Survey? What food do you feed your cats?

I was wondering if I could get a survey from the members here about which foods they feed their cats.

Brand(s), wet/dry, etc.

You can provide a reasoning or just list it.

It probably runs the gamut, but I'd like to see if there are any trends, preferred brands, etc.

I'm using Blue Buffalo kitten formula dry for my kittens & trying to establish a feeding routine with Blue Buffalo Wilderness grain-free canned. I really like the latter even though it's a little $$ because it's grain-free. Any opinions on either of these foods?

Thanks in advance

I feed 70% dry Taste of the Wild and 30% wet, unfortunately, Friskies pate is all I can get any of them to eat, and I feel that bad to mediocre wet is better than none.

60% wet, 40% dry.

Wet = everything under the sun that has decent ingredients and is close to or under a buck a can; nutro complete care, by nature, blue select, wellness, avoderm, etc. fish flavor only once or twice a week, usually chicken and turkey.

Dry = Blue Wilderness Duck

Treat = Greenies

Mostly dry with a 3.5 oz can of wet daily.

Wet- just about anything he'll eat, there are brands I refuse to buy, some don't come in 3.5 oz cans and others I dislike enough(Nutro, Iams, Eukanuba, Science diet, etc) that I refuse to buy them and then there are brands that he won't touch. He won't touch Blue Wilderness wet at all, and several others.

Dry- I'm about a week from completing switching Nuts from Solid Gold Indigo Moon to Taste of the Wild. I'm only switching because I want to be able to get both my cat and my dog's food from the same place.

Taryn

Wellness Healthy Weight for dry - 1/4 cup (scant) 2 times a day per cat. Some eat more of this, some less. Food is in 5 bowls for 5 cats. But of course they eat out of each others bowls.

Once a day (third meal) 1 ounce canned per cat. Currently feeding: Wellness grain free, Natural Balance, BG, Taste of the Wild, Solid Gold tuna, Soulistic. They get the Wellness every 4th day. Same with the Natural Balance. I have tried most high quality foods, and will continue to. This is what they like best at this point. I feed all the flavors, except beef. Fish no more than twice a week.

Claude, who is the one who needs to lose weight, gets Natural Balance reduced calorie formula for his canned meal (1 ounce). He has lost 1/2 pound per month since December. He isn't allowed access to the others canned food meal. The other 4 range in weight from just under 8 pounds to 12 pounds. They have lost a slight amount of weight on the low calorie dry food. These 4 are at good weights for them. None are over or under weight.

Once Claude reaches his target weight, I'll switch them to a different dry food - maybe Wellness Core. But that will be a while yet. He was 18 pounds in December. At his monthly weigh in (I have a baby scale) at the beginning of May, he was 15 pounds, 9 ounces! We're proud.

Robin

I mix 5 different dry foods--Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain, Diamond Naturals Active Cat, Chicken Soup Adult Cat, 4Health All Life Stages, and one other brand that varies based on what I can get a good deal on--right now Nutro MaxCat salmon flavor (because PetCo had it on sale), sometimes Pro Plan, Authority, etc. They all get a bit more than 1/4 cup each a day, although I don't measure it out individually--for the 19 cats who have free run of the house, I put down 5 cups.

Canned food--Sophistacat, Friskies, Triumph, Hy-Vee brand, Evanger's. Pretty much anything that comes in a 13-oz can, costs less than $1.20 per can, and doesn't have truly terrible ingredients (like added sugar). I guess it would work out to them getting about 3 ounces each of canned food daily, but again I don't measure it out individually. I put 2 13-oz cans out for each meal (twice a day) for the 19 of them, plus the 3 oldest get 1/4 of a 5.5-oz can fed individually for dinner (so I can make sure they're eating well).

One cat lives in the bedroom alone. She always has dry food available (she regulates herself well) and gets 1/4 of a 5.5-oz can every night. Sometimes one of the boys (there are 2 she will tolerate in her room) will sneak into her room and eat her kibble, so I guess they may be getting a bit more than their share!

