New cat parent confused about cat food

My wife and I recently adopted a 4 month old male kitten "ChooChoo". The animal shelter we adopted him from recommended feeding him the Hills Science Diet dry and canned cat food. We have about 3 weeks supply of Science Diet dry food and some canned stuff as well. Yesterday, we took ChooChoo for his first vet visit and the vet also suggested Hills Science Diet dry/wet combo.

I'm confused because after doing some research on the net, Science Diet has many poor reviews because of its use of fillers.

Can folks here suggest some good cat food options?

Some cats are fine on a food full of a lot of corn. A lot of vets sell Science diet, and had their nutritional training provided by them - thus they push that brand. Shelters also receive a lot of donations from big companies so they'll also recommend the companies that go out of their way to help those shelters.

The food you decide to go with depends on a few things. Where you can easily shop, what you can spend, and ultimately what your kitten can eat. The most expensive brands of food are useless if your cat can't tolerate them very well.

A wet/dry or all wet diet is better for urinary health than an all dry diet is.


So, what stores do you have near you that you can shop at? Include any farm and livestock supply stores, too. If people know what your options are they can recommend foods you'd find at those stores.

Thanks. There's a PetSmart, PetCo and Pet SuperMarket near where I live (in Atlanta, Ga). There's also a Petland not far from my home.

I'm not as familiar with the other two since they're not in the region I live in. But Petco and Petsmart have a lot of great foods.

Both stores, in fact, have their cat foods slightly separated. Nicer foods one aisle, cheaper stuff on another. Stuff like Purina one, Pro plan, and science diet gets put in the middle.
Your nicer foods like Blue Buffalo, Wellness, etc, tend to be grouped together.

One thing to remember, you don't have to feed only one brand of wet! So you can try out a few different ones. Though, sticking with one or two drys (mixed) is better for a dry food. If you do switch your kitten's dry food, remember you must do this very very slowly. The higher quality the food you switch to, the slower you'll need to go.

If you're only feeding one, your higher end foods that come in smaller bags (like wellness) could be a great food for you to try out.

I'm having a bit of brain fart at the moment (bluntly put) for listing off who carries what. But all you need to do is check their websites. There you can find the ingredients for comparison - so you won't find yourself standing around in the store trying to read the tiny label print. You can also price foods this way.

Around my house I have some limiting factors keeping me from trying out too many foods - a kitty with chicken issues, one that needs script urinary food, two others with sensitive stomachs, etc. For those in my house that can eat it, Taste of the Wild is a nice dry food - high quality and fairly cheap per lb.

Since this is a kitten you should either have him on a good quality kitten food or a good all stages food. Most of your higher end foods are all stages, though.

What do you want the food to do? Ie low shedding , less stool odur , a basic solid all around food?

As Strange wings noted some do very well on corn based foods... other do not...

I would ask your budget for a month and how often your planning on giving wet food?

Sharky,

ChooChoo is healthy, not overweight and has no issues or conditions as per the vet. He's also been fixed, BTW. We want him to not get fat and lessen the poop odor, but other than that no requirements.

Financially, times are tough but we think we can afford 50-60 bucks a month for ChooChoo's food but can pay more if that's what we need to do.

Shoot, with that budget you can afford just about anything. Try all the good brands of canned food to see which flavors he likes best, and then pick a good variety out of his favorites. As for dry, I haven't used most of the brands sold at the big-box pet stores. I know they have Blue, Wellness, Natural Balance, and Solid Gold (and maybe a couple I forgot), all of which I think are pretty good. It might take a bit of experimenting to find which one he does best with.

Oops, $50-60 is what we hope to spend in total for ChooChoo including litter.

I used to use trader joe's as it is a good quality for the price. If you search food on this site, you will find a lot of advice on what is "good". Basically, the first or second ingredient will be what it says on the canm ie: turkey, the by products are labled, not just "meat" and there won't be much corn, or it will be towards the end. that's the brief tutorial that I have learned here. You can go into much more depth on quality, canned vs. raw, etc.

Anyhoo, back to what I do. Now that my cats have decided they don't like trader joe's, and I REALLY don't want to spend more that 60 cents a can of food. twice a day is $1.20 plus the dry and litter, does come to around 50 or 60 a month. but I have two cats. I found that they do like the science diet turkey, and fancy feast, neither which are supposed to be that great. "animal by products" and they don't like the petsmart brand, and they don't even like the expensive proplan, and some others I tried. It is really frustrating to get something that is affordable, good quality, and that they like. For dry they eat purina one sensitive stystem. Another medium priced dry, not the most expensive. Basically, stay away from the cheapest stuff like meow mix, and cheap canned cat food, eventhough some of them you can get three cans for a dollar. My cats have a half a can of wet, and a small scoop of dry, twice a day. I will leave the leftovers out until dinner. I HATE throwing away food, so the portions are small, and I like it when they eat it all and leave very little behind.

Originally Posted by jbrickm

Oops, $50-60 is what we hope to spend in total for ChooChoo including litter.

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Even so, for one cat that shouldn't be too much of a strain. I don't know what litter you use, but litter expenses should be under $20 a month. Most cats eat about 4-5 pounds of dry food a month, if he gets a lot of canned food that will be less. Even if you get a really expensive dry food at $3 a pound, that's still only $12-$15 a month. I'm more comfortable with cheaper canned foods--but get the best dry food possible. Even a "bad" canned food isn't too terrible. Although canned food can add up quickly, with a lot of the good brands being upwards of $1.20 a can, there are some decent canned foods for less if you shop around.

Congrats on the new kitty! I would read a few threads on here. They are full of good information about dry and wet foods. Given your budget, you should be able to afford a solid grain free dry food, if you plan on feeding dry. Many stores either have samples available or, if your cat does not like the food, you can return it to the store so hold on to the receipt.

We started out on SD too because a free bag was given to us when we got them from the shelter and I stuck with it for a while until a friend informed me about how to read a pet food label. We've gone through Blue Buffalo Wilderness, Taste of the Wild, Wellness Core, and now innova evo dry.

And if you are near Atlanta there should be a plethora of small pet stores, vets, and feed stores that have a lot more options than the big pet stores. I'd read up around here; there's a wealth of info on pet food.

I would suggest going into a small pet store and getting samples... Or hit the Petsmart on the weekend when You may get a rep for Blue, Wellness or Nutro ( all are solid foods) and get coupons or samples

Also, try emailing the company and ask for a free sample, especially for high end (high price) foods. Taste of the Wild sent me some samples of their fish-based dry food. Particularly useful if your kitty is picky and/or finicky.

Congratulations on your new kitty!

It is so great that you are taking the time to learn about good food choices. Everyone's suggestions so far have been right along with what I would recommend.

This has already been mentioned, but I wanted to re-iterate, when you start switching your baby over to new food, do it extremely slowly. Going from a low quality food to a high quality food is tough on a kitten's system if done too fast. I had that problem with my boy Indy, we switched him over just a tad too quickly and it upset his little stomach. The slower you can switch over, the better it will be for little ChooChoo.

Best of luck to you!