Help w Cat Food

[Heatherwith4]

I am currently fostering a mama cat and her kittens. We are adopting the mama and the kittens are going back Tuesday. I need some help with food for mama. They are currently all on Kitten Chow (she has been nursing.) I know there are far better options, and I can tell by the smell of her bowel movements that her tummy would rather have something better. Advice?

 

I'm going to be fostering another mom and kittens next week, so bonus if I can feed all the cats the same thing. :)

[Tanaqui]

Wet food is usually better than dry, as it isn't bulked up with as much in the way of grains (it does often, however, have food coloring. Cats are colorblind. Food coloring can be a carcinogen in cats. I do check labels for this, and I don't buy cat food with coloring. However, some cats that are used to dry food will reject wet food when offered. If you have to stick with dry food for that reason or for reasons of cost, look for dry food that has no grains or that, at the very least, has grains far down the list of ingredients.

[umsami]

Iams is usually better quality than Purina.  They have a no-grain option now called "Grain Free Naturals", but I'm not sure if it comes in kitten chow.  Rachael Ray also makes a zero grain food.  I'm pretty sure both can be fed to kittens, but may need to be moistened.  

 

 

[Ellie]

I am currently fostering a mama cat and her kittens. We are adopting the mama and the kittens are going back Tuesday. I need some help with food for mama. They are currently all on Kitten Chow (she has been nursing.) I know there are far better options, and I can tell by the smell of her bowel movements that her tummy would rather have something better. Advice?

 

I'm going to be fostering another mom and kittens next week, so bonus if I can feed all the cats the same thing. :)

 

I only feed my fur babies dry Innova or Evo. I have seen marked improvement in every critter who has come to live with me, including the ones who were already being fed premium foods.

[Pippen]

I tried out a whole bunch of brands because of stomach upset and stink with my cat. What's worked really well for him is EVO--both the wet and dry.

 

http://www.amazon.com/EVO-Turkey-Chicken-Kitten-Food/dp/B000WFEMHK/ref=pd_sim_199_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H52MNTTT0ST5VWKVMV8

 

[texasmama]

Cats tend not to drink enough water so canned foods help them get enough moisture in their diets.  Our cat needs canned because her teeth have been extracted (adopted from a shelter - had an autoimmune disease).  I feed her Wellness canned from Amazon.  It's a much better price on Amazon.

[texasmama]

We are fostering a mama and her litter right now, too, BTW.  We will have them for two more weeks.  :)

[umsami]

I tried out a whole bunch of brands because of stomach upset and stink with my cat. What's worked really well for him is EVO--both the wet and dry.

 

http://www.amazon.com/EVO-Turkey-Chicken-Kitten-Food/dp/B000WFEMHK/ref=pd_sim_199_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H52MNTTT0ST5VWKVMV8

 

Wow, that's expensive! (To me, at least.)  Do the cats eat much less of it because it's higher quality/nutrients?

[texasmama]

This is what I feed our cat:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Wellness-Complete-Natural-Food-12-5-Ounce/dp/B00008CQVA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432340107&sr=8-1&keywords=wellness+canned+cat+food+salmon+and+turkey

 

She eats half a can a day, split into two meals, so this lasts 24 days.  I order it on Subscribe and Save, and I have five subscriptions per month so I get a 15% discount on all of my subscriptions.  It is grain free.

 

(Now I sound like an Amazon Subscribe and Save commercial.   :D )

[Spy Car]

I'm not a "cat person," but I am aware that cats are obligate carnivores, and really shouldn't be fed plants and carbohydrates. 

 

Cat kibble is pretty nasty food for the most part. Most is loaded with grains and cheap fillers.

 

For way less than the cost of a "super premium" kibble like Evo, one could feed delicious wholesome raw foods like beef hearts (rich in essential tuarine), beef, chicken, turkey, duck, game hens, fish, lamb, pork, goat, venison, rabbit, mice, rats, eggs, and a variety of nice organ meats.

 

It is super healthful, economical, and somewhat inconvenient way to provide the optimal diet for felines. Dogs too.