Right now they get 2 meals of canned food and one of dry food. I stopped free-feeding and I have seen some good results. Some of them are definitely looking slimmer. Nobody's gotten any fatter anyway!

The outdoor ferals get Purina Cat Chow dry and occasionally a can of 9 Lives (it's the cheapest) for a treat. I would like to get a better-quality dry for them, but I can't figure out how to keep the blackbirds out of their food, and the blasted things eat maybe a pound a day during peak breeding season. And I can't afford to be feeding the grackles and starlings food that costs more than $1 a pound!

We have 8 cats. Three boys have had issues with crystals - 2 of them were extensive problems. Our latest rescue has allergies.

We used to free feed dry, and supplemented with 1, then 2 wet meals a day. All regulated just fine - but the last 2 rescues were older ferals, and didn't regulate. The latest one also has allergies. So we had to stop free feeding because we had one fat cat, and one cat with allergies that couldn't eat the prescription dry we had down.

Two of the cats just did NOT switch to the timed wet food feedings. So I keep two bowls of kibble handy. One is Hill's c/d dry for the male (prescription food for bladder issues). I gradually started mixing in higher quality food to that because he is eating some wet food 4x a day, and I mix the wet with water, so his urine stays dilute. So the dry food brands I add to that are Instinct (grain free, chicken), Orijen (grain free), and Merrick Before Grain (chicken). The mix is 70% Hill's c/d, 10% Instinct, 10% Orijen, 10% Merrick Beforfe Grain.

The female gets Hill's Hairball. But she also eats some wet food 4x a day with water mixed in.

Two of the other boys (that had problems with blockages from crystals) eat primarily wet food, but when they "ask" for nibbles of kibble, I put the bowl down for them. They nibble a little bit - but again, both are self-regulators and at healthy weights.

We work from home, so I feed four wet meals a day.

The brands they eat are:

Instinct (Rabbit, Chicken, Turkey, Duck)
Evo (Venison, Chicken & Turkey, Duck)
Before Grain (Chicken, Chicken & Quail)
Wellness Pouches (Turkey & Duck, Chicken, Duck & Shrimp, Chicken, Crab & Herring. Re: Wellness, I feed only the formulas that use oat fiber, not potato starch).
Wellness canned: Chicken
Hill's c/d: Chicken
Our overweight cat gets a teaspoon of whatever canned we're giving, and 1/2 a can of Royal Canin ultra light (3.5 oz) at each meal.

I give them Fancy Feast (original formulas only - I don't give them anything with wheat gluten because of Chumley's allergies. All Fancy Feast in gravy has wheat gluten) and baby food occassionally as a treat.

Four of our cats are 9 this year, one is 8, one is 6, one is going to be 5 this year, and one will be either 4 or 5 this year.

They are not active cats. I split one can of 5.5oz food between six of them (one weighs 7 pounds, one weighs 8, three weigh 11, one should weigh about 12 - he's a little over that, but it should start coming down slowly now. I hadn't factored in the calories from the pill pockets he needs); and I give the overweight cat and the cat eating primarily dry about a teaspoon/tablespoon (respectively) out of that can at each meal, and they split the Royal Canin Ultra Light (it's the only wet food the not overweight cat really likes and will eat all of). Because of the pills the 4/5 year old (the one with allergies) requires, he gets an additional 50-60 calories a day from his pill pockets (I try to use less than a pocket per pill).

Other than the two wellness pouches and the Orijen dry, I avoid seafood ingredients (minor components in the foods I'm feeding at a minimum).

The outside ferals eat 4health dry food (all life stage) and get either Science Diet Kitten wet 2x a day, or Fancy Feast (whatever's on sale).

My DH thinks it's complicated.

