Cat Food, what to feed?

[HufflyPuffly]

So I’ve got lost down the google rabbit hole ?! I want to feed a better quality food for the cats but have lost the will and don’t really know where to start.

Brands sold in supermarkets seem much the same when reading the ingredients. Went to looking at online pet stores selections and it’s bewildering ?. Then there’s raw? Plus I do need it to be cost efficient now I’m feeding four of the blighters!

Can anyone help? What do you feed? Asides from high meat content what else should I be looking for?

Pictures of the gang:

 

[Rumtytum]

Whatever you’re feeding the gang so far seems to work! Sorry don’t have a sensible/helpful answer ?.

 

[HufflyPuffly]

Whatever you’re feeding the gang so far seems to work! Sorry don’t have a sensible/helpful answer ?.

Im shamed to say they’re fed Whiskers ?, which I know is pretty poor...

I think Squirrel could do with some better stuff after such a poor start in life, plus I’d like to know I’m doing what I can for them ??‍.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

Canagan is an excellent grain free cat food. They do wet and dry and although it is a bit on the expensive side you won’t have smelly litter trays ever again ?

 

[HufflyPuffly]

Canagan is an excellent grain free cat food. They do wet and dry and although it is a bit on the expensive side you won’t have smelly litter trays ever again ?

None smelly trays is attractive now I have so many of the dam things ???.

 

[julesjoy]

One of my mum's cats has regular digestive issues and can only eat whisk as!

My cats would stage a revolt if I got rid of all junk food from their diets, so I now feed a mixture of grain free (sainsbury own brand tins and applaws dry food, also bonzita tetra packs have very high meat content, they won't touch the tins of those) and some whiskas and felix tins and pouches. Would love to feed raw or better quality but the cats would revolt, I have no storage and I couldn't afford it. Overall their diet is about 50/50 junk vs grain free/high meat.

 

[julesjoy]

Worth buying online, I use zooplus.

 

[OldNag]

I ha e settled on MeowingHeads or Core for mine . She seems to love both and I think the ingredients are fairly ok.

 

[HufflyPuffly]

One of my mum's cats has regular digestive issues and can only eat whisk as!

My cats would stage a revolt if I got rid of all junk food from their diets, so I now feed a mixture of grain free (sainsbury own brand tins and applaws dry food, also bonzita tetra packs have very high meat content, they won't touch the tins of those) and some whiskas and felix tins and pouches. Would love to feed raw or better quality but the cats would revolt, I have no storage and I couldn't afford it. Overall their diet is about 50/50 junk vs grain free/high meat.

Hmm this is a worry I don’t want to spend a fortune and they turn their noses up at it! Hopefully I can transition them over, or even if 50% is better then that’s a start.

Worth buying online, I use zooplus.

I’ve seen this one, what do you buy from them?

I ha e settled on MeowingHeads or Core for mine . She seems to love both and I think the ingredients are fairly ok.

Thank you I’ll check them out ?.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

My yard cats won’t eat anything but Felix. Whiskers is poisonous, posh food is disgusting and god forbid if I give them human food. I’m obviously trying to kill them but they love and will do anything for cake ??

 

[HufflyPuffly]

My yard cats won’t eat anything but Felix. Whiskers is poisonous, posh food is disgusting and god forbid if I give them human food. I’m obviously trying to kill them but they love and will do anything for cake ??

?

Why do I feel choosing a feed I’m happy with will only be the first challenge ??

 

[Ownedby4horses]

I was just googling to find out the name of the food that the vets usually have in stock, Hills. I think it’s quite expensive though.

Stumbled across this article which is quite interesting! I’ve learnt something I never knew whiskas wasn’t an ok choice. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....cat-food-should-you-spend-more-on-posh-brands

 

[chaps89]

I used to order from zooplus for my old boy. They were very cost effective.
I found some of the posh foods too rich for him, talk about stinky
The applaws tins seemed to go down well with him and I thought the ingredient list always seemed quite sensible.
Lilys kitchen seemed to be an acceptable option that seemed better than whiskas etc but not too posh/rich. Though ironically enough, not sold by zooplus.
It does need to be a complete food (one to watch with apples especially - although they do a chicken and rice pouch which isn't a complete food but is good if one goes off their food a little or has an upset him etc)

 

[NinjaPony]

My cat liked Lily's Kitchen-good stuff, not the cheapest but always went down well. I used to use Iams when he was having a diabetic hypo episode as it's so high in carbs....

