Orijen and Wellness CORE cat foods

Have been trying to find good cat foods. I've recently transitioned from Purina One Chicken & Rice to California Naturals. They seem to like CN pretty well, but I have a couple that I think are carb junkies and would like to try something that is grain free to see if that would work. I'm going to try the Wellness CORE for cats to see if they like that and thought I might try the Orijen as well.

Anyone have any comments on either of these dry foods?

Thanks!

Mine do not like either Orijen or Wellness Core. They prefer Orijen over Core, but if given the choice, it's Cal Natural all the way. The Core is much more crumbly versus the Orijen's nicer compact kibble. I did notice that the Orijen went bad pretty quickly though(and I have it in a special airtight container...hmmm??)

Because my Princess Merlynn gets so chunky on Cal Natural dry, I have them on canned Nutro and a small portion of Cal Natural dry every other day or so for 1 of their 2 daily meals.

Hopefully, with the smaller portions of the dry, little Princess Fatty will stay slim and trim.

We haven't fed CN, but like the post above, mine prefer Orijen over Core

We feed Orijen as our regular food for all five kitties

orijen here .... will be retrying core as she liked it but had some issues

I have not tried Orijen.
Ca.Natural went very well at my house.
Core tried it, but my cat does not like the taste of it.
I still give as a treat, since I just had a couple sample bags to try.
I think it is a good product in theory but I dont think cats eat it well.

Mine won't eat Core either. Haven't tried Orijen.

Mine like EVO and *love* Pinnacle (both grain free).

Those are the two foods that mine eat. Getting them on orijens was no problem at all, wellness took a bit of time but now that they have the taste they eat it no problem, and they look amazing. The one that was overweight lost weight, the one that was underweight gained weight. They have amazing coats and lots of energy since i switched them so I recommend those foods.

Here is a before I adopted and after 3 months of being on those foods of my siamese...
http://thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147104

Originally Posted by lmunsie

Those are the two foods that mine eat. Getting them on orijens was no problem at all, wellness took a bit of time but now that they have the taste they eat it no problem, and they look amazing. The one that was overweight lost weight, the one that was underweight gained weight. They have amazing coats and lots of energy since i switched them so I recommend those foods.

Here is a before I adopted and after 3 months of being on those foods of my siamese...
http://thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147104

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Are the Orijen and Core the only foods you feed? No wet?

Orijen in our house, and since they like it, and are healthy, etc, I'm not looking to change. Keeps fine -- I haven't had it go stale/bad?

To save a few calories, I tried to switch Jack from Evo dry to Orijen dry (he eats just 1/6 a cup a day of dry; the rest of his diet is canned). No go. He adores the Evo but turns his nose up at the Orijen.

Does Wellness Core have fewer calories than Evo? Jack has fat issues.

Originally Posted by mschauer

Are the Orijen and Core the only foods you feed? No wet?

Click to expand...

The siamese gets about 3-5 oz of wet a day (wellness, anything that is meat, no fish flavours), my little girl refuses to touch wet no matter what i do

I tried Core, but mine wouldn't touch it. However, they love Orijen. I'm currently giving them a mix of California Natural and Orijen, a bit in their bowls at night. Their main food is wet.

Mine didn't like the Core, and I have to admit that I really didn't like the smell of it either. Both now eat EVO dry & wet and seem to be doing well on it. I don't like, however, that the EVO dry is so soft and crumbly.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. I wanted to try something that was a bit higher in protein and lower in carbs. I have 13 adult cats ranging in age from 7-14. One of the 8 year olds is a wee tad on the heavy side and is a carb junkie - begs for things like potato chips, crackers and cookies! I did the wet food feeding in addition to the dry when they were younger, but the dominant ones would inhale theirs and move in on the more shy kitties. I only did the wet as sort or a treat in the evenings and some just didn't like it. I know that free feeding isn't ideal for cats, but I don't have much time to stand over them to make sure that shy kitties actually get food. That was difficult before I had a human baby 3 years ago and now it just seems down right impossible. Besides, DH would prefer that we had no kitties, so if I spend more time on their dinner than I do on his, it would likely not go over very well!

They all seem to like the California Naturals, but it still has more carbs than I'd like. Not seeing as much poop in the litterboxes as I did with Purina One Hairball or Purina One Chicken and Rice and I'm hoping that they are ju??st digesting more. I haven't seen anyone straining in the litter boxes, but I guess I'll keep a watch out as some of you mentioned that yours became constipated on CN. What exactly would be symptomatic of a constipated kitty? What is the remedy for constipation in a kitty?

Perhaps I'll get a small bag of both Wellness CORE and Orijen and see how they both go over. Pet food store here (DC/Baltimore area) has a policy that if the fur kid don't like it or you're not satisfied with it for any reason, they will take it back (even open bags) and give you a refund or exchange. I was blown away by that, but the guy there said that they are just really passing along the manufactures return policy. If I return a bag to them, they send it back to the company and the company gives them a credit for it. Ideally, I'd like to be able to find at least 2 or 3 that all like so I can rotate. I tried Felidae, but none of them seemed too terribly thrilled with that. I don't think that with 13 cats having a bag go bad or rancid will come into play much in my house.

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and feedback - - very helpful!

Florence

Core and EVO aren't available where I live (western Europe), and California Natural has only become available again quite recently. I've been feeding the European version of CN dry (Canavit), and Orijen dry, for several weeks, and find there's little difference regarding acceptance, excrements, food becoming rancid, etc.. I constantly rotate foods, and feed 3 to 4 dry foods in any given week, plus canned, organic European brands every day, i.e., a dry breakfast, and a canned dinner.