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Old February 3rd, 2009, 02:35 PM
MamaKat MamaKat is offline
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Question Wondering about my Kitty Food

Hello everyone,
I am hoping to get a little insight. I have 3 kitties. Two are litter mates that are a year and a half, one male and one female. The other one is 2 1/2 years old and is female. All is good with my kitties, except Im not happy yet with a food for them. I started them out on Science Diet, kitten, then the indoor brand. They all 3 ate it, but didnt really like it. Then I switched to Natural Balance indoor and they hated it. One would rear her head back whenever I opened the bucket (dry food), so I switched again (ofcourse I always do the change gradually as recommended) to Wellness Indoor. They eat that too, but are very indifferent to it. I used to give them treats and they love them, and bug me for them all the time. I bought a bag of Fancy Feast Gourmet Dry Cat food to use as "treats". They go nuts over this food and now want to eat that instead of the other. I give them a little in the am and a little before bed. My male cat just whines for it all day... So my question is, is the fancy feast healthy enough for my cats? Would it be horrible if I fed them that as a morning and evening meal and left the "good stuff" out for grazing??? I want my cats to be healthy, but I want them to be happy too.
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Old February 3rd, 2009, 07:56 PM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MamaKat View Post
So my question is, is the fancy feast healthy enough for my cats?
In a word: No.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MamaKat View Post
Would it be horrible if I fed them that as a morning and evening meal and left the "good stuff" out for grazing??? I want my cats to be healthy, but I want them to be happy too.
Have you ever tried wet food? Cause honestly, there is no "good" dry food, although some are worse than others. I personally wouldn't even feed FF for treats. Not sure what flavour you're feeding, but here are the ingredients in the Savory Chicken & Turkey:

Quote:
Brewers rice, poultry by-product meal, corn gluten meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), ground yellow corn, soybean meal, animal liver flavor, chicken, turkey, ...... added color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 2 and other color).....
The only decent ingredients are the chicken and turkey, way way down the list at # 8 and 9. Then there's that food colouring - . To find out what cats should be eating and how to keep them healthy, read this link: http://www.catinfo.org/ Your cats will thank you.
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Last edited by Ford; February 4th, 2009 at 01:06 PM.
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Old February 3rd, 2009, 09:00 PM
MamaKat MamaKat is offline
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Of course I wanted to hear that it would be ok to feed them what they seem to love. I will stop feeding the ff. The wet food poses more of a problem, as they like to graze during the day and sometimes we are gone for 24 hours and dry food fits into our lifestyle. So, back to square one of trying to find something they will like...dry. thank you so much for your response I accept it and respect it.
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Old February 3rd, 2009, 10:20 PM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Originally Posted by MamaKat View Post
The wet food poses more of a problem, as they like to graze during the day and sometimes we are gone for 24 hours and dry food fits into our lifestyle.
You can leave canned food down for free-feeding, which is what I do. If you're going to be gone for a while, you can freeze some canned in an ice-cube tray and put a few frozen cubes in a dish to thaw for later. Or a timed feeder with a frozen gel-pack underneath is another option.

Some occasional kibble on those days you're away for long periods isn't a big deal, but I have to tell you that even the very best dry food out there is not a healthy choice for cats on a regular basis. They need to get moisture with their food. That's how they evolved (in the deserts of northern Africa). A cat eating only dry food is chronically dehydrated and at significant risk for bladder/urinary tract and kidney problems. Please read the link I gave you. While I admit that kibble is definitely convenient, that convenience comes at the price of your cat's well-being.
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Old February 3rd, 2009, 11:08 PM
MamaKat MamaKat is offline
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Again, Thank you so much. I have spent the last hour looking thru this website and am now trying to lift the guilt blanket from my body to send a reply to your message. OMG...I am overwhelmed with information. What do you feed your kitties?
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Old February 4th, 2009, 08:08 AM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MamaKat View Post
I have spent the last hour looking thru this website and am now trying to lift the guilt blanket from my body
Oh gosh, no guilt allowed!!! The fact that you're here and willing to learn puts you way ahead of most people. Plus, you're in a position to make some positive changes before your cats have suffered any significant health problems.

I feed my cat a combo of canned and raw food. For breakfast on weekdays, I put down a 3oz can of Wellness (changing the flavour every time cause he gets bored) and let him nibble it over the course of the day. For dinner, he either gets another quality canned food like Innova Evo 95%, By Nature Organics, Evanger's, Natural Balance Chicken & Liver, or else a prepackaged frozen raw food from one of the higher-end pet food stores (it's as easy as opening a can cause it's already balanced with the proper nutrients). He gets mostly raw on weekends when I'm around to give him several small meals.

If your cats are reluctant to try canned, there are some tips for transitioning on the catinfo link. You might want to start with something more enticing like one of the gluten-free Fancy Feast flavours: http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm I also have a ton of tricks up my sleeve if you need any. It took me almost a year to get my dude off of kibble, but his situation was complicated by diabetes. Hopefully your cats are more receptive!

Good luck, and let me know how it goes.
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Old February 4th, 2009, 12:26 PM
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Love4himies Love4himies is offline
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Glad to hear you are interested in switching your kitties to a quality food.

I, like sugarcatmom, feed a combination of raw and canned (I prefer Nature's Variety Instinct). I have two slow munchers and one gobbler. In the morning they get straight canned, (two munchers are separated from the gobbler for the day when I am at work) and the canned is left out all day with no problems, it is thrown out when I get home and fresh food is served.

After work and at bedtime, they are fed a raw, canned mixed. It is left out all night and I have never had an issue with the cats getting sick.

My senior, Puddles was on a grocery store brand food up until she was twelve. She was on what we thought were her last legs, greasy fur, sluggish, etc. Since switching her food to canned and raw, she now has beautiful fur and can get quite frisky. I also know others who have switched from a kibble to a quality canned and have mentioned the same thing.

Good luck.
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Old February 4th, 2009, 03:52 PM
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Thx to the folks here, mine are now eating EVO (chicken & turkey/duck) I am still bad though in that they get some varieties of Fancy Feast wet (mostly fish) a couple times a week...there are no grains in either food and they seem to have enough energy to get into things mommy would rather them not !

I did go to the Trailblazers (just up the street by me off Macleod Trail) and I think I need some more time to wrap my head around raw food...for some reason, I think with the salmonella, e-colli etc. out there, food needs to be processed to some degree to kill whatever. I know I am probably being silly, but still, it is how I feel at this time.

I do know from experience that food will play a HUGE part in the problems our kitties will have. The more i read about IAMS, the more I am convinced that it may have played a bigger part in Mooki's kidney condition than I really want to admit and these two aren't getting it all anymore! It is difficult to think what you feed your best friend could be harming them :sad:, but as stated previously, we are all learning
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Old February 8th, 2009, 03:41 PM
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kanis kanis is offline
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There are a lot of premium cat foods out there. My kittens have been a on a steady diet of Innova, Wellness, Merrick's and Orijen. Recently we tried out Natural Balance and my Zeus just devoured it.

Not only did I get a lot of great advice here but I also found these websites very helpful.

About.Com's Cats

Cat Food Reviews
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