What Wet Foods Are Recommended As A Supplement To Freeze Dried Raw?

[Jemrie79]

Hello, I have a 7 year old cat that I adopted recently and found that she has been quite picky with food but absolutely loves the primal freeze dried food. I would feed her this 100% but due to how expensive it is I want to add in some wet food as well. Any recommendations?

 

[oonawingedwolf]

Friskies pates are good. My cat loves them with a little water added to make them a bit soupy. Others will have more suggestions. We are new to the world of wet and slowly trying other brands. I love shopping on chewy.com for my pet supplies.

 

[LadyLondonderry]

I would say that when choosing wet foods you should try to uphold the standard set by the freeze-dried raw: Look for foods that are high in protein and low in carbs. Moderate amounts of fat are good; cats can handle fat better than they can handle carbs.

The ingredients should be mostly meat, not grains or fruits and vegetables. That gives you many choices at various price points. If you're looking for a lower-priced option to offset the higher cost of the Primal, Fancy Feast Classics have an excellent nutritional profile (per veterinarian Dr. Lisa Pierson's chart).

 

[Jemrie79]

Thank you for the chart, that is great information. I am planning on supplementing about 15% of her diet with wet food.

 

[Tobermory]

In addition to the link LadyLondonderry provided, here's another resource for looking at ingredients of hundreds of wet food: www.catfooddb.com

Hound & Gatos is a good food at a reasonable (for the quality) price. The Chicken & Chicken Liver and the Lamb, Chicken & Salmon don't have any questionable ingredients and price out at about $1.45 or so per 5.5 oz. can last time I checked. The other flavors are bit more.

Some of the Dave's food is good (it does have guar gum) and very reasonable--although I would personally avoid the ones with carrageenan. Rawz is an excellent canned food, but it's pricey. I fed both Rawz and Dave's before I began to feed raw.

If you have access to a Costco, the Kirkland brand Nature's Domain canned food is about the same price as Friskies and I like the looks of the ingredients more. The drawback is that you have to buy a case! And, of course, you have to be close to a Costco and have a membership or a friend with a membership. I recently bought a case for the sanctuary where I volunteer, and it priced out to about 68 cents a can which is what they were paying for Friskies. The cats all like it and the one with chronic diarrhea is actually showing some signs of improvement.

 

[lisahe]

Thank you for the chart, that is great information. I am planning on supplementing about 15% of her diet with wet food.

We also supplement various kinds of raw food -- much of it Primal freeze-dried, too -- with canned, also around 15-20%, I guess. The canned foods that we feed are all (like what LadyLondonderry recommends!) low-carb, high-protein. The brands include Wellness Core (but watch out -- some of those have potato!), Fancy Feast Classics (the pickier cat loves it!), Rawz, Weruva Cats in the Kitchen (canned only, pouches only occasionally and with much of the tapioca "gravy" removed), Feline Natural, and Nutro Natural Choice.

Good luck!