Cat food - what's the best?

sparkle_23

Been feeding my kittens food from the supermarket (bad I know!) and I was having a look in the petshop today seen Royal Canin, Science Plan... Loads more I can't think of! Tried looking at the ingredients but my head was just fried. Don't want the salesperson just selling me food just to make a sale!

yammycat

cats dont need much food, buy them real food, chicken ham fish etc, the canned stuff or any 'cat' food is just water and ash

SingItOut

I feed my cats supermarket wet food & their both fine with clean bill of health, my mother works in a delhi so they both get all the left over chicken/ham/turkey etc on occasion. I've given them royal canin dry food before & my older male put on a tone of weight with it but I got the kitten food for my 6 month old I she loved it! She didn't put on or lose any weight.

I haven't tried science plan for my cats but I had to buy it for my jack russel as she was terribly skinny & shes filled out great with a really soft coat so I would imagine the cat range is just as good. If you're going to try science plan then buy it from the vets as its way cheaper than the pet shops (my dogs food is €19 in petmania yet only €13 at the vets). Its the same with the royal canin food

Cats can do fine on dry or wet, wet is preferable as they are natural carnivores & most don't drink alot of water (my youngest cat is the exception she loves water!) so the wet food will keep them hydrated. Its just really expensive to buy wet food all the time, especially if you have a few cats

Zapperzy

I feed wet food as cats in general aren't big drinkers and mainly get their water from the food they eat. When fed on dry food they don't take in enough water and can have urinary issues such as crystals in their bladder as the pee is too concentrated. I also have a water fountain and add in water to her wet food to up her water intake.

When looking for foods avoid anything with either cereals or meat and animal derivatives (min 4% named flavour) as the first ingredient, I also would avoid anything with maize as one of the first few ingredients. I buy all my food from zooplus, generally German and Swedish foods are of a much higher quality. There's also a German site called floyds petshop, but the shipping is very expensive to Ireland, some excellent foods on it though. Of the wet foods I feed bozita and smilla, I also have some grau on the way. Animonda carny is also a good one but my cat won't eat it. As for dry foods I used to use orijen. Acana, taste of the wild and applaws also seem to be good. I also throw in the odd raw bit too, chicken breast, any part of a quail (small little bird, sometimes can be gotten fairly cheaply in dunnes) or a raw mouse (the ones reptile feeders use) go down well.

I found it very hard to find decent good quality cat food in pet shops so I have to buy online.

The Sweeper

yammycat wrote: »

cats dont need much food, buy them real food, chicken ham fish etc, the canned stuff or any 'cat' food is just water and ash

Ham isn't suitable catfood - it's full of salt and curing agents. A diet of chicken and ham is unbalanced and will cause your cat to eventually suffer taurine deficiency and calcium deficiency. A heavy diet of fish like tuna will cause pansteatitis - a disease where hard lumps of non-soluble fat form under the cat's skin causing extreme pain and eventual death.

Many people feed their outdoor cats crap, and they don't understand that cats are natural predators and a cat with open outdoor access will simply supplement its food with birds, insects, lizards and rodents that it catches and eats itself while it's roaming about.

Canned food is not water and ash. It's a cooked balance of protein and fillers that meets the minimum dietary requirements for a cat. Yes, it's terrible for their teeth, and 'fillers' isn't a term I use lightly because there's a lot of unnecessary crap in there, but it's not an unbalanced diet and a cat fed tinned food won't die of deficiencies, as they would if fed nothing but cooked chicken, sliced ham and tins of tuna.

Try a grain free catfood, or one where a protein is the first ingredient (and preferably the first and second ingredients). You can feed dry food, but cats fed exclusively dry food can have problems with struvite and oxalate crystals in their bladder, which is very serious.

I feed my cats a combination of raw meat and Royal Canin oral care biscuits. The raw meat I buy from pet meat suppliers who sell it frozen - chopped steak and kidney, for instance. You can also feed raw liver, but limit it to a slice the size of your thumb twice a week and no more. If you can get raw chicken necks, try feeding your cats raw chicken necks - one a day will form half their dietary intake for the day, and crunching it down will help keep their teeth sparkling clean. (I can't get mine to eat chicken necks, so they get Royal Canin oral care instead). Raw is fine - the meat should just be fresh as can be. Never feed cats smelly meat or anything that's on the turn.

