Dry Food Recommendations (got 4 cats - details inside)

When you get down to it, all dry foods have an awful lot of carbs. Do you feed them any canned food at all?

Only 4 cats?!?! Amateur!

Just curious, have any of our cats ever had stones or even a UTI?  Is that why you started feeding them the C/D in the first place?  Don't you need a prescription to feed them that?  My Sven was on K/D, and I needed a prescription. 

 

BTW, there are some dry foods that are not too high in carbs, like Evo...I believe it is something like 50% protein and 11% carbs.  I know this because I was checking it out because I have an overweight cat and my Vet recommended a "catkins" diet, so I investigated many, many dry foods.  But Willowy is correct, most dry foods have carb contents in the mid to high 20s.  Unfortunately, when my old PC crashed, I lost all that info

 

It's good that you are feeding wet food too, and the water fountain certainly helps in adding even more moisture (as long as they're using it )

 

AT this point, I would say your female (the fattest) is the most "at risk" for diabetes, if she is truly overweight, but it appears she is losing weight, hopefully that is your plan, so that is good. 

Not sure any of my advice would help but I have one cat and she gets one good size bowl of friskies that usualy last anywhere from 2-3 days for me unless they cat has to have a specific diet like a perscription food I don;t buy the high end stuff but even friskies has gone up in price resently for less food. I have noticed that I have been paying more for less food they have gone to little pellet style food.

 

Hi, Mystearica! Welcome to TCS!

 

I agree with Willowy and Sally - kibble comes with carbs (and causes a host of health issues). Cats have no dietary need for carbs and don't actually have the ability to properly digest them; which is where part of the problem comes in - it stresses their bodies to *have* to process them.

 

Why not increase the canned foods and remove the kibble altogether? Your kitties will lose weight (those that need to!) and you'll reduce the chances of encountering diabetes, urinary tract issues and more (see CatInfo.org and Feline-Nutrition.org).

 

Best regards!

 

AC

 

P.S. You have only four?!

I feed mostly raw but on canned my cat eats 5-6 oz a day and she is 10 pounds, that seems to be about the norm.  With multiple cats I would be looking into brands that sell 12-13 oz cans, usually they are better priced and will last longer.  The wet food you are feeding isn't great quality but it is way better than the dry Hills and moisture is very important for kitty health. 

Mystearica, please don't feel stupid.  At least you are asking questions.  None of us know things until we start researching .   I can't believe what I am still learning every day about cat nutrition!  And depending on the can size, how much your cat weighs  and how good the brand is (meaning just how much protein is in the can I think), would depend on how much you would need to feed your cat.  They don't need as much as you probably think!

 

That may probably be discussed. There was a long thread here not so long ago, where some knowleable cat people maintained the DO need some carbs. So even some "bread-seeds" were necessary.

I had not read this lenghy thread myself, so I still dont know why they shold have some carbs. But I did saw some names of good experts and the first excerpt of their posts...

 

Anyway, IF they need some carbs as "bread seeds" (sorry for my english) it is just somewhat. A very few procent.  NOT a big part of the contains.  This is driving forward a tendency for both fats = obese, and diabetes.  Rice is btw better than wheat and the like.

 

EDIT:  The word I was seeing was GRAIN = "bread seed"...   :)

 

So whatever you do, high percentages of animal protein and fat.  And more fat than you would think. These 9-10% as in many kibbles are is too low.

 

The most easy and probably best is wet food. It is easier to make decent wet food than decent dry food. 

 

But as you are anxious for bladder stone....  a danger with dry food is they may get too little water.

Wet food is better here, as it does contains plenty of water.

 

So my advice to you is not to use some prescribed veterinary food unless you really must.

But do safeguard they do drink much.

 

A water fountain is usually fine here.  Many cats who are reluctant to drink water, do happily drink frow water fountain. I know even a case of a cat whom they got to forcefeed water...She had no appetite at all for water, poor girl, mother, grandmoter etc.  But when they bough a water fountain, she drank voluntarily from w f.

 

If you by any reason dont can have w f, make sure they have several places to drink from. Fresh water AND stale water - some cats prefer to drink stale water.

 

Good luck!

Edited by StefanZ - 1/29/12 at 4:23am

I have varying ages with my 5 indoor cats too.  We use Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance dry for grazing and meals are Natual Balance Ultra Premium Wet food.  My cats LOVE it.  I give them raw treats as a supplement to their diet because I do feel that cats LOVE and need raw in their diets.  I am not ready to go full on raw just yet...but who knows...maybe someday.  :)  We have had good success with Natural Balance and I am satisfied with the quality of the food.

My angel kitties also eat Natural Balance Ultra and like BlueRexBear enjoy the taste, and they are all very healthy and have never had any health problems.  I’ve raised them all on this very nutritional cat food and recommend it to all my friends with cats.  I am also impressed by the quality – and their program on the NB website where you can check that every bag has been tested free of contaminants.  I trust Natural Balance and my healthy babies are proof of the quality – they love their Platefulls indoor pouches too. 

Ash isn't a filler. It is what is left after the food has been incinerated. Minerals don't burn so it is an indication of the total mineral content of the food.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but...

Ash = Soda Ash = Sodium carbonate = Washing Soda.