What I'd like to feed Ritz is different from what I actually do, and all to do with what Ritz will eat.
She goes through phases when she will eat one and only one kind of food; currently, it is MaxCat Seafood and Tomato Bisque Chunks in Sauce, about 9 oz a day (too much I think but her weight is more or less stable, she meows a Lot if I fed her any less, and I play with her as much as she lets me).
Interestingly, the THIRD ingredient is fish; the first, second and fourth are poultry based.
She use to eat/love Wellness Tuna Pouches and Soulistic Chicken, much better quality food IMO. Occasionally I will leave these foods for her when I am gone for an extended period of time; she will eat them if she is hungry.
She gets two teaspoons (I measure) of dry Wilderness Blue (?--high quality) a day as a treat; other than that, her diet is 100% wet, except for the cat grass that she loves loves loves too.
The one or two times I fed her very high quality wet food like B.G. or Merricks, she either didn't touch the food or threw it up.

Raw and canned

raw is chicken, turkey, rabbit, duck, cornish game hen, mice

canned is Evo chicken/turkey 95% meat, Artemis chicken/turkey, BG all meat flavors (except beef she won't touch), felidae, avoderm, fosters and smith brand and a few others

Wow - so far this is really helpful! Thanks everyone!

Sounds like Wellness is a common brand, so I'll look into that for the kittens when my Blue Buffalo is getting low.

Some feeding routines do get complicated, but when you have multiple cats and when some of those cats have health/weight problems, you have to provide for that while keeping the healthy ones happy, too! So don't feel bad if your routine was long or complicated.

I really want to get off this all-dry diet my sweeties are eating! I'm just not sure when they're hungry and when they're not - I've seen them go hours without even thinking about it and then I've seen them stop to nibble every time they walk by. I don't keep the bowls topped off all day (so they really can't eat "as much as they want" in the true free-feeding sense) but I rarely let them get completely empty as I do not want the kittens to get hungry, especially when I am away at work. They are so happy, confident, and carefree ALL the time, and I do not want to instill even an ounce of stress. I don't want to just lop the wet food in their bowls and then let it dry up, but it's hard for me to tell when they're ready to eat.

If you feed them the canned food at the same time every day (and they like it!), they'll learn to be waiting for their canned food at that time. If you don't feed on a schedule they might not be ready for it.

Originally Posted by Willowy

If you feed them the canned food at the same time every day (and they like it!), they'll learn to be waiting for their canned food at that time. If you don't feed on a schedule they might not be ready for it.

Click to expand...

Good point, Willowy! Thanks! Today when I noticed Funky was at his bowl, I opened a can and dished some - they both started eating and finished it all! I think they really like it

If they don't overeat, you can just start feeding them wet food. If they like it, they'll simply eat less dry food. That's what we noticed when we left dry out for them to free feed - their pees got much bigger or more frequent (or both) because of the major increase in moisture intake, but we had to buy a LOT less dry food and fill up the bowls MUCH less frequently.

As Willowy suggests, just feed it at the same time every day. When we were feeding 2 wet meals a day, we made breakfast around 10:00am so I could sleep in Saturday mornings (I know, a luxury working from home to be able to do that during the week) and the evening meal around 8:30/9:00pm.

Now that we're feeding four fixed meals a day, I never get any sleep, because the 11:30pm to 8:30am is just too long, so the boys wake me up at various points during the night to nibble on dry. I keep a bag of the dry food mix under my pillow to put out small amounts for them to eat so I barely have to wake up and can fall right back to sleep. But it's still a PIA. BUT... I do what it takes.

P.S. That length of time is too long for our cats... many people successfully have their cats eating just two fixed meals a day. But our kitties were used to nibble a bite or two of food at at a time a million times a day, and some of their systems just haven't adjusted yet as they'd free fed basically for eight years.

Sorry, one last thought! Blue Buffalo and Wellness are common brands, and they're quite good. They're easy to find.

I forgot to include that we also feed the Holistic Select canned foods.

Dry: Taste of the Wild and FROMM Gold mixed.

Wet:Friskies pouches, FF Gravy Lovers and Weruva pouches.

