What do your cats eat?

[kittykisser]

I'm new here so I hope this isn't a question that gets asked a lot. I am in a quandary about whether to feed dry or wet, and which brand is best. Right now my one cat is on a Urinary dry diet but my other cat is eating Natural Choice dry. What about you?

 

[ldg]

Welcome to TCS! Yes, the question gets asked a lot, but that's why we're here!

There's a wide range of opinions on what's best, and an even wider variety of what people feed their kitties. :lol3:

Being that cats are carnivores and have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates, I personally think raw food, cooked home made food, or canned food is the best option. That's discussed in this thread: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/242949/what-to-feed-a-5-year-old-cat

Urinary diets tend to be high in corn-based proteins, and are thus often very high in carbohydrates. Using a low-carb, grain-free canned (some have to ensure to exclude any fish from the ingredients) will usually help kitties that have urinary health issues, and it's a more species-appropriate diet than the kibble.

I feed 7 of my 8 cats home made prey-model raw food. One kitty eats about 1/3 of her food in ground raw food, the rest is canned. I feed her Wellness grain free chicken or turkey (not a very good food IMO), and Instinct canned foods. I used to include Before Grain in the rotation, but she's currently on a B.G. boycott. :lol3:

 

[nekochan]

If you can get your cats to eat it and are able to do it, I also think raw diet is a great choice. Unfortunately I can't even get several of my cats to touch canned food, and they totally refused raw. I think canned food is better than dry so that would be my next choice, if I could get my cats to eat it!

One of my cats has severe food allergies and we think another may also (they're littermates) and since they refuse to eat canned foods and it is very hard to find limited ingredient dry food diets for cats, they have been eating Royal Canin Hypoallergenic rabbit (grain-free). I tried the few others out there but they would not eat them...

I have been trying to switch them to the new Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet (turkey, also grain free) but so far they don't like it much. Before the food allergies forced me to switch, they were eating Orijen.

I also offer them canned food (usually Instinct rabbit), sometimes they will at least lick the juice off.

 

[furryfriends50]

Five of mine eat canned in the morning and raw at night.  The rest (27 cats) get all prey model aka frankenprey raw...29 cats if you count the two that show up once every few days.  Most of mine are barn cats and s/n but that explains the large number   I feed raw because I feel that it is the best food to feed an obligate carnivore - mine thrive on it.

The canned I feed is typically half Before Grain and then store-brand food - to help even out the cost.  Personally I feel like the worst canned food is better for a cat than the best dry food, so I don't feel to bad about feeding some low quality canned.

Some of mine were very hard to switch to canned, they were true die hard kibble addicts, but they got there with the help of syringe/assist feeding canned till they would eat it on their own.  After that, they were switched to raw.  In the end, it was worth it several times over

  Most of mine were very easy, some incredibly hard, and others inbetween when it came to switching from dry to canned to raw.  The shortest transition was done in seconds, then there was Nightmare who took two years (hence his name...) but that long isn't normal at all.

http://catcentric.org/, http://catinfo.org/, and  http://www.rawfedcats.org/  are all very informative sites on the topic of nutrition that you could read through if you want.

 

[pushylady]

My two eat a mix of wet & dry. They get three meals of canned food a day- breakfast, dinner & supper, and several feedings of kibble throughout the day. One cat will eat anything but he's on a c/d diet because of crystals. I'd like him to eat a better quality food but I'm worried about the crystals recurring. The other cat is a fussy little pest and will only eat a little bit of his Wellness wet at a time. He loves most kibble though.

 

[ritz]

I fed raw.  I use to fed Ritz high quality wet food, seafood.  Then she becamse increasingly picky and when she develped a UTI, the only way I could get her to take a flavored medicine was to put it in low quality canned seafood.  She was eating a lot of Fancy Feast Classic and 1/8 cup dry TOTW dry food, and was still hungry.  So I transitioned her (quickly) to commercial raw food and then to frankenprey.  Best decision ever.  She'll eat any kind of meat/poultry.

@KittyKisser:  why is one of your cats eating a Urinary dry diet; generally speaking, dry is contra-indicated if your cat is having UTI problems.  (CAUTION:  I'm not a vet and I don't play one on tv.)

Wet canned food, the best quality you can afford, is the way to go with UTIs if you can't do raw.  Avoid seafood, especially if you have male cats; seafood has minerals in it (and other stuff) that make it bad news for cats.  I think Ritz developed UTIs in part because the only food she would eat was seafood based; the other reason is because her UTIs seem to be related to stressful events.

 

[carmina piranha]

Hello, welcome to the site!