If you're unsure, try your kittens on a couple of thin slices of raw beef stewing steak - a really cheap cut. Make sure it's fresh - the sort of thing you'd hardly be worried about eating yourself. I bet you they start chewing and growling at each other as they chew.

planetX

*Sparkle* wrote: »

Been feeding my kittens food from the supermarket (bad I know!) and I was having a look in the petshop today seen Royal Canin, Science Plan... Loads more I can't think of! Tried looking at the ingredients but my head was just fried. Don't want the salesperson just selling me food just to make a sale!

My 5 get supermarket brands and are all healthy and shiny - but then they supplement their diet with mice:)
I generally leave down dry food all the time, and they get 2 meals a day of wet. I switched the dry to Royal Canin sensitive once and ended up with an obese cat, so if you are changing make sure you read the serving size - some of the varieties are much higher fat than standard.

bluecherry74

*Sparkle* wrote: »

Been feeding my kittens food from the supermarket (bad I know!) and I was having a look in the petshop today seen Royal Canin, Science Plan... Loads more I can't think of! Tried looking at the ingredients but my head was just fried. Don't want the salesperson just selling me food just to make a sale!

I switched my cats from supermarket dry food to James Wellbeloved dry food and my neutered tom went from being tubby and lazy to a much more active, healthy cat. My other cat, a female, did ok on supermarket food but her poo is a lot more solid now that I've switched.

At first it may seem very expensive compared to supermarket food, but if you buy the large bags it works out about the same. Especially when you take into account that they need less of it since it's a more nutritious food. I reckon it costs me less in the long run that the cheaper brands.

I did try them both on Hills for a while but they didn't do too well on it. To be honest I think it's an overrated food.

Regarding the wet vs. dry debate, my vet recommended dry. Cats will get as much fluid as they need from water. As the vet put it, humans are the only animals stupid enough not to drink when they're thirsty! I leave fresh water down every day and both cats drink plenty of it.

excaliburhc

ammmmm science plan and royal canin dry food .
along with a mixture of wet food manufactures to keep it interesting for them.


i cant recommend the science plan enough - all the cats coats have improved dramatically since we started them on it. from dry and flaky to silky smooth . they also seem to love it. especially chicken.


wet foods go from whiskas / sheba / felix / science plan and what ever else .
they seem to prefer the sheba.

check out here , might give you some info

http://pets.webmd.com/cats/ss/slideshow-foods-your-cat-should-never-eat

paddyandy

Best to change brands and the odd tin of this or that .Boredom with the same day after day food is the greater problem .Pigs liver from the butcher is very cheap and a great favourite for them .Some of the Tinned cat food has carrots and peas in it that suggests it was for the human market originally .My cats don't think much of supermarket rubber chicken and won't eat ham .Neither do i .Maybe my cat's are too spoilt and they've become too fussy .That may be a problem .

anniehoo

Agree with The Sweeper regarding feeding ham and chicken solely.It might sound like its good for them, but ham is a particularly salty meat (not kidney friendly) and chicken doesnt have taurine,which is an essential amino acid they can synthesise in their bodies.

Mine is on Royal Canin dry, either Male neutered, Fit or Exigent whatever i can get the cheapest. He drinks plenty of water so not worried about that. If you break it down it doesnt work out that much dearer than supermarket tins to be honest. I will feed them though if i run out of RC. Although his litter tray smells MILES better on RC than Whiskas.

biko

GoCat is what we use, preferably the one with fish.
And some wet pouch food every few days, sometimes tuna (spring water only) at weekends.

Shanao

Ive just started using Taste Of The Wild from Zooplus and holy crap, what a difference!! The lazy boy is now running around and far more energetic, the stink from the litter tray has been greatly reduced and all five of them are thoroughly enjoying it. Its grain free, so I wanted to give it a go and I'm going to stick with it a while to see how they go on it.

Mo60

planetX wrote: »

My 5 get supermarket brands and are all healthy and shiny - but then they supplement their diet with mice:)

Mine are fed exactly the same, and as they are all perfectly healthy I see no reason to change.

myxi

We got a rescue kitten in November who was being fed scienceplan by the vet (whatever they get in free from the supplier goes to the rescue cats they keep). We ran out the following week and started feeding her whiskas kitten (which I had for my hedgehog). Within a few days we could see the difference. Very smelly and runny poos! Back on the scienceplan pronto and her poos returned to normal! We didn't try her on anything else when scienceplan seemed to suit her. She's full of beans and her coat is very healthy!

The €22 kitten food bag lasts us around 6 weeks so it's not too expensive.

angry kitten

My 2 are fed Felix pouches and Royal Canin pure Slimness. I give them treats of raw mince beef a few times a week and about half a raw salmon darne between them once a week.