 

Bill 

[hornblower]

Wet food (grain free) or raw is what I'd recommend for cat.

have a look at this page explaining why http://www.catinfo.org/

 

the risks with dry food are primarily related to diabetes and kidney disease

 

Nature's Variety Instinct cans is a food that was very popular with my cat (she died of old age last fall)

From that same site

"

Before you get too confused when reading this page, I will say at the outset:  I would much rather see a cat eat any canned food versus any dry food - regardless of the price-point of the canned food.  This includes Friskies, 9-Lives, Fancy Feast, etc.

This is because:

1. All canned foods contain an appropriate (high) amount of water which is critical for urinary tract health.  Please see Opie's page - Feline Urinary Tract Health.

2. The protein in canned food is more apt to be higher in animal-based protein versus plant-based protein - contrary to most dry foods.  Keep in mind that we are feeding cats (strict carnivores) not cows.

3. The carbohydrate level of most canned foods is lower than that of most dry foods.

There is no dry food that covers all of the very important points listed above."

she also has a convenient pdf where she compares a bunch of brands
http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

 

[texasmama]

Wet food (grain free) or raw is what I'd recommend for cat.

 

have a look at this page explaining why http://www.catinfo.org/

 

the risks with dry food are primarily related to diabetes and kidney disease

 

Nature's Variety Instinct cans is a food that was very popular with my cat (she died of old age last fall)

 

From that same site

 

"

Before you get too confused when reading this page, I will say at the outset:  I would much rather see a cat eat any canned food versus any dry food - regardless of the price-point of the canned food.  This includes Friskies, 9-Lives, Fancy Feast, etc.

This is because:

1. All canned foods contain an appropriate (high) amount of water which is critical for urinary tract health.  Please see Opie's page - Feline Urinary Tract Health.

2. The protein in canned food is more apt to be higher in animal-based protein versus plant-based protein - contrary to most dry foods.  Keep in mind that we are feeding cats (strict carnivores) not cows.

3. The carbohydrate level of most canned foods is lower than that of most dry foods.

There is no dry food that covers all of the very important points listed above."

she also has a convenient pdf where she compares a bunch of brands

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

It was this site that convinced me to feed canned.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

My 18.5 year old Tonkinese eats Taste of the Wild grain-free dry food. I add a capsule of fish oil to her bowl . She has a healthy appetite and weighs 8 lbs.

 

I buy it a our local Tractor Supply Co. Store. She eats about a 1/2 cup a day, so a 15 lb. bag lasts a while.

 

She drinks plenty of water, so I'm not concerned with having her eat wet food. Her previous humans raised her on dry and she won't even try wet.

[Matryoshka]

I'm not a "cat person," but I am aware that cats are obligate carnivores, and really shouldn't be fed plants and carbohydrates. 

 

 

Wish one of my cats would get the memo.  He loooves tomatoes, peppers, and kiwis.  We know this not because we would ever feed him these things, but because he has jumped up on the counter and made off with these things - multiple times - and we find just seeds left over (sometimes with the kiwis and tomatoes a bit of the rest with big fang marks).  Cats are fast.  We didn't think anything at first of leaving these things out for a minute - I mean, cats don't like vegetables and fruit, right??  He's even liberated these items from sealed plastic bags (!)

 

He will come running into the room and look up expectantly if I am cutting up tomatoes, but not when I'm cutting up raw chicken or fish (the other cats do, though).

[hornblower]

just for the record, obligate carnivore doesn't mean that an animal might not enjoy the flavour of many non meat items.

It just means they have consume certain amino acids & other compounds such as Vit A, tryptophan, niacin, taurine etc. Some other species can manufacture these compounds in our own bodies or don't need them...

[Matryoshka]

just for the record, obligate carnivore doesn't mean that an animal might not enjoy the flavour of many non meat items.

It just means they have consume certain amino acids & other compounds such as Vit A, tryptophan, niacin, taurine etc. Some other species can manufacture these compounds in our own bodies or don't need them...

 

I've started to wonder if there's some essential vitamin in tomatoes that he's lacking elsewhere, since he craves them so much... what's the common denominator w/ tomatoes, peppers, and kiwis?  Vit C??

 

Either that, or he's the genetic fluke that will end us up in a couple generations with a bunch of vegetarian cats, like pandas, who only eat plants even though they still have a carnivore's digestive tract.  Well, except that he's spayed, so I guess his crazy will die out with him...

 

[Heatherwith4]

Thanks y'all! I got her some canned food tonight, and I will look into the links you've posted.

