Merrick Before Grain..I am loving this food for Jennie

Jennie has constipation problems and with much early experimentation I finally discovered that she did best on Wellness Grain Free Canned Chicken, only. Jennie has food anxiety though, and over time her desire for variety seem to start making her a little crazy, so I branched out and let her have two other kinds of Wellness too, though not as often as the chicken, she also gets Beef&Chicken, and Turkey.

Part of Jennie's problem is she has a slow metabolism and even being fed half as much as the other cats eat, she still was too chubby. And then..the Wellness is very high in calories compared to many other foods of similar quality.

After the Wellness recall I realized I had to find something else for Jennie to eat, in addition to the Wellness. Since I had already tried so many, I had to dig deep. I then saw a reference in another forum to a food called Merrick Before Grain.

After looking into it I liked it (on paper) much better than the Wellness because not only was it grain free, and pate (what she likes) and low fiber like the Wellness, it was also NOT full of all those useless fruits and vegetables that Wellness likes to add in. It is a little lower in calories too, probably because it doesn't have all that extra fruit and veggies.

Fast forward six weeks. Jennie has now been eating about half Wellness and half Before Grain for six weeks. And just today I realized that wow, I thought her coat was nice before on the Wellness, well it is TWICE as nice now. And her energy level is better. She even looks like she's lost a little weight, maybe half a pound would be my guess. And she isn't having any more trouble pooping than she was. She still has a little trouble, but it's not worse.

So I am really really happy with the Merrick Before Grain, for Jennie. I will keep her on both brands though. I believe in feeding a rotation of brands just in case a recall comes out, or a food is discontinued, or even if, unknown to anyone, a food is slightly lacking in some tiny nutrient cats need, that another food may not be lacking.

Cool, I will have to throw that into the mix and see how the munchkins like it. Right now my cats eat just about everything that looks half decent ingredients. Figure its 100% guaranteed balanced diet, not as big a deal if there is a small deficiency in one brand, and they learn not to be picky.

Have to disagree on the "fruits and veggies" in Wellness being useless though. The idea is that some are added in as key vitamins and antioxidants which help eliminate free radicals for greater longevity and some veggie matter (veggies tend to raise urine PH) to help reach an optimum urine PH as under 6, you're at risk for calcium oxalate stones/crystals. Wellness advertises that their balanced recipes are now designed to achieve a 6.1 to 6.6 PH, which most consider an ideal range.

http://www.ehow.com/facts_6322109_ca...treatment.html

I know what Wellness advertises. They lie, based on my own experiences. The ONLY reason I buy Wellness is because it is the only "quality" food I could find that did not aggravate Jennie's constipation problem.

I continue to buy it to keep Jennie on a variety rotation, but I am happy to only feed her half as much.

Cats do not process fruits and vegetables the way humans do. When they eat prey that eats them, the prey that has eaten the fruits and veggies converts them to what the cats need. As they are, they really don't have much benefit to cats.

I could swear that when I was looking at this food, I read right on the label that it said "not 100% nutritionally complete"! Completely through me for a loop! Perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me (it DOES sometimes), but I didn't buy it because what was the point? (and maybe I was looking at their dry, but I don't think so, since I was trying to find different wet foods that Sven might like)

AHA...I just went out to Merrick's BG website, and see where they have changed their formula from supplemental to "completely nutritional". Good, I am NOT losing my mind (at least not completely). Well now, this gives me another option to try!!