuses to eat them! And there are no more cat foods here of similar quality, not even at online market places.

It's a shame that pet food companies overcharge so much. E.g. if you buy Farmina's 20kg Team Breeders series (which I can't, I'm not a breeder), 1kg costs extremely cheap in comparison to smaller packages, even though they provide the same cat food as I buy! And that's still more than the actual price of 1kg, otherwise the company would suffer losses. That means that they overcharge smaller packages to the extreme. And I don't judge morally how people overcharge, but I do care for my cat. I wish I could feed her better cat foods.

P.S. I'm not bashing Farmina, I know that other companies do the same. I'm just using it as an example, because I've been most familiar with their products and prices throughout the last couple of years.

 

[Furballsmom]

But my cat stubbornly refuses to eat them!

Have you tried doing a gradual transition to one of these?

 

[Renne]

Have you tried doing a gradual transition to one of these?

She ate Wellness Core very well at first, no transition was needed, but after about a month she started eating it less and less... I didn't like that a cat ate about a third of what she should've per day, so I stopped giving Wellness to her.

That was not the first time this happened. She ate Acana for half a year (!) very well until she stopped eating it completely to the point that she went hungry for days. She ate Farmina with Chicken from small packages very well, but when I bought a huge package she refused to eat it. She's a very strange cat. I suspect she likes novelty, but once she realizes that this novelty is here to stay, she gets upset and goes hungry in protest. Farmina Ancestral Grain with Lamb is the only food she eats consistently for about 1.5 years now.

 

[catcat73837]

Are you stateside? Do you feed a rotation or a mix of brands? Members have commented that Dr elseys Clean Protein is a good dry and I like Halo and Blue sensitive stomach.

Some of the info in this article you already know or it doesn't apply, but there's some useful info also
How To Choose The Best Dry Cat Food? - TheCatSite

Hi! I just want to let everyone know Dr.Elseys Chicken dry food is not the same ingredients. They are having issues sourcing ingredients. They have not yet changed the ingredients on the bags because they have 6 months to do so. The food looks different and I have been buying it for 3 years. My cat now refuses. If you look on amazon chewy or petsmart recent reviews. You will see people say all of a sudden their cat has stopped eating it some people dont know about the changes.