I'm another of the raw-feeders, just for about 4 months now. 

I started out feeding my first cat dry food--she hated canned food, and so did I!  Yucky smell!  But when we started fostering kittens, and their stinky pudding-poop drove us crazy, in our desperate research we learned a few things:

1. Cats are descended from desert dwellers, and they normally get all their moisture from their food.  They have to be dehydrated to want to go get a drink.  And that leads to urinary problems.

2. Some cats can't tolerate grain in their food, so they have awful stinky poops, and can develop worse problems like Irritable Bowel Disorder if you keep feeding them that.

3. It's the seafood in canned food (even in Chicken flavor, until you get to the pure stuff like EVO) that my first cat hated, she actually loves chicken and turkey, so she's on the raw diet with the rest of the cats.  Everyone pees more, meaning their kidneys etc. are much happier!  (and their poop has no odor) 

4. Any wet food is better than feeding any dry food.  Because I've seen the difference in kidney output (and the cats hardly touch their water bowl now)--I really believe that.  This is the specific page that I read that explained it really well, written by a vet: http://www.catinfo.org/?link=cannedfoods

5. Cats tend to eat dry food left out all day out of boredom, and because of all the carbs in there, they gain weight.  They also don't feel satisfied with the low protein/high carbs, so they cry for more food.  But "weight management" dry food has even more carbs.  (My 1st cat got fat on her dry food!)

All that said, there are some nicely-made mostly-meat, or all-meat dry foods out there.  However, if you can, I think you should go with canned or raw!  I've been reading that Soulistic is very cheap for its high quality.  But, any canned is better than any dry!  (We make our own raw food, and it costs us less than a mid-grade canned food.  Right now, about $.70 per 11 lb cat per day) 

Good luck with all of your research, it can be quite a headache.  But worth it, since it's the life of your kitties! 

Edited to add: This page is also a great start in getting the gist of cat food quality and cost.  There are links to charts that give even more info on the daily cost of feeding different foods: dry, canned and raw (focus on the first page is on the affordability of raw, but has great info for the rest of the food too):

http://catcentric.org/nutrition-and...y-cat-or-i-can-afford-to-feed-commercial-raw/

 

[kittykisser]

@KittyKisser:  why is one of your cats eating a Urinary dry diet; generally speaking, dry is contra-indicated if your cat is having UTI problems.  (CAUTION:  I'm not a vet and I don't play one on tv.)

Wet canned food, the best quality you can afford, is the way to go with UTIs if you can't do raw.  Avoid seafood, especially if you have male cats; seafood has minerals in it (and other stuff) that make it bad news for cats.  I think Ritz developed UTIs in part because the only food she would eat was seafood based; the other reason is because her UTIs seem to be related to stressful events.

Thank for the info! The vet prescribed both dry and canned, mostly canned so I'm mixing. Thanks for the seafood info. I didn't know that.
 

 

[kittykisser]

 The rest (27 cats) get all prey model aka frankenprey raw...29 cats if you count the two that show up once every few days.  Most of mine are barn cats and s/n but that explains the large number 

http://catcentric.org/, http://catinfo.org/, and  http://www.rawfedcats.org/  are all very informative sites on the topic of nutrition that you could read through if you want.

That's a lot of cats! I thought my friend with 20 was The Cat Lady!

 

[Willowy]

LOL, I "only" feed about 25 cats (21 indoors, 4 regulars outside. .. who knows if others show up!).

I feed the inside cats mostly canned Friskies. Occasionally other brands, but they like Friskies best and the price is right. I sometimes give them a bit of kibble, which is a mix of Diamond Naturals, TOTW, Chicken Soup, 4Health, and one other brand that varies depending what I find a good price on. But that's maybe a few cups a week. I also give them some raw, and am trying to increase the amount. I feed some premade (Nature's Variety and Nature's Menu) and some regular raw meat from the grocery store.

Even though Friskies isn't very good, ingredients wise, and the kibbles I fed were higher-quality, my cats have shown an improvement in general health, litterbox odor, and fur texture since I switched to mostly canned. So now I do believe that any canned is better than any dry.

The outside cats get Purina Cat Chow and store brand canned. If it were just the cats eating it I could afford a better dry food, but the starlings get a lot of it and I can't afford to be feeding them the good stuff! :lol3:

 

[ritz]

Glad you're feeding your cat at least some wet food.

Ritz use to love Soulistic.

Trader Joe's canned wet food gets good reviews (avoid Tuna for obvious reasons) and is relatively inexpensive.  It is about 50 to 60 cents a 5 oz can.