They have a few treats of cooked chicken pieces instead of prepacked cat treats, mostly as 1 of my guys waits at the front door as soon as he sees 1 of us putting a coat on, so its give him a bit of chicken or bring him with us. Both are in great condition, coats gleaming, bright eyes and full of energy.

Hail 2 Da Thief

Switched over to Royal Canin dry food from the supermarket brands about 6 weeks ago & the difference in their coats is unreal!

Can anyone recommend a decent quality wet food that I could also feed them every couple of days?

angry kitten

Hail 2 Da Thief wrote: »

Switched over to Royal Canin dry food from the supermarket brands about 6 weeks ago & the difference in their coats is unreal!

Can anyone recommend a decent quality wet food that I could also feed them every couple of days?

It depends on your budget. Zooplus.ie do a wide variety of wet and dry food. It also tells you the ingredients and amounts of meat/chicken/fish. Worth a look.

Artur.PL

biko wrote: »

GoCat is what we use, preferably the one with fish.

GoCat from Purina is like fast food for us. The same with almost all cat food from the supermarkets. The best option is zooplus.ie and this section . It is quite expensive compare to supermarket food but better pay for the food than for the veterinary appointments later. That is my opinion.
Also, long time ago vet told me that fresh meat like chicken breast or beef should be frozen before serving.

The Sweeper

Artur.PL wrote: »

Also, long time ago vet told me that fresh meat like chicken breast or beef should be frozen before serving.

This comes from a mistaken notion that freezing kills bacteria. Mostly it doesn't. Temperatures of 32 degrees fahrenheit (zero celsius) and below essentially cause bacteria to hibernate. When the frozen item is brought back to and kept at a temperature above 4 degrees (fridge temperature) or higher (room temperature) the bacteria begin to multiply again.

If you want to store meat for two weeks before feeding your pets, by all means freeze it because you'll prevent the bacteria that's on there from multiplying over the fortnight the meat is in the freezer. However if you're buying fresh meat from your butcher and bringing it home to feed your pets that day, you won't impact the bacterial load on the meat by freezing it. (In fact arguably you'll increase it because instead of being fed to the animal sooner, the meat has to be defrosted which will allow hibernating bacteria to awaken and multiply before feeding.)

You would be better off scalding the meat down with boiling water before feeding it (but with small portions this is counterproductive because in the time it takes you to scald it for 10 seconds you'll have cooked it.)

storminateapot

hills science plan is a good choice

storminateapot

Dried food is good for the teeth. Don't give the cat solely a wet food diet.

sparkle_23

I have a ten year old springer spaniel and he used to have bakers or brandy or whatever. He now has maxi zoo premiere high 5 and a bag lasts so long and he seems to love it! And his poos are eh nicer! The whiff off the kitty litter tray is nasty at the moment.. They have whiskas dry kitten and they were having half a pouch of whiskas kitten a day each. I'll have to check out what's available in the petshops around.... Only the best for my kitties! :-)

yammycat

The Sweeper wrote: »

Canned food is not water and ash. It's a cooked balance of protein and fillers that meets the minimum dietary requirements for a cat

Last time i read a can of cat food the ingredients were 85% moisture , 3% ash, 6% crude protein and something else, its basically the sweepings of the slaughterhouse with massive amounts of water and stabilisers added, there is no way its better than fresh meat.

Canned cat food is far more expensive than the finest steak you can buy by nutritional value

The Sweeper

Then recommend people feed steak, raw. You didn't recommend fresh meat. You recommended ham and chicken. Unless the chicken is raw, on the bone and preferably with the skin included, it's not good meal for a cat, and ham is worse than catfood.

Here's a breakdown of what's in a can of Hills S/D wet food:

http://www.hillspet.com/products/sd-feline-adult-indoor-cat-savory-chicken-entree-minced-canned.html

If you click on the nutritional tab you'll find the protein is 35%.

But even whiskas - when you say 'water and ash' people picture a bowl of water with a spoon of ash and that's just crap. The moisture content is made up of the moisture in the protein, plus the jelly that comes with rendering hooves and tails and the other bits that go into catfood and so on, and there's a reason that it's one of the best-selling foods on the market - because people all over the place feed it to their cats. It may wreck their teeth, but it doesn't kill them through nutritional deficiency, so it's just not kosher to pretend there's nothing in it. The human body is supposed to be something like 60-75% water - do you feel particularly insubstantial?

