What Is The Next New Cat Food You Want To Try?

LadyLondonderry

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I added a case of the IALAY rabbit to my Chewy autoship. I half-expected that doing that would be the kiss of death ;), but Sylvie is still eating it for breakfast every day and enjoying it.

The dinner half of her current diet is the FN freeze-dried lamb & salmon, which she also is still eating with enthusiasm. I have been noticing lately that her coat feels incredibly silky to the touch, and I think we have FN to thank for that. It's almost as marked an improvement as I saw and felt after I adopted Sylvie and transitioned her to higher-quality foods than her foster mom could afford to buy for a houseful of rescued ferals. She also seems more energetic and is bugging me to play more often...a mixed blessing. :hyper:

When I was auditioning different canned foods recently, she willingly ate the canned FN beef & hoki but then barfed it up later. Now I'm wondering whether she might do better with the freeze-dried version of that one. She's intolerant to chicken (after having been fed chicken and turkey foods exclusively for several years--in retrospect probably not a great idea), so the chicken & lamb variety isn't an option.
 

KarenKat

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That's great! I want to transition out boys over to wet food (Gohan now eats about 50 kcal of Lotus pate in the evening). There is a marked difference between the coat quality of Olive and Gohan/Trin. I don't know how much of that is natural and how much is diet (she eats only canned, and we are working on mixing in some raw).
 

LadyLondonderry

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Sylvie has eaten only canned by default for a few years now, since she has only 7 teeth. I've always chosen very smooth pate formulas but noticed that she would eagerly gobble the tiny bits of dried-up food on the tray her bowl sits on (she's a messy eater). I think she likes giving those remaining teeth a workout. :) So with the freeze-dried food I add enough water to make it soft but not totally pudding-y. I really like having the flexibility to adjust the texture of my cat's food!
 

lisahe

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Sylvie has eaten only canned by default for a few years now, since she has only 7 teeth. I've always chosen very smooth pate formulas but noticed that she would eagerly gobble the tiny bits of dried-up food on the tray her bowl sits on (she's a messy eater). I think she likes giving those remaining teeth a workout. :) So with the freeze-dried food I add enough water to make it soft but not totally pudding-y. I really like having the flexibility to adjust the texture of my cat's food!
I agree! That flexibility is one of the great benefits of freeze-dried food! That and that bad cat moms like me don't have to worry about remembering/forgetting to defrost anything. :p
 

2BSH

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I added a case of the IALAY rabbit to my Chewy autoship. I half-expected that doing that would be the kiss of death ;), but Sylvie is still eating it for breakfast every day and enjoying it.

The dinner half of her current diet is the FN freeze-dried lamb & salmon, which she also is still eating with enthusiasm. I have been noticing lately that her coat feels incredibly silky to the touch, and I think we have FN to thank for that. It's almost as marked an improvement as I saw and felt after I adopted Sylvie and transitioned her to higher-quality foods than her foster mom could afford to buy for a houseful of rescued ferals. She also seems more energetic and is bugging me to play more often...a mixed blessing. :hyper:

When I was auditioning different canned foods recently, she willingly ate the canned FN beef & hoki but then barfed it up later. Now I'm wondering whether she might do better with the freeze-dried version of that one. She's intolerant to chicken (after having been fed chicken and turkey foods exclusively for several years--in retrospect probably not a great idea), so the chicken & lamb variety isn't an option.
That’s super exciting!!!:woohoo: I was just wondering this morning how she was doing with the IALAY rabbitt as I was dishing out my cats breakfast of IALAY PUURKY TURKEY.. I just got in a case of the rabbitt and they had a great deal on the turkey on chewy so I got a case of that too. Mine are still loving both. I’m so glad she is doing well and is more energetic. It’s amazing the difference a diet can make in felines and humans alike :updown:
 

Sonatine

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I guess this is a bit late since I already went on a shopping spree (wanted to buy back the kitty's affection after the vet).

I'm gonna try the Instinct original chicken kibble. I haven't fed her a meal of it yet (I don't always feed dry every day anymore, but do rotate it in since she likes the crunch), but I gave her a few kibbles as post-playtime treats and she liked those just fine, so it will hopefully become the main dry food.

