What should I switch my cats' food to? (Nutro Kitten to...?)?

Question

I have two young cats - one is about a year old, and one is about half a year old. I've been feeding them Nutro Kitten dry food which they seem to like, but I'm thinking of switching brands because Nutro is not sold at the grocery stores near where I live (and I do not have a car...). If I am going to switch them from Nutro to another brand (one that is more common) what would be recommended?

Answer 1

you can feed kitten food for up to 18months and the one I reccommend is Purina One for kittens...when they get over 18months old you have several different varieties to choose from with Purina One...and you can find Purina One at any Walmart

Answer 2

Don't feed your kitten the c**p you get at a grocery store.  Nutro is a good brand but I know that they are having ingredient sourcing issues and I would not recommend it at all.  

Look into brands like royal canin, wellness, halo, castor n pollux.  They are a bit on the pricey side but the nutrition and ingredients used are well worth the long life they will help provide your kitten.  

Answer 3

Any food you can buy in a grocery store is going to be garbage, flat and simple.

Look for websites that will ship food free of charge, there are always offers being posted.  Or buy in bulk, get some good storage containers.

Buying cheap, low quality food for your cat will only lead to issues later n life for them.

Iams is pure junk.  After seeing so many cats with urinary infections and urinary crystals from eating Iams, I would never suggest it to anyone.

Answer 4

Purina is a good, cheap food. Iams is more expensive but better in my opinion. Of course, it depends on the cat! Some are picky and some have sensitive tummies.

I worked at a vet clinic and when people couldn't afford the expensive Science Diet etc, these are always what we recommended.

Answer 5

Nutro is a low medium grade food so it's good to switch to a higher quality food. I'd also recommend switching from dry to wet.

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 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 6

You can get high quality foods shipped through amazon (3rd party).  Example: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_hg?url...

There are various retailers you can use as well that will ship to you.  The ingredients will be listed so you can compare them before you decide which to buy.

Some of the high quality brands are listed here: http://www.naturapet.com/default.asp

They don't sell directly though.

It's all more expensive up front but will save you money in the long run on vet bills.  The companies who sell their food in grocery stores and such put their money into marketing, not into healthy ingredients.