Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, as some of you may know, I'm thinking about adopting a cat. I've decided that if I did adopt a cat, I would definetly switch him over to a diet of canned food. What kind of food do you use and why? What brand of food do you use, and would you reccommend it? Do you mix dry and canned foods, and if so in what amounts (and what brands)? I've started reading some long articles on Feline Nutrition on www.maxshouse.com and I've found them to be extremely informative, do you agree with the info on the above listed site? What are things that need/should be in cat food and what are things that shouldn't be in cat food (For things that are on the Nutrition Panel...what % is best?)? And finally, do you know of any other good feline nutrition links? Thanks so much for you much needed help, in advance!! :-D

SpookyScales

I would highly recommend feeding all canned or mostly canned. As for brands, well I really think that Nutro and Nutro Natural Choice are THE best foods on the market, dry and canned. However, having said that, I can not get my cats to eat them with any regularity. They are extremely heathy foods, but like humans, I guess prefer cocoa puffs to shreded wheat lol. We are feeding alot more dry now and less canned because with 9 cats we would go through about 500 cans per month, which is just more than we can afford (or store). If you find it most convenient to buy food from a grociery store and quality is vital to you, go with fancy feast, it's very high quality and cats adore it. It's just as expensive as the premium petstore foods though. IMO it's better to feed plenty of canned even if it's friskies or whiskas than to feed an all dry diet of premium food. Basically, if I were you, start your cat on canned Nutro or fancy feast and see if they will stick with it, but our cats change their minds constantly about what they will eat. The thing you want to avoid as much as possible is bi-products. If the food has lots of real meat and few or no bi-products you're doing well.-- Jennifer
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My kitties eat a combo of wet and dry food. They always have Chicken Soup crunchies available and the adults get 1/3 of a 12.5 oz can of Wellness food at lunchtime. Kola gets canned food three times a day (she's 4 1/2 months old) and she likes the ProPlan. She also eats some of the wellness when the other cats have lunch. We used to feed only crunchies because Kuma has IBD, which is now pretty much gone, and he couldn't eat any canned food when he was young; he'd throw it up in about 20 min. Now that he's all better they all get canned food but not too much, since they also love their crunchies. I have noticed that they all have beautiful coats since we started on the Wellness. What I like about this brand is it's high quality and comes in around 7 or 8 flavors/varieties. My cats particularly like the chicken, chicken & herring, and turkey & salmon. They seem to enjoy the variety in their lives. The top brands I've found over all are Wellness and Felidae, you can't go wrong with those!
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-Martha
Kuma
Bubba, formerly known as "Ducky"
and
Macaroni
And Now
Kola, the new fizzy kitten that has a tendency to go flat!

Well as you have read on some of these posts already I agree with the recommendation of keeping a look out for Bi-products!
Basically that is the scrap and junk of meats that we don't eat so why should they.

The best I personally found with some foot work & recommendations here too is Wellness. My cats were switched to wellness dry foods earlier this year and I have to agree they too also have beautiful coats. And they just love the heck outta it! We go with the Salmon flavor.

We also use can food twice a day and we have had pretty good luck with Fancy Fiest. Like Jennifer said and my cats are the same no matter the can food we sometimes get up turned noses with certain flavors. Just when I think I'm getting the flavors they like they seem to get picky on the cut in the can which come in a shredded, chunky, pate like & even marinated types.
So I'm thinking its not the can food cats are just finiky.
But I have learned its important to have plenty of moisture in a cats diet so if you get a cat that doesn't do as well with the water intake at least moisture is taken in with can food.

You have opened up a huge topic with foods of which you will get many varying diet plans hopefully you can take in a ton of advice and then make the best decision for you're possible new adoptive kitty.
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Cheri,Shelby,Lily & Lucy