It is also used in human food esp. for nixtamalization of corn for tortillas and masa.

 

 

No, ash in pet foods is entirely different. For one, it's not actually ADDED to the food, it's what's left over once the food is burned. It's how you determine total mineral content. Here's a link that explains it better: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/choosing-dog-food/dog-food-ash/

Here's the issue with "stones." We learned the hard way with our males - they all had crystals in their urine over a several month period and blocked.

Male cats have very narrow urethras, and if they develop crystals beyond normal levels in the urine, it irritates the bladder, and they can get blocked with sloughing of cells from the bladder wall, mucous, and the crystals.

It is a genetic proclivity and the pH of the urine - and the concentration of the urine that determine whether or not a cat will have a problem with crystals.

For a while there, the most prevalent type of crystal in cats' urine was struvite crystals. These are created in urine that is not acidic enough. Whenever you see "bladder health" on a non-prescription cat food, that means it has acidifiers in it. BUT... when all the cat food manufacturers adjusted their formulas, then cats started having problems with calcium oxalate crystals. These are created I BELIEVE, if I remember correctly, in a bladder that is low pH combined with higher magnesium levels.

The bottom line is that a kibble-based diet usually leaves cats with concentrated urine. The number one thing that can be done to reduce the risk of crystals in urine is dilute the urine. And the vet prescription foods for urine health NOW target a pH neutral urine.

But they are typically not very healthy foods, and are loaded with carbs, and yes, they are a cause of weight gain, and thus a risk for diabetes.

If you think about what a cat eats when not owned by a person, in the wild, they hunt small rodents, rabbits, birds - and depending upon where they are, they'll also eat things like lizards. They do not graze on grass, they do not raid the garden, they do not eat corn. They may derive SOME minor nutrition from the contents of the stomach of an animal, but as Stefan pointed out, this is a very, very, very small amount of grass or grain or whatever is in there.

Cats are carnivores. Their digestive system is so finely tuned to eating meat/bones/organs of other animals that they are unable to derive nutritional value from things WE think of as nutritious. Take carrots for example. They do not possess the digestive enzymes necessary to process beta carotene into vitamin A. They MUST get their vitamin A from animal tissue.

That said, the highly processed kibble and canned food we feed them is cooked. This destroys a lot of the nutrients they need from the meat that is in the food. So supplements are added. EVERYTHING ELSE is in there because it's cheaper than meat, and it appeals to US. Cats do not need, nor do they eat things like carrots, peas, potatoes, corn, etc. etc. etc. Their digestive systems are not designed to properly utilize them.

Given the choice between dry food and wet food, the way my vet puts it is that it's better to feed them the cheapest wet food than the most expensive dry food. I'm not so sure I believe this... but I take the point. Some meat and a lot of moisture is better for them.

I decided to improve the quality of the food my cats eat. I transitioned them off kibble altogether - and they were on the prescription kibble for the urine crystal problem they'd had. I was feeding them some canned food twice a day - they weren't big fans. But I got them on timed meals with wet food only. Then I took them off the prescription food, and raised the quality of the canned food they were getting - I purchased the grain-free brands that were mostly meat-based, like Instinct and EVO. I added a tablespoon of water to the wet food, and I kept their urine VERY dilute. They never developed a problem with crystals, even on that non-prescription diet. I have no idea what the calcium or phosphorous or magnesium levels are in those foods.

My cats are older: most of them will be 10 this year. They've been on an all wet food diet for 1.5 years. I found that my gang need FAR LESS food than recommended on the feeding guides on the cans. My guys need only about 4 ounces a day. And one of my cats - at 14 pounds - is FAT on THAT amount of food.

When I transitioned from the free-fed kibble, I was CERTAIN I was not feeding them enough food. I fed them twice as much as they needed, and they all started gaining weight! Yes, that pitiful amount in the bowl three times a day (I feed mine 4 times a day) is enough food! For your overweight cat, you will need to feed more at first - you don't want them to lose weight too quickly. But you should calculate how much food they need for their ideal weight (which is usually less than we THINK it is!!!), and calculate how much food they need for their current weight. Feed for the current weight, then slowly bring it down to the amount for their ideal weight.

If you want to figure out the guaranteed analysis of protein vs fat vs ash and determine the carbs in a food, you need to "remove" the moisture from the calculation to get at proper numbers. Dry food is usually around 10-11%; wet food usually 68% - 78% moisture. When you're looking at the food on a dry matter basis, after you take out protein, fat, ash, and fiber, what you are left with is carbohydrates. So you can use the guaranteed analysis provided by the manufacturer to compare foods, and then plug those numbers into a "Dry Matter Basis" calculator. There is one on this page - in boxes on the right-hand side of the screen, scroll down to "Special Features." The Dry Matter Basis calculator is the second link: http://catcentric.org/

When looking for a food, you really want to choose one that has the lowest carbs, and the first 3-5 things on the list of ingredients should be meat. For instance, Instinct canned chicken: Ingredients: "Chicken, Turkey, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Ground Flaxseeds, Montmorillonite Clay, Eggs, Peas, Carrots, Lecithin, Vitamins...." http://www.naturesvariety.com/Instinct/cat/can/chicken

And re: the amount to feed