What food do you use and WHY:)

both my kittens eat mostly raw. Natures variety Chicken right now. I'm currently weaning them off of the Purina One dry food that their foster mom fed them, so they get that once a day in the morning and just a little bit until the bag is gone, then no more for them. 100% raw. I feed them raw because I believe it's best for their overall health, as they are obligate carnivores, and they seem much healthier and softer since I've gotten them and starting feeding the raw more and more.

Beatrix, my 3 y o is exceptionally picky and won't touch the raw yet.
I'm also trying to wean her off the dry food, she eats Friskies indoor right now (vet suggested it) I don't want the kitties on kibble anymore but I'm having a hard time finding a wetfood that we can both agree on. She loves fish but I don't want her to have it too often, when she does get it she eats Tiki Cat. it's awesome, no byproduct, filets of sardine with calamari rings and lobster consomme and just a hint of sunflower oil. sounds good huh?

Jack was eating Science Diet light wet and the Purina One for fat cats (can't remember the real name) dry, but wasn't losing any weight. I've since switched him mostly to the Evo dry (with a little of the Purina still mixed in as he gets used to it) and either Evo or Wellness canned. His coat looks fantastic and he is much more energetic. I'll be adjusting quantities until we reach the point where he's losing weight slowly.

When I first got her: Fancy Feast & Iams Dry

I am in the process of switching to:
Nutro Natural Indoor Dry food
Natural Balance wet food
(I also have some Nutro Natural wet food pouches, even though they have wheat gluten, and some of the Nutro Natural cans left).

I like buying the Greenies snacks.

I love Iams and Fancy feast wet food....
I like to mix up the two where I give her more of each alternating daily...
I have noticed however she is getting a bit chubby (treats!!!!), so I am going to try her on a Science Diet blend, and only give her wet food once a week as a treat. She really likes when I put tuna juice over her dry food (encourages her to eat better).....

Originally Posted by laureen227

actually, she'd probably lose more if you decrease her dry & increase her wet. most drys have a lot of grain components to them, which is more likely to cause weight gain than meat.

Click to expand...

Good to know!!! Seems logical enough...

NOTICE... PLEASE read the FIRST post ... this is simple stating what and why NOT for GIVING advice

Morning: Nutro Natural Dry Indoor Cat Formula
(I like the ingredients, I can find it at both pet stores I go to, and it's good for preventing hairballs.)

Night: Wet food. She eats a variety of them. I probably switch it up too often for her. I buy Natural Balance (right now I'm trying all flavors to see which ones she likes, I'm hoping she'll like the indoor formula), Sold Gold Blended Tuna, By Nature Pouches, the Nutro Natural Indoor Cat Pouches and Cans (she prefers the pouches though b/c she likes gravy and chunks).

Every once in a while I give her treats for dinner - Sheba Premium Cuts or Meow Mix Pouches.

my cats do well on Purina one. It's reasonably priced, available at the local Wal-Mart, and they love it. I've never had any problems with it.

They won't eat canned, only dry.

I was going to bump this so the newer members to TCS could see it, but I decided to go ahead and list my cats' food.

I was feeding Iams but changed to Blue Buffalo Blue Spa Select Natural Turkey and Brown Rice Recipe Indoor Sensitive Skin Care. (Say that five times fast )

Ingredients: deboned turkey, turkey meal, whole ground barley, oatmeal, salmon meal, dried egg, chicken fat (preserved with natural mixed tocopherols), whole potatoes, natural chicken flavor, flaxseed (natural source of omega 6 fatty acids), whole ground brown rice, whole carrots, whole sweet potatoes, cranberries, blueberries, barley grass, dried parsley, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, taurine,l-lysine, yucca schidigera extract, green tea extract, turmeric, salmon oil (natural source of omega 3 fatty acids), black malted barley, oil of rosemary, avacado oil, etc. etc. (vitamins)

At the bottom of the list are; Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bacillus subtilis, Bifidobacterium thermophilium, Bifidobacterium longum and Enterococcus faecium (probiotics).

34.0% crude protein, 18.0% crude fat, 1.6% crude fiber, 8.0% moisture, 7.0% ash, 0.15% taurine, 0.15% omega 3 fatty acids and 2.0% omega 6 fatty acids

After two months on this food their coats are super shiney and soft. Furrari's greasy fur is now non-greasy! Eli and Furrari love it. Freya eats mostly canned food since she has very few teeth and needs extra meals to keep her weight up, but she nibbles on kibble the boys leave in the bowls. Or I soak the kibble to soften it for her.

One of the reasons I picked this food was the salmon meal and oil instead of generic 'fish meal or oil'. (Also, less poo in the litter boxes so I know they are digesting more of this food than the Iams.)

I've been feeding my girls wellness kitten formula since we got them at 6 weeks old. they are now 4 months and officially sick of it. I think they are just bored with the same flavor over and over again. I've mixed up the dry, which they eat plenty of, but I don't want them to only eat dry. We just started adding in a little bit of NUTRO NATURAL CHOICE COMPLETE CARE KITTEN and NUTRO MAX CAT GORMET CLASSICS KITTEN in to the wellness This has helped tremendously. But for the life of me I can't figure out the difference between the two NUTRO types. All I have been doing is buying different flavors to keep the kitties happy! Which they are! and energetic too!! oh - one quick thing about treats... macy (my calico) - will only eat hard treats - so feline greenies seemed like a better choice than meow mix. but now that seizure stuff...any advice, oh wise cat owners?