Costco's Kirkland dry food also is good for the money.

Raw is best for many cats; but, no, it doesn't cure cancer. 

 

[meuzettesmom]

I don't feed raw.

Wish it would work out. But the nine cats over rule me. They voted and they like Purina ONE for sensitive stomachs. Even the kitten. I don't want to feed this since I am afraid of the sugar. Grain is the lest of my worries. The can food is Friskies. I tried more nutritious food, but this is all they want.

Two of the cats will only eat IAMS lamb and rice wet. sometimes chicken baby food.

At the moment I ordered them Nature Variety Instincts in Lamb for wet. And Royal Canine in baby cat for the dry. We will see what they do with that. The kitten needs some food to grow with.

 

[carolina]

Raw...... Been fighting a battle with my kibble addict Lucky.... she had never eaten wet a day in her life, so it has been a looooong process...... but we finally got there, and she is on 100% raw..... as balanced as I can do right now.... not Big pieces though - next step!

 

[elliriyanna]

I feed Evo and wet food ... My ideal balance is 50/50 wet dry but my cat wont seem to eat wet lol 

 

[kittykisser]

How expensive is a raw diet?

 

[ldg]

These will be really helpful for you! Even if you don't live in the U.S., I suspect the relative pricing would be similar.

http://catcentric.org/nutrition-and...y-cat-or-i-can-afford-to-feed-commercial-raw/ The article addresses home made raw, and the supporting tables compare the cost of feeding 48 brands of kibble, 40 brands of canned, and 15 commercial raw foods. It assumes you're in the U.S. though.

And here is a thread where a number of raw feeders making their own food include their costs of feeding: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/242250/survey-how-much-are-you-spending-per-cat-per-day

 

[apiot8]

My female eats Nature's Variety rabbit formula dry food and a mix of Nature's Variety, Nutro Max, Natural Choice and Natural Balance wet foods which she absolutely loves and keeps her nice & fit

 

[night wing]

My tail less male Manx cat (named Tiger) and come June 13th will be 15 years old, won't eat raw or wet food. He turns his nose up and walks off at these foods. His preference is dry grain free food and this is what he's been eating all his life.

So, I did my research and he likes two different dry grain free cat food varieties. He likes Blue Buffalo Wilderness (deboned Duck) which contains 40% protein and Innova Prime (deboned Chicken & deboned Turkey) which is 42% protein.

I don't know how to put photos into a message directly from Photobucket on this site, but if you click on the link below, you'll see a photo of Tiger in his natural habitat after chowing down.

 

[redvelvetone]

I have a 10-month-old  and I feed him mostly grain-free wet food (rotation of various brands including EVO, Before Grain, Blue Wilderness, Wellness) but sometimes I rotate in Trader Joes and Authority brand Canned foods too to even out the cost. And then for one meal he gets raw food (usually either giblets from a whole chicken, or else boneless chicken meat , but also sometimes ground turkey or beef.. Yesterday I tried him out with a chicken wing for the first time to see how he'd do with a bone. So I'll probably start giving him a chicken wing once a week for his teeth. I also recently picked up Nature's Variety commercial raw (medallions) and tried him with a couple of those. So I may rotate some of them in on occasion as well. He also gets one bite of sardines once a day (unsalted, packed in water) as a treat and to keep his coat shiny.

I also do have Blue Buffalo Wilderness dry here (duck formula) which he gets a few kibbles of in the morning along with his wet (not much though, more of a "garnish" to go with his wet. He'll whine if he doesn't get them lol).

 

[tonygh]

Could you be a bit more explicit about the "obvious reasons" for avoiding Trader Joe's Tuna for Cats, please? The "obvious reasons" for avoiding tuna canned for humans to eat are lack of Taurine and Vitamin E depletion, but neither of these objections apply to the Trader Joe Tuna for Cats product, which has supplements to correct both of these nutritional problems. I am trying to evaluate whether this food would be an appropriate component of my diabetic cat's diet, and I would appreciate very much knowing if there are other reasons for avoiding it. She likes it with a considerable amount of water mixed into it, and the vitamin supplements (there are others as well) suggest that whoever designed the product was at least trying to make it a healthy food. There is some rice flour in it, but that is the last ingredient listed, so I am guessing that the carbohydrate content is suitably low. I have written to the company asking for a detailed nutritional analysis.

Thank you.

P.S.: This was meant as a response to Ritz's posting on 4/17/12. I thought that the website would put this posting directly under that one and indented, since that was the posting in which I clicked the Reply button, but this forum doesn't seem to work that way.