If you're going to avoid cat foods, do it for the right reason. The right reason to avoid wet food for cats is the damage it will do over time to their teeth. If it's sold as a complete and balanced petfood that means it HAS to meet nutritional standards, which random tidbits of human food do not. If you have a indoor or restricted roaming cat, as more and more people do, they don't get a chance to redress the imbalance in their diet by hunting and so feeding an unbalanced diet over time will do them damage.

BengaLover

I found wet food, (whiskas) was too addictive for them - switched to dry and they drink gallons of water and poo not too bad smelling.
I supplement with a beaten egg once a week and some fresh chicken.

yammycat

The Sweeper wrote: »

Then recommend people feed steak, raw. You didn't recommend fresh meat. You recommended ham and chicken. Unless the chicken is raw, on the bone and preferably with the skin included, it's not good meal for a cat, and ham is worse than catfood.

yea sorry i meant pork, sometimes i forget which is which, and cooked chicken is as good as raw chicken btw as long as its fresh

But even whiskas - when you say 'water and ash' people picture a bowl of water with a spoon of ash and that's just crap. The moisture content is made up of the moisture in the protein,

sorry but protein is protein and it doesn't contain any moisture or water, the 85 -90% of 'moisture' in cheap tinned cat food is tap water to fill the can

plus the jelly that comes with rendering hooves and tails and the other bits that go into catfood and so on,

the jelly in cat food is created by chemical gelling agents and is not created by rendering animal parts, it is merely to give the illusion of a can full of food when there is a few grams at most of actual food and half a glass of water

and there's a reason that it's one of the best-selling foods on the market

there is, heavy advertising and cheap prices and lazy people and a long shelf life, just pop the lid and drop it in , no effort required.

so it's just not kosher to pretend there's nothing in it.

not nothing, just very very little.

The human body is supposed to be something like 60-75% water - do you feel particularly insubstantial?

yes we are mostly water but we can't use water as food, we need food for that funnily enough.

If you're going to avoid cat foods, do it for the right reason.

sure and the right reason is tinned cat food is garbage.

If it's sold as a complete and balanced petfood that means it HAS to meet nutritional standards, which random tidbits of human food do not.

random tidbits, i didn't say anything about random tidbits, feed them regular full meals of fresh meat, as as for implying theres something wrong with 'human food', whats in the cat food is the garbage parts left over from 'human food' which could never be sold as 'human food' because its garbage, brains and hooves and intestines, i'm pretty sure any cat would rather 'human food' lean cuts of meat to 'cat food' offal.

Bottom line is if you wouldn't eat it yourself don't feed it to your cat.

Mo60

yammycat wrote: »

Bottom line is if you wouldn't eat it yourself don't feed it to your cat.

So I should not be giving my cats manufactured cat food?

quietriot

yammycat wrote: »

Bottom line is if you wouldn't eat it yourself don't feed it to your cat.

You do realise what a cat eats when it goes outdoors, don't you? You realise that they're animals and not your children, yes? It's pretty clear you haven't an idea what you're talking about, particularly compared to "thesweeper".

Anyway, moving on from the crazy cat lady...

Our lad is mad for a bit of minced beef or parma ham. Can't be feeding it to him all the time but if I were to call something the "best", simply based on his reaction to it, it'd have to be the minced beef.

The Sweeper

yammycat wrote: »

Everything you came out with

Have you got any credible sources for anything you've posted?

quietriot

The Sweeper wrote: »

Have you got any credible sources for anything you've posted?

One of her cats is a professional chef, how dare you question its advice!?

The Sweeper

yammycat wrote: »

sorry but protein is protein and it doesn't contain any moisture or water, the 85 -90% of 'moisture' in cheap tinned cat food is tap water to fill the can

On the 'protein is protein' argument, that doesn't really wash.

100g of raw chicken breast, skin and bone removed, contains 23g of protein.
100g of trimmed chuck steak, with a little fat, contains 17g of protein.
100g of raw belly pork (a fatty cut) contains 9g of protein.

This is basic nutritional informaton available across the internet (because the western world is full of frantic dieters who want the calorie count and breakdown of everything that passes their lips).

That's one of the reasons that processed pet food gets away with protein levels between 9% and 50% (and the ones that achieve 50% protein use a lot of dehydrated meat purely because of the fact that meat just isn't 100% protein by volume).

It's also one of the reasons I wonder about vets who fear that a raw diet for dogs or cats is 'too high' in protein. A whole raw chicken isn't 100% protein, and is actually far from it. It's hard to get the information of the precise breakdown of a raw chicken, but I reckon if you include the bone and skin it probably sits around the 20% protein mark if not less.