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

Mine (still call them mine even though they're my parents and I've moved out lol) are on Applawse wet and Poppy has the Applawse biscuits measured out at intervals during the day as she is prone to getting fat and binge eating. Spike is still on the kidney biscuits the Forest Cat went on when she developed kidney disease as for some reason he really likes them and perhaps now he is a senior it wont do him any harm
I've found their digestive systems are quite sensitive so have to be a bit careful with the quality of food. Hilariously we had a hedgehog visit when Spike was younger and my mum got cheap Felix food for it. Spike who is very selective about what he eats and will only entertain 2 of the multiple flavours of Applawse, kept shouting to be allowed the Felix! He was not over concerns it would upset his tummy but it would have been funny to see what he did.
We chose Applawse as it has such a high natural meat content and doesnt smell nasty- I stayed somewhere who fed the cheap supermarket food and I really struggled with the smell it's so much more noticeable how nasty it is.
Poppys breeder had her on raw, we tried to persist with it (he wouldn't touch it ?) but after being given fish/ chicken after her spay for a couple of nights she went all snooty and decided she couldn't possibly deign to eat that so she ended up on Applawse too.

Oh and of course Dreamies absolutely must be given out on a nightly basis!

Ps. This thread needs even more photos to help us decide best recommendations!

 

[PurBee]

Worth buying online, I use zooplus.

i second this - i now use zooplus full meat and vitamins foods and have ditched the nasty grain and soy based crap thats sold in all supermarkets.
my animals are thriving sooo much within just a few months. cats and dogs.

my female cat of 10yrs who loved her ‘crack’ whiskas dry food - now on real meat food, has for the first time in her life started hunting birds and mice! Her skin issues have cleared up too. Their black coats gleam.

What they both really love so far, as she was sooo fussy is purizon dry cat food. Its grain free and they love the ‘wild boar’ flavour:

https://www.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/dry_cat_food/purizon_cat/839610

its on offer at the mo so i bought the 6.5kg bag. My fussy minx loves it ...having rejected other grain free high meat dry food Brands so definitely one to try for a fussy feline.

also they love Animonda Carny wet food tins - no grains or soya, loaded with real meat.
The fussy minx even loves it!

They do a ‘saver pack’ of large 800gram tins, which for 4 cats that you own, would be more ideal than the 400g smaller tins and very cost effective.

https://www.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/anomonda_carny/animonda_carny_adult/621775

Do the switch from the mainstream grain brands slowly if theyre super fussy. But mine switched immediately, despite being fussy, so its testament to Animonda carny for being so good.
Its packed densely full of meat, rather than bits of ‘fake meat’ swimming around in a ‘sauce’ like most supermarket brands.

im spending a wee bit more than supermarket brands, but for the benefits theyre getting healthwise the extra pennies outlay per meal is worth it.

zooplus also show you the price of the food per kilo - so you can use that to compare what you currently pay per kilo, verses their prices.

 

[Tala08]

From experience, what you want to feed them & what they want to eat might be two completely different things! I lost count of how many brands I tried with my fusspot before he settled on applaws. He still point blank refuses some of the flavours & won't touch anything in jelly either. He used to happily eat Felix but not now - I created a monster!! ?

I recommend buying low quantities to start with. I thought I'd found one that he liked but after a few weeks he changed his mind again, just after I bought a large box of the stuff.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

The trouble with reading about that some cat food brands are not as good as others for cats, is that cats can't read.
Some cats can really be a pain in the arse when it comes to what they're willing to eat, and what they're not willing to eat, and this far, my late Dolly, and current Berta, is the 2 of my cats that have caused us the most problems with what they want to eat.

We had Dolly when I was a teenager, young adult, and she liked the food in the orange bag from Iams. She ate it for several years, and coming home with any other food was unacceptable. Then one day we opened a new orange bag, and Dolly said No, this is inedible!
Turned out that Iams had changed their recipes (and possibly also moved the production to Russia). I've repressed how long it took, and how many different small bags of other food we tried, before we found that Dolly thought that Hills w/d could be eaten more than just a handful of times.

Around 14 years ago we got Berta, she came with a small bag of food, but after 2 or 3 days in our home, she found the older cats bowl with Hills w/d, which our cats had been eating since Dolly decided it was what cats could eat. After that Berta refused to eat any more of her food, and instead happily ate Hills w/d for around 12 years.
Around 2 years ago, we opened a new bag of w/d, and suddenly she didn't want it any more. We thought it was the same story all over again, and presumed they'd changed something with the recipe or production, and tried to find another cat food that she would approve of.

By the way, we also have a second cat, Cilla, but she loves all cat food, so with her the problem is that she needs a food which makes her feel full on the daily recommended ration. But since Hills is quite expensive, we decided to try and find a new food for both of them.

One of the brands we tried was Applawse, which both Berta and Cilla liked, but Cilla ate her whole daily ration for breakfast, several days in a row, and Berta also wanted more than the daily rations, so that didn't work.
At the end, there was one type of Bozita food that Berta ate most days, and Cilla ate another type of Bozita, but even though it was for older cats that doesn't move as much as they used to, Cilla did go up a bit in weight.

But last summer Berta stopped eating again, and this time she behaved as if she was sick, so I took her to the veterinarian thinking it was the the end to be honest. After staying at the emergency clinic for some days, without them finding anything wrong, she started to eat a little again, and over a week later blood tests they'd sent to Germany came back showing she was very low on B12.

After she came home, she's eaten (I had to write it up on a list for when I spoke to the veterinarian about what we had tried, so I thought I might as well share the list with you, too):

Hills i/d, first in cans, then pouches, then dry. All types only edible for a few days each.
Then the veterinarian recommended we tried allergy food.
Hills z/d in cans, ate for 2 days, then less and less, until she refused completely.
I think it is Royal Canin that makes Anallergenic, dry food, which she ate for 1 week, then she started to eat less, and less...

We tried buying a new bag of Hills w/d (dry food), she ate it, for awhile, but never a full daily ration, and it was just, meh, so back to the store again.
Hills d/d (dry food made on more expensive duck meat + green peas), she really liked it. Ate it for 2 weeks, but then her kidneys decided they didn't like that food.

Hills k/d dry food, she seemed to like it somewhat, for a week or two, then less, and less.
Hills c/d dry food, ate okay for awhile, then nope.

Back to k/d, with a few bits of d/d, which she ate for some months, then only k/d.

So, currently Berta (who by the way still needs to get tiny bits of B12 pills as a supplement) eats k/d, mostly dry, sometimes from pouches, and occasionally she decides that she instead needs to eat some of Cilla's food, who is currently back on Hills Weight reduction, since Hills Metabolic made her go up a bit again.

 

[julesjoy]

I order the app laws dry food from zooplus, generally they have a special offer on making it about £10 cheaper than pets at home. I also get the Bozita tetra paks from there. Very easy to get distracted by cat fountains and toys though.

 

[ihatework]

In all my years of cat ownership I’ve never really thought about it much. They got felix or whiskers from the supermarket, whichever was on offer at the time. They have all eaten it, looked well and lived until an old age. So it can’t be all that bad ?‍

When I got my rather young, scrawny, cat-flu, preloved daft buy (who turned out to be awesome), we went through trials and tribulations of what he would actually eat and if he ate it whether it gave him projectile diarrhoea or not. Didn’t leave us many options but Applaws pouches were a winner.

Fast forward a year and his guts have settled down and he is a little less fussy. Now (in an effort to save some ££) they are on Sheba pouches (prob similar quality to felix in posher packing ?) and Purina One biscuits.

The Applaws was seriously good quality food but requires a second mortgage to feed multiple cats on!

 

[HufflyPuffly]

Thank you all, lots to think about, not least if they will eat whatever I try! They do all do well on Whiskas to be fair but will see if I can find something thats a nice balance of quality/cost/will they eat it.

These two ragamuffins say thank you and Dreamies are always the answer!

 

[DirectorFury]

My boy cat has a similar backstory to Squirrel - kitten found alone at 5 weeks, most cat food gives him the runs and he also poos blood when that happens.

There are only 3 things he can eat: cooked/raw meat, Acana biscuits, or Orijen biscuits. We settled on Acana as it’s a tiny bit cheaper! He’s not a fussy type though so I don’t know how they’d fare with a picky cat.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Oh, don't know how I could forget to tell you about the time when we had 3 moggies, who had made us believe that they would eat everything we served them (as long as we weren't trying to hide any pills inside of the food, of course). Until one Christmas when my mum had decided to buy several small, and at that time expensive, tins of Sheba, to give them as a special treat on Christmas, and some days after that.



All 3 of them refused to eat any Sheba at all. Mum was so disappointed.

 

[Milliechaz]

I have a cattery and can honestly say the cats fed on supermarket brands enjoy their food a lote more (and have better poo's) than those on the higher end brand food.

The favorites as in most enjoyed (as far as my experience of looking after multiple cats daily goes) is Felix doubly delicious and Gourmet Pearle.

Prescription diets are a different matter obviously and you will always get some cats (like people) whose tummy gets upset by certain things but I think if they are happy, healthy and enjoying their supermarket brands leave them on it.

 

[ecb89]

My old girl was fed on whiskers and felix and she lived a happy healthy life until the age of 18 when a tooth abscess meant she had to be put to sleep.
Current cat eats whiskers, gravy only, and turns her nose up at posh cat food

 

[Quigleyandme]

A ginger tom of about 8 or 9 years old came with the farm I bought last year. He is friendly for a farm cat but had never been allowed in the house. My first mistake was to buy him a plush cat bed and put it inside the broken plastic laundry basket he slept in on the floor of the hay shed. I started to let him come in for a warm by the fire some evenings. He now sleeps on the sofa on a marino and possum throw or on my bed and has me up and down letting him out and then letting him in. He snores. He used to wolf down the supermarket own brand cat food I bought him but now can only eat Whiskers or Go Cat pouches but not all the pouch and not all the flavours in the box. He can eat a whole Mon Petit pouch which is like a teaspoon full and takes half an hour to extract from the pouch. I introduced him to dry food which he now likes but again only Whiskers and Go Cat with meaty parcels or tender morsels or some such marketing bunkum will do. I used to put his food in the hay shed but he let rats eat it so I put it by the back door and he let crows eat it so now it is in the kitchen and I supplement my state mandated daily exercise by getting up to let him in and out every half hour for a little pick. He yowls and miaows and purrs incessantly and sheds like he’s losing his stuffing. I watch the nesting swifts dive bomb him as he saunters across the yard muttering “Go on get him” but I kind of like him really.

 

[HufflyPuffly]

These stories are fantastic ?.

So I nipped out to my local farm and pet store and got some mid priced grain free dry food (same sort of ingredients/ percentages as Canagan but a bit cheaper) and some raw food to try.

Everyone (asides from Tiger who has not left my bed all day!) has sampled the dry food and declared it tasty so far! Raw they are being suspicious of and is apparently not as exciting... I think if the dry food is successful then that will be something, just need to see how Squirrels tum copes with it now.

 

[HufflyPuffly]

Tiger has decided to join us, she's eaten both the dry and raw so fairly successful first try at some 'healthier' food!

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Tiger has decided to join us, she's eaten both the dry and raw so fairly successful first try at some 'healthier' food!

Mumbles for myself **they are just trying to cradle her into false security thinking the experiment changing to healthier food is going to be easy peasy**

Seriously though, fingers crossed that the change of foods goes well.

 

[Leo Walker]

Pets at home used to do a really reasonably priced high meat dry food which I fed mine on. After a fairly long and protracted battle of wills he's now raw fed and looks amazing for it!