I've been feeding my girls wellness kitten formula since we got them at 6 weeks old. they are now 4 months and officially sick of it. I think they are just bored with the same flavor over and over again. I've mixed up the dry, which they eat plenty of, but I don't want them to only eat dry. We just started adding in a little bit of NUTRO NATURAL CHOICE COMPLETE CARE KITTEN and NUTRO MAX CAT GORMET CLASSICS KITTEN in to the wellness This has helped tremendously. But for the life of me I can't figure out the difference between the two NUTRO types. All I have been doing is buying different flavors to keep the kitties happy! Which they are! and energetic too!! oh - one quick thing about treats... macy (my calico) - will only eat hard treats - so feline greenies seemed like a better choice than meow mix. but now that seizure stuff...any advice, oh wise cat owners?

I really like all the information I've gleaned from this thread, so I'm going to bump it with a post of my own.

The type of food that I've fed Angelo has evolved since I've owned him. I used to be a big box store, what's cheapest will do kind of person. And then I came to the realization that I was feeding my cat utter crap and he certainly didn't deserve that.

So, I've fed a few brands from Nutro to Royal Canin to Wellness. I'm currently feeding him the Wellness Chicken dry food. He's got horrible teeth despite cleanings, so I limit how much wet food he gets. I'm currently mixing in some wet Nutro Natural Choice packets, mostly chicken and some seafood blends.

Unfortunately, my roommate still buys cheap dry stuff for her cats and Angelo loves to steal food from their bowls. I think I've managed to convince her to start feeding them something a little better (Purina One), so maybe his side snacking won't be as bad for him.

I feed my cats Nutro dry and wet, and my dogs Nutro Ultra. Because you told me to!
And I just realized how old this thread was. LOL

Pepper Gets Royal Canin Kitten for now. I like the company and she loves the food and we have great results. We are going to add some canned food as well, probably Wellness.

My baby is extremely finicky, I have to give her in variety.
I feed her Eukanuba in the morning, then wet food in the evening.
She wouldn't eat whole a lot either time anyways, I have to divide 3 oz can or pouch into half. Also, except for Eukanuba, I switch the kind of wet food every other day. Although her all time favorite is beef, she wouldn't eat it for 3 days(nights) in row either...

Our kittens have gone through a variety of food in their short time with us - due to a variety of factors!

The first issue was whether or not we would actually be able to keep them. They were feral kittens that lived outside our house. When they were between 4 and 5 months old, we took them in for a trial run. We fed them cheap grocery store food for the first few days while we assessed whether or not they would be happy staying in the house (otherwise, we were going to TNR them). Well, they were happy enough and after going through way too much cheap grocery store food in that first week, we switched to Iams Kitten (because it was sold at our local shop). They ate that up quickly as well, so we tried a different variety - called Arden Grange - sold at our pet shop. They LOVED it and we stuck with that for quite a few months.

Then, our local pet shop just stopped stocking it. They kept telling me they were getting more, but over a month went by without a restock. I had bought up all their adult food by then, but had to start mixing it with Purina One to pad it out. In the end, we got fed up with all the stocking issues and went onto zooplus.co.uk and ordered a huge amount of a Swedish dry food called Bozita. Very pleased with it so far and the kittens seem to enjoy it as well.

They have to have their wet food as well though. They love it. We can't really get a good quality wet food here, so they eat grocery store wet food. They have it for dinner and free-feed off their dry food during the day. I would prefer it to be the other way around (more wet, less dry) but we can get quality dry easily but not quality wet as easily. I am sure in the coming months we will look into a bit more, but cost is a bit of an issue.

We are really lucky with these little guys as they are not picky AT ALL. They are like my husband - they love any kind of food they are given. Which makes life very, very easy for us....

I am trying to find the right thing to feed my kitties. They are 8 months and 10 months old. I do not know what ingrediant makes them barf but it seems that each food I have tried has made 1 or the other barf. And I also think Raven has hairball problems now and then. There is a lot of good info in this thread, and I have some ideas of what I can try. I have started only buying small bags so I do not have as much to go through if one or the other barfs from it.
Today I grabbed a hairball formula bag (I think I looked at the purina1) and meat was not even the first ingrediant so back the bag went.

Our crew eat Katz n' Flocken by Solid Gold. I have a few that keep getting recurrent urinary infections and the Katz n' Flocken seems to keep that at bay more than the other foods they were eating. Someone here with the same UTI problem suggested it. They also had a problem with throwing up at times and this seems to help that as well. The cats with allergies also get Natural Balance Duck and Pea or Blue Spa Select Turkey and Brown Rice for Sensitive skin.

For cans they get a variety: Evolve Chicken & Rice, Merrick Thanksgiving Dinner and Grammy's Pot Pie, California Natural Chicken & Rice, Prairie Lamb Stew & Wellness packets.