[hornblower]

I've started to wonder if there's some essential vitamin in tomatoes that he's lacking elsewhere, since he craves them so much... what's the common denominator w/ tomatoes, peppers, and kiwis?  Vit C??

 

offhand yeah, vit c.

 

Cats can make their own vitamin C (we & some other, but not all primates, are the oddballs - most other animals make their own)

 

BUT, and this is a big BUT, not all cats make it efficiently & apparently stress, disease or just individual uniqueness can affect how much Vit C a given cat can synthesize and whether they become depleted. Some TNR groups routinely supplement colony cats with Vit C

[Spy Car]

just for the record, obligate carnivore doesn't mean that an animal might not enjoy the flavour of many non meat items.

It just means they have consume certain amino acids & other compounds such as Vit A, tryptophan, niacin, taurine etc. Some other species can manufacture these compounds in our own bodies or don't need them...

 

It does mean they should be eating a meat based diet, and NOT the fillers found in either cat kibble OR in canned cat food. These are not natural ingredients for cats to be consuming (especially in the quantities contained in commercial pet food).

 

One does not need to break the bank to feed a feline properly. Canned food (while better than kibble) is still often loaded with soy, corn, and wheat, ingredients to do not belong in a cat's diet. The taurine is synthetic and almost certainly imported from China. 

 

Bill

[Pawz4me]

I thought all cat food was either for kittens or adults. Not both.

 

 

Some cat foods are "all life stages."  Off the top of my head I know that Canidae/Felidae, Solid Gold, Orijen and EVO make at least one "all life stages" cat and kitten food.

 

If I were choosing one to try it would be Orijen. IMO it's far and away the best pet food on the market right now in terms of quality and manufacturer reliability.

 

I would NOT use Blue Buffalo.  They're in the midst of a lawsuit brought against them by Purina.  Purina is suing BB for false advertising, and BB has admitted that contrary to their advertising claims, their products do contain byproducts.  Now we can debate whether byproducts are okay or not, but to me that's not the real issue with BB.  It's the fact that they knowingly lied about the ingredients in their foods.  And they have well known quality issues (or at least their issues are well known within the geeky pet food community).  There are many reports of product varying noticeably from bag to bag, etc.  And they have always been notoriously bad about not replying to consumer requests for information.  I'm not talking proprietary information, but detailed questions about the nutrient profiles of their foods, etc.  That's the kind of stuff that almost all manufacturers will disclose when someone contacts their customer service department and asks.  BB has never been willing to do that.  I could go on and on about their problems, but trust me when I say that people who follow pet food manufacturers closely don't buy BB.

[Tanaqui]

For way less than the cost of a "super premium" kibble like Evo, one could feed delicious wholesome raw foods like beef hearts (rich in essential tuarine), beef, chicken, turkey, duck, game hens, fish, lamb, pork, goat, venison, rabbit, mice, rats, eggs, and a variety of nice organ meats.

 

Although this is evidently not bad advice (obviously cats have survived a very long time before commercial cat foods were invented), I suggest that if you're going this root you google for cat food recipes rather than just trying to wing it, or at least get a decent idea of kitty nutritional needs.

 

And if you do google, darn, you're going to find a lot of advice!

 

[Spy Car]

Although this is evidently not bad advice (obviously cats have survived a very long time before commercial cat foods were invented), I suggest that if you're going this root you google for cat food recipes rather than just trying to wing it, or at least get a decent idea of kitty nutritional needs.

 

And if you do google, darn, you're going to find a lot of advice!

Yes, I agree. Each species has unique nutritional needs, and cats are particularly specific in this regard. The irony, of course, is that the commercial cat foods available (for the most part) to a very poor job meeting a cat's nutritional needs.

 

The pet food companies have done a great job making people believe only their formulations (which in reality have some of the worst and most highly processed ingredients imaginable, some of which are very species inappropriate) are the only way to provide pets proper nutrition, but it ain't so.

 

Kibble is junk food. Cats do have specific dietary needs, but they are easy to meet using wholesome natural foods. Should a person research this before they jump in to understand what felines need in their diets? For sure.

 

Bill

 

ETA: If people Google beware of "recipes" where people are grinding ingredients and adding fillers to create homemade versions of commercial cat food. Whole food sources of meat, bones, and organs are the way to do, in balances that mimic a natural prey diet.

[Spy Car]

oops