Heroditas

Two of our cats have Iams in the morning and night and then share a Felix pouch at dinner time.
The third cat has become a right madam recently and only eats Hills Vet Essentials dry food now. She barely touches the wet food, even the expensive Hills stuff.

Well, she sort of ignores it ..... after she licks all the jelly off it and then marches off. :rolleyes:

Zapperzy

Heroditas wrote: »

Well, she sort of ignores it ..... after she licks all the jelly off it and then marches off. :rolleyes:

The way I got around this was by adding a little bit of water and mashing it all up together.

Solair

I found it a bit odd that our vet was absolutely insisting that our cat should be fed dry cat food (that the vet sells :rolleyes:). The cat has a terrible reaction to it and throws up or, even worse passes unchewed, undigested dry cat food and ends up in agony.

We put the cat into the vet's cattery while on holidays once and he came home with a really bad stomach problem (constantly vomiting) and a raw rear end from passing cat food. This was all down to them feeding him dry food, despite our providing them with the correct food that he normally eats.

Our cat's diet is a mixture of normal wet cat food, and we generally give him a bit of whatever meat we're having on any given day. We don't ever give him processed meat, or spices, but usually just raw or very lightly cooked meat of various types.

He's thriving on it. Healthy coat, intelligent, no health problems, good teeth, lively, not insanely hyper.

We always fed our cats that way and the previous one live to the ripe old age of 19.

I am just baffled at how the vet seemed to think what we were feeding the cat was terrible and think that we should only feed him this 'science plan' junk.

It's blatantly obvious, given the reaction, that the cat LOVES meat!
He walks around purring, and meowing if there's chicken on and if he suspects there's chicken in the fridge he guards the door!!

angry kitten

I agree with you on the Hills Science Plan. One of my cats had the same problem on it. They get dry and wet food. We thought that because Hills is so highly recommended that the problem must've been the wet food. But as soon as we cut out the Hills the problem stopped. They're both on Royal Canin Slimness mixed with Royal canin oral care and Felix pouches.

They get treats of raw mince, raw chicken wings and cooked chicken pieces throughout the week. Both are in great shape and thriving. They're full of energy have bright eyes and glossy coats. My cats do the fridge guarding thing to. One of em likes to stretch against it just to remind me that yummy chicken lives in it. They also like to herd me towards the cupboard where the cat food pouches live.

I think it all boils down to what works best for your cat. We tried really fancy expensive wet cat food and they just looked at us as if to say 'what's this crap? I'm not eating that'.:)

yammycat

The Sweeper wrote: »

Have you got any credible sources for anything you've posted?

The ingredients on the side of the can...

yammycat

The Sweeper wrote: »

On the 'protein is protein' argument, that doesn't really wash.

100g of raw chicken breast, skin and bone removed, contains 23g of protein.

Yes and the 23g of protein contains no water, its just protein, the point i was making was protein doesnt necessarily have to come with water as i thought you were implying and that the reason up to 90% of cat food is water is because it comes with protein which isnt the case, the water is added to fill the can.

angry kitten

The Sweeper wrote: »

On the 'protein is protein' argument, that doesn't really wash.

100g of raw chicken breast, skin and bone removed, contains 23g of protein.
100g of trimmed chuck steak, with a little fat, contains 17g of protein.
100g of raw belly pork (a fatty cut) contains 9g of protein.

This is basic nutritional informaton available across the internet (because the western world is full of frantic dieters who want the calorie count and breakdown of everything that passes their lips).

That's one of the reasons that processed pet food gets away with protein levels between 9% and 50% (and the ones that achieve 50% protein use a lot of dehydrated meat purely because of the fact that meat just isn't 100% protein by volume).

It's also one of the reasons I wonder about vets who fear that a raw diet for dogs or cats is 'too high' in protein. A whole raw chicken isn't 100% protein, and is actually far from it. It's hard to get the information of the precise breakdown of a raw chicken, but I reckon if you include the bone and skin it probably sits around the 20% protein mark if not less.[/QUove OTE]

I'm no expert on cat nutrition, I have to say my vet has always gone above and beyond for my cats and I value her opinion. I trust her and more importantly my cats trust her. She's also won the Stronghold Pet Care award so she's doing something right.

SingItOut

Bought hills science plan vet essentials "young neutered cat" for my two this evening, They both wolfed it down when I gave it to them. I will post how they improve/dis-improve weight/health wise in the coming weeks