I bought a few cans of Applaws and gave her one tonight (chicken and pumpkin). She snarfed it like a dog. It's not nutritionally complete and too expensive to feed too often, but I was happy to see her happy. I also bought her a bunch of other flavors in her usual brands (nulo and instinct) but can't be bothered to remember them all now. I hope she likes them.
 

bonepicker

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Nice! Mine love rabbitt. I’ll have to check out the Candidae’s rabbitt. Hmmm I’ve never seen that one.
Let me know how your girls like the I and love and you rabbitt.
Mine also really enjoy the natures variety pride rockstar rabbitt and the merrick backcountry rabbitt in the black pouches. All of those are chicken free too so that’s a nice bonus :yess:
It seems most cats love rabbit and duck both would be natural foods in the wild. Mine eat chicken, beef, rabbit and duck rotated daily. They love whole earth farms, Soulistic (Weruva), Merrick, Pride, Truluxe (Weruva)
 

KarenKat

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So PetFoodExpress had a brand I've never heard of before - Kiwi Kitchens. Cat Food | Kiwi Kitchens, New Zealand Pet Food It was about a dollar cheaper than ZiwiPeak, and the ingredients looked pretty good. It does have Brewers Yeast, Agar Agar, and Guar Gum but if I'm interpreting the label correctly they are all after the 8th ingredient. Bought a bunch of the flavors (Chicken, Beef, Lamb and Venison) to try.

Olive tried the Chicken Pate, gobbled it up quite quickly (which is not unusual). For a pate it had kind of an odd spongy texture that I found a little difficult to mix with warm water which is how I usually prepare it. I would say definitely a win!
 
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LadyLondonderry

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More Fun With New Foods! Today I trekked to my local farmer's market, and on the way back I stopped in at the local Petland to check out their selection of cat food. To my surprise, they now stock Stella & Chewy's! So I bought the smallest bag of the Duck Duck Goose to try out. I was going out for an early dinner, so I prepared a dish of it for Sylvie around 4 pm, breaking the bits in half, saturating them with warm water, and then smushing them further. I had no idea whether she would like the food or eat any of it. When arrived home around 7 pm, the dish was nearly clean! :yess:
 

LadyLondonderry

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Awesome! Clean plate cat dish day on new food day is the best!
It gets even better: A short time later, I was in the living room and heard a minor commotion in the kitchen. Sylvie, who hardly ever gets up on chairs or tables anymore (due to age and chunkiness, I think), had jumped up on a kitchen chair and was climbing onto the table to get at the bag of Stella & Chewy's! I gave her a little bit more of the food and then put it in the cupboard so it won't be ransacked when I'm not home!
 

LadyLondonderry

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Another day, another purchase of cat food! This evening I visited a pet food store not too far from my office and came home with a bag of Primal pork and a few cans each of Rawz beef and turkey. Now I need to contain my excitement and introduce each of these new options slowly. Sylvie is doing beautifully on her current regimen, and I want her to continue thriving!
 

LadyLondonderry

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Olive is crazy for the Rawz Beef! It has a strange meatloaf-like texture that I have to mush up extra. The Turkey was also enjoyed, and the nutrient profile is really good. Almost no carbs.
We tried the Rawz Beef for breakfast this morning and Sylvie gobbled it up. I fed her half the can in three separate portions a couple of hours apart to reduce the chance of her scarfing and barfing. After she ate the last portion she jumped up on the coffee table and started talking to me. I'm not sure whether she was asking for more food or telling me that her litter box needed attention -- maybe both. :) I scooped the box but did not feed her any more. She'll have to wait for dinnertime, and then I'll give her some S&C Duck Duck Goose, which she went nuts over when I tried it out last weekend.

Weekends are a good time to introduce new foods, because I'm home for most of the day and can keep tabs on Sylvie to see how things go down.
 

KarenKat

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Tried feeding Olive and Gohan the Caru Chicken Stew (it looks like gruel to me, lol). Olive ate "slowly" for her, but she ate steadily and finished it all like normal. Gohan sniffed it and then ignored it. Which is better than gagging.

Gohan is our problem child, for sure. We are still free-feeding because we are worried about Trin getting enough calories and they share kibble. I think his hunger is not always consistently there, and it's quite dicey as to whether he will eat a 1/4 can of 3 oz pate or not. He's BF's ex-feral bonded cat, and BF is the one that feeds him. BF said that Olive is way more fun to feed, lol!
 

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Disclaimer!! If you're vegetarian, vegan, or just don't like the idea of raw foods and what goes into it (and butchering methods), please just skip my posts now so we can all avoid hate mail later. I mean no grossness and don't want to make anyone sad, so...yeah. Skip over this.
Thanks!


Well, this is one of those weird cases where tons of opportunities have been thrown at us.
We now have good, quality sources for chickens, rabbits, and other meats at our disposal....for pets and people. Pheasant isn't an issue for the poultry farmer and they are considering raising them..which is awesome.
Best of all, the butchering process doesn't involve gas, which is something I dislike. It's unnatural and something I wish to avoid. I don't know if Co2 gasses are left in the meat, and my guess is "somewhat", so I'd be totally happy if we had access to food animals that were treated well and butchered quickly and in an artisanal way.
I'm kind of excited. We can get these meats for a good price, and cut/ground to our liking.
 
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