What should I feed my cat?

Question

What should I feed my cat?

Answer 1

You should feed your cat any dry cat food it will eat that has Taurine listed as an ingredient. Cats require Taurine, people don't. If cats don't grow up eating food with Taurine they develop heart problems. I had an adopted stray cat that had heart problems and died suddenly. Buy a little of several kinds of dry cat food and put it in dishes side by side and see what your cat prefers. Mine despises "Dad's" cat food and I think it smells horrible so I don't blame them. By the way, if its a kitten then you should feed it Kitten Chow. And also, any food that they call "Indoor Formula" doesn't stink quite as much in a litter box.

Oh! I do buy cans of cat food. I get the Wal-Mart brand. I have two cats and I give them a can to split every day or two for a while and then don't give them any for a while. I use it more or less as a treat. For instance, I bought them canned food as presents for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chinese New Year,  Ground Hog Day, Spring Equinox, Memorial Day (or is it Labor Day...?), Their birthdays (I guess when it is), Arbor Day, Halloween, and random other holidays I hear of. Yep, there is a low standard of when I celebrate a holiday, so they get a can of food pretty often!

Answer 2

Best cat food doesn't contain any the following ingredients:

Corn,

Corn Meal

BHT, DHA  

Byproducts

Food dye/color

Most of these are found in all popular brands such as IAMs, Purina, Science Diet, Whiskas, etc.

Best foods that are rich in protein and doesn't contain byproducts and corn fillers are Innova, Wellness, Orijen, Felidae.  

Good source of best foods to feed pets - http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family...

Answer 3

I do not really have any specific answers for you, because every time I answer on food I get like 4 thumbs down, along with everyone else. What I can tell you is that you shouldn't buy any cat food that you can commonly find in the store. Buy something with absolutely no fillers! Fillers are bad for your cat, dog, or any pet really. Go with something very natural and healthy, no fillers. Don't listen to people who tell you that you MUST have wet and dry food. My cats eats only dry food, just make sure you give the cat a lot of water. Wet food also tends to be worse for cats than dry food.

Here I have a link that goes to a site with the best top rated cat foods. I love each one of them and agree with their choices. They are proven to be good. Stear clear of popular name brand foods. They are proven to have the worst nutrients and the most fillers. Not good.

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family...

Good luck!! :)

Answer 4

Cat food

Purina kitten chow!

Answer 5

Cats were never meant to eat dry food, also known as cereals or kibble. We, humans, make them eat it for convenience to us. It has nothing to do with them or their nutritional needs. It's completely species inappropriate.

All small domestic cats descended from desert cats. In the wild, desert cats derive their entire liquid intake from their prey. They do not have a thirst mechanism because they don't need it when eating a species appropriate diet. They get all they need from what they eat. Additionally water was usually not available to them in their desert climate. So they do not often drink water. Regular ol' house cats have descended from those same wild desert cats.

So in a home environment, your kitty does not get the moisture it needs from dry food and it’s almost always in a constant state of dehydration. Water fountains are encouraged to TRY to get your cat to drink more and your kitty may even enjoy it, but it will never meet its water intake needs drinking from a bowl.

Deadly feline illnesses such as diabetes, kidney failure, obesity, allergies, Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD), bladder stones, kidney stones,  urinary tract blockages and Urinary Tract Infections (FLUTD), with and without deadly crystals run rampant these days. Cats are not taking in enough water to stave them off. Proper water intake through a species appropriate diet alone can prevent most of these conditions.

Overall,  wet is all around better for any cats diet, be it canned or Raw and they should never be fed dry cereal kibble if we wish to most closely match their wild nutritional and dietary needs. Kibble meets our needs… not our cats.

I recommend varying the diet with a constant rotation of accepted canned foods that your cat enjoys. If you do this, and allow your cat the same assortment they would have in nature when eating mice, bugs, birds and rabbits, your cats’ digestive system won't be so sensitive and you won't have to run around looking for a specific brand when your store is out. You will have a nice variety to choose from instead.

Canned foods I recommend for your rotation:

Nature's Variety - http://www.naturesvariety.com/content.la...

Wellness Grain Free Formula’s - http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/cat_welln...

By Nature Organics - http://www.bynaturepetfoods.com/productp...

Organix -  http://www.castorpolluxpet.com/store/org...

Evanger's Holistic Pheasant - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/20089...

Evanger's Organic Braised Chicken - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/50103...

Evanger's Turkey & Butternut Squash - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/50111...

Answer 6

It depends on the age and tastes of the cat mostly. My cat prefers dry food, though it will eat the occasional canned food too. Just be sure to have lots of water nearby if you choose dry food. If it's a kitten give it lots of milk (you can even try wetting the dry food with milk to make it soft for its teeth). Occasionally your cat might want to eat some grass too (they need fibers) so you can buy the kind that they sell especially for cats. In any case, make sure you ask a vet too, because you may need to supplement the food to make sure the cat gets all the nutrients it needs - e.g. for my cat, the vet said I should give it oil to keep its fur healthy.

Answer 7

Cats are carnivores, thus they need meat as the primary ingredient in their diet.

Wet food is much better for cats, first because it contains more meat and less fillers than dry.  Secondly, cats are not big water drinkers, they get most of their moisture from their food.

Here is a nice website about cat nutrition written by a veterinarian and cat lover.  She discusses wet, dry and raw diets in an easy to read format.  She also discusses the common kitty illnesses associated with poor diet.

Purrs to you and kitty.

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, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix, Timber Wolf Organics.

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, Taste of the Wild.

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

When you are choosing food, it is important for you to learn how to read ingredient labels. They tell 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 kitten would be easier.

Answer 10

Depending on the age of your cat, it should eat an age appropriate dry or canned professional food. The people at a pet food store can steer you in the right direction if you ask them.

Vivian J

Answer 11

You should feed your cat meat.  Give your cat scraps from the table including chicken (minus the cooked bones), beef, pork etc.  Also give your cat raw eggs, milk and fish.  If you supplement dry cat food with meat and eggs like this, your cat will be very healthy.

Answer 12

Purina Indoor Formula is good, my cats eat it and they are very healthy and happy.

Answer 13

Make sure the food is age approite such as kitten food for a kitten or seinor cat food for the older cats.  Your cat will tell you what it likes to eat ex:

If cat throws up a few times = Upsets my tummy

Cat dose not eat it= I don't like it

Cat Eats it with no problem = yummy I want more!