I am really struggling with the wet food. Festus does not flip over wet food and the 3 above are the only ones he will touch. He will not eat more than 1.5 oz a day.

Farm cats (16 of them) are fed a raw diet. I feed any meat that I can get that is from an herbivore (beef, turkey, chicken, and pork are my "staple" meats).

Nightmare gets all canned. Wellness, EVO, Nature's Variety Instinct, Felidae, NutriSource, and Natural Balance are examples of what he gets. I feed him a lot of brands, however, there are some that I avoid (Nutro, Science Diet, Iams are the big three).

Calf barn cats (8 of them) get 8 meals of canned each week, and 6 of raw. Canned, for them, is Priority, Friskies, Sophistacat, and Trader Joe's mainly. Raw is the same rule as the farm cats.

Morey, Mitch, Malachi, and Mikey get all raw. They are house cats/kittens.

I must be a bad pet owner. I free feed! Wellness, Solid Gold, Taste of the Wild, Chicken Soup, Innova. Really anything at the thats decent quality.

Soft food is a different issue...I have a very picky cat. She will not eat anything 2 meals in a row, and it has to be patte. I will feed her anything I can get her to eat except anything in a grocery store. She does get Friskies when I get really desperate for her to eat.

I have 1 cat out of 4 that could stand to lose a couple lbs. The rest do just fine free feeding.

Hannah is feline herpes positive, so she eats a grain free diet. Wet is Innova EVO, Wellness Grain-free in several different flavors. She also gets about 1/8 C of grain free dry. We're currently feeding her Taste of the Wild, which she loves, but prior to that it was Wellness CORE.

Tumbles' tummy can't handle an all grain-free diet, so he gets the same canned food as Hannah. For dry food, he gets prescription Royal Canin Gastro High Energy, about 1/3 cup or less a day. (We're currently reducing his dry food intake so he gets most of his calories from wet since he's now a year old.)

Tolly and Queen Eva are eating, in rotation: (all are either shredded in gravy or chunk in gravy)

Soulistic shredded
-grain free Good Karma Chicken Dinner in gravy

It's the favorite and they will eat it every two or three days

Petite Cuisine[/U
-shredded in gravy-Sesame Chicken and rice

U]Weruva shredded, grain free
-nine livers
-grandmas chicken soup
-green eggs and chicken

They like the Weruva only once a week or less


Merrick chunk in gravy (and unnecessary veggies)
-Grammy's Pot Pie

Like the Weruva, as long as I don't offer it more than once a week, they like it.

AvoDerm chunk
-Chicken chunks in gravy

Another once in 7 days or even less frequently food

Castor Pollux chunk
-Chicken and veggies casserole

They really like this one, I think it is very similar to the Blue I had to stop using because the last batch was bad. But I only feed it once a week because it's not as high in protein as some of the others, and has a lot of fruits and veggies cats don't need.

Tolly and Queen Eva will also eat a small serving of Jennie's pate now and then, but not much and only once on any given day

Jennie is eating in rotation

Merrick Before Grain Pate, grain free and no fruits and veggies
-chicken
-turkey
-beef

Wellness pate, grain free but contains fruits and veggies
-chicken
-turkey
-beef and chicken

Mazy is on a prescription diet, she eats Hills Prescription c/d multicare kibble. She won't eat the canned or she'd be on it. I have started allowing her 1/4 can (1.36 oz) of the Before Grain with 1/4 cup of water in place of one of her kibble servings every day. Her six month check up is in June, and I will know then if this is affecting her FLUTD in a negative way. Mazy is a poor drinker, and I worry about that a lot.

It took almost a year to reach this menu. I feel great relief that the food search is over, it was causing me a ton of stress, especially Tolly and Queen Eva, my finicky ones. Now I have enough things that they like, as long as they don't get them too often and two they will eat almost daily.

PS No fish. Ever. NO commercial treats. I use high quality dry kibble for treats and snacks.