What CAT FOOD do you use?

Question

I have 3 cats, ages 4-9 years...The old one I kinda worry about, her butt is a little leaky if you know what I mean...the other cats are healthy for the most part, I think one has a eating disorder she is a little overweight.

Anyway, I was wondering what catfood is best, or what food you use. Ive used Iams for years, but I hear its not that good for them..

Suggestions for 3 cats?

Answer 1

I use Purina One and I'm switching to IAMS for my kitten. The best is probably Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, and it's found at some feed stores and vet offices. Don't let people convince you to buy really expensive cat food like that if you can't afford it. As long as the first few ingredients are mostly meat and not by-product, it's fine. If the main ingredient is any kind of grain, do not get it. That's all.

Oh and you might want to consider feeding your oldest cat food for senior cats, especially if you can feed her separately from the other two. The meat rule still applies though.

Answer 2

Give Taste of the Wild a try.  It's an excellent food and it all-stages so all of your cats should do very well on it.

http://tasteofthewildpetfood.com/

Answer 3

Same food for all. For the leaky one get some acidoupholous from  a health food store and sprinkle on the food





Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health

Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.

Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?

http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea...

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with grains and carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process.  Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in

Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.

http://www.catinfo.org/#My_Cat_is_Doing_...

You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all.    The best food for cats does not contain any grains at all.

Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies  whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. I would rather feed a middle grade canned food then the top of the line dry food.

Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

Please read about cat nutrition.

                               http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics...

                               http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht...

      http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...

Vetinarian diets  The reason your vet thinks so highly of the pet food they sell probably has more to do with money than nutrition. In vet school, the only classes offered on nutrition usually last a few weeks, and are taught by representatives from the pet food companies. Vet students may also receive free food for their own dogs and cats at home. They could get an Iams notebook, a Purina purse and some free pizza.  http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Answer 4

I use fancy feast for all 4 of my cats one is really fat one is really old and 2 r kittens. They all like it take a try. Good Luck!!!

Answer 5

it sounds as your older cat has a urinary infection and needs a certain

diet food.

Feed diets that promote the formation of urine that is acidic. Most commercial diets currently available meet this criteria. Avoid supplementing such diets with additional urinary acidifiers, because over-acidification can cause metabolic acidosis, impaired kidney function, and mineral imbalance.

Restrict dietary magnesium intake to 40 milligrams per 100 kilocalories if acidic urine (pH of 6.4 or less) is maintained. Again, most commercial diets meet this criteria.

Feed small meals on a frequent basis or feed free-choice dry foods.

Provide clean, fresh water at all times.

Provide an adequate number of litter boxes (usually one more than the number of cats in the household), and keep them clean.  

Answer 6

Most people use junk. I use Castor and Pollux Adult Ultramix. Top four ingredients are meat and there are absolutely no by-products or other junk (corn) in it. I also use canned Nutro Natural Choice Salmon and Shrimp Chowder.

Answer 7

If one of the first 5 ingredients is corn or a corn product the food isn't the best (a grocery brand as we call them). Try Natural Balance, Wellness, Halo, or another very nutritious food. The more nutritious the food, the better it is for your pet, the healthier your pet will be, and the less they will need to eat. Go out to your local pet store and ask them what they carry and what they would recommend.  

PS. Iams and Fancy Feast are both grocery brands

Answer 8

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your cat? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent cat foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

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.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less p**p!

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.

Some of the high end foods can be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness and Solid Gold. If you can't find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.

Another option for feeding cats is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:

http://www.barfworld.com/

http://www.rawfedcats.org/

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawm...

Now the question is, do you feed wet or dry? Wet is the correct answer. 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...

Another option to get cats to drink more would be a cat fountain. Cats tend to like to drink from running water and cat fountains see to that need, encouraging cats to take in more water.

More:

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_... (Dog food reviews. It's for dogs, but most of the high quality brands also put out excellent cat foods. Anything with five or six stars is a great food.)

Answer 9

Just stop feeding her and she will find her own food.

Answer 10

My kitty is on a raw diet- Oma's Pride.

A dry only diet contributed to the death of my 15 year old kitty.

Do some research...cats need raw. They need meat.

PS: Rachel C... Ken's answer is right whether he got it from the web or not. A dry only diet killed my cat and made her suffer miserably in the end and I was too ignorant to know.. BTW- you are not feeding your cats as good as you think you are. Do your research. Google "pet food myths". You will be shocked.

Answer 11

SCIENCE DIET and if you dont want them to get fat SCIENCE DIET LIGHT

Answer 12

Science diet definetly

have had 0 problems with it

Answer 13

It depends what you feed your cat and how much you feed it. I use friskies and it's real good. I give my cat a quarter of a can twice a day. Once in the evening, once in the morning. Make sure your cat does not eat a lot. As you must know from the results, they can become unhealthy. Also,  contact your local vet on what to do with the "leaking" and other advice. Hope you cat is going to be well, and be healthy in the future. Good luck!

Rachel

P.S. ALLKNOWI, you should be punished for not feeding your cats!! And Ken, good answer, but you probably got that from the internet.