Dry cat food suggestion?

Question

Prior to my cat's loose stool problems, I've stopped adding SD's Sensitive Stomach Adult Cat Food into her usual Whiska's dry food, coz she just won't take it. My friend gave me some of her cat's Royal Canin Pure Feline dry food, I tried giving my cat a little and she just loves it, so maybe it's the Science Diet food that doesn't fit her taste. I have read some of the info you guys wrote, and will keep all those in mind next time I go shop for her dry food at the pet's store.

Currently, I am thinking of changing her diet to:

- Morning boiled fish (boiled with plain water)

- Afternoon Canned Food (will be adding up to 2 OZ per day, will introduce Chicken meat into her usual selection of BURP! Tuna/Salmon Canned food)

** A typical BURP! Tuna Whole Meat with Chicken in Jelly ingredients : Tuna Whole Meat, Chicken MEat, Polysaccharide Gum, Glucose, Vit A, Vit E, Vit D3, Taurine, Water **

- All day Dry food and water (still Whiskas now for the time being, will go shop for some others)

Would be looking for better dry food, but as I am in Singapore, some of the brands you guys mentioned is not avaliable, this is the shop I frequent most, http://www.petlovers.com.sg, as you can see if you click on their MEMBER's LOUNGE > Online Store, they carried most of Science Diet, IAMS, Royal Canin, Eagle Pack, Wellness etc. Any good brands available there I should let her try on? Thanks!

Answer 1

Choose a grain-free food that is high in protein, low in carbs, with quality meat protein sources. Science Diet is just overpriced, corn-based c**p, similar to the food on the bottom shelf at the grocery store. I recommend Innova EVO. Some other good brands are Orijen, Nature's Variety Instinct, Go! Natural, Wellness CORE and BLUE Wilderness.

http://www.evopet.com/products/default.a...

Answer 2

Why go with dry? Wet is actually better for cats. The reason is, in the wild, cats normally get most of their water content directly from their prey items and drink very little. Domestic cats are no different, and because of the fact that they are designed to take in water with their meal, they have a very low thirst drive. Cats often just don't drink enough. This leads to urinary tract infections and crystals. The bit about dry food being better for teeth is a myth and has not been proven in the least. Canned/wet food is better because it more closely mimics the cat's natural diet. More on why canned food is best:

http://www.catinfo.org/  (Excellent cat nutrition information by a vet)

http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/canne...

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac...

Science Diet, Whiskas, Iams, and Royal Canin are all low quality foods. Eagle Pack's normal food isn't that good but their Holistic line is good. Wellness is great.

Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Whiskas, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Meow Mix.

Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Felidae, Fromm, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety, Nature's Logic.

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Diets high in grain have been attributed to problems with diabetes in cats. Cats are obligate carnivores, so why should there be grain in their diet? Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now!, and Sold Gold Indigo Moon.

Answer 3

The bad thing about SD is that its made up of mostly byproducts >.<

Try feeding your cat "Wellness" or something like it? Go for whole meat foods, with little to no byproduct.

I feed my kitty fresh ground turkey,chicken, and fish @_@ As for dry foods, I keep him on SD... as much as I dislike it, its the only thing that doesn't make him sick =[

Answer 4

Hiya Meow,

I am going to offer you a different perspective on feeding your cat which may come as a complete shock to you, but I am going to try anyway.

Firstly, dry food is not the kind of food that you should be feeding your cat. Many people feed dry food just because they think this is what a cat should be eating and that is their diet. However, that is not true. Ask yourself this question will you? Why do you feed dry? Is it because others are doing it, you come from a family which feeds dry? Or maybe because you didn't know that cat can eat wet food exclusively and no dry at all?  If it's because of price, please understand that what your cat eat will determine their quality of life and in the long run, save your many expensive trips to the vet.

I only feed 100% wet. I came to this conclusion after doing my own research and getting to know pets that suffer dire consequences as a result of being fed exclusively dry. These websites has great information if you are interested in learning more about feline nutrition and the proper diet for a cat.

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac...

http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/canne...

http://cats.about.com/od/catfoo1/tp/tpca...

http://www.catinfo.org/

http://www.naturalmatters.net/article.as...

http://www.traciehotchner.com/cb/QandA.h...

Next, learn how to read ingredient labels. By learning how to read a label, you can learn a great deal of information about the food you are feeding your pets. You can even learn how to compare one food to another and choose the one best suited for your cat.

Ingredient labels tells you a lot about what kind of meat is being used and whether the food has any cheap fillers which does not benefit your cat/kitten.

You want to feed a food which is high protein - meaning the meat source must come from wholesome muscle meat. Make sure to select only food that list chicken, lamb, rabbit, beef, turkey, venison, salmon, whitefish, herring or a combination or those and not one that says by-products (chicken by product, meat by product, fish by product)

Stay away from too much fillers like corn, corn gluten meal, wheat, wheat gluten, soy, oatbrans, etc. These are all cheap filler which help reduce the cost of manufacturing but brings little to no benefit to your kitten.

You would also want to stay away from preservatives like BHA/BHT and Ethoxyquin which are proven to be harmful to your kitten. Also you do not want other artifical preservatives such as propylene glycol and propolyneglycol .You need natural preservatives such as Vitamin C, Vitamin A or Rosemary.

Your cat need an essential amino acid called Taurine. Cats can only receive this from eating wholesome meat. Choose a food that contains ample amount of Omega 3 sources - Salmon Oil, Flaxseed Oil or Canola Oil.

When you are well educated in learning how to read pet food ingredients, shopping for the best food for your cat would be easier.

From the info above, you will learn that Whiskas is not the best kind of food that you can feed. I look through the website and it carries a variety of better brands that you can purchase.

Chicken Soup For the Cat Lover's Soul

Eagle Pack

Evanger

Innova EVO

Felidae

Natural Balance

Nature's Variety

Wellness

Ziwi Peak

I hope that will all the info on hand, you will learn how to make the best decision and ultimately choose a diet that will be beneficial to your cat.

Answer 5

All high quality brands are good. My mother worked for a pet store for a couple of years and she seemed to like Eagle Pack the most, but you really can't go wrong with the brand, unless of course its low-mid quality.

Think of them like cars. Store brand/low quality is the cheap beat up Geo. Middle is like the Toyota or Ford. High is like the Rolls Royce. No matter what Rolls Royce you pick, it's going to be a good car.

Answer 6

NEVER feed Science Diet, Iams, Purina (whiskas).  It's c**p and will make your cat sick.

Royal Canin is slightly better, but not nearly the best thing a cat can eat.

Read ingredient lists.

Basically, what your looking for is a food with no corn, wheat, milk or soy.  Skip foods with animal digest, by-products, and any ingredient you can't pronounce.

Answer 7

I'd recommend taking a peak inside any vets that you see and jotting down which dry food they're selling and seeing if you can get that as they usually sell the most nutritious products at the vet.

Had a look at that website and there were a heap of brands listed (most of which I hadn't heard of) My cat loves Science Diet so unfortunately we didn't look much further than that!

I have a one year old kitten and I was asking the vet about the best diet for cats in general. They pretty much told me to steer clear of canned food because it's not necessary and isn't all that great for their teeth. They told me that dry food is all they need.

Of course I didn't listen because I find it a bit cruel to deprive my darlings of meat! But that is what they recommend so I'd suggest not giving two meals of 'wet' food per day because your cat won't eat as much dry food as they need for healthy gums and teeth and all that. Perhaps put dry food out in the morning and then give a little boiled fish and a little canned food in the evening. That's what we've always done with our cats and they've lived very happily and healthily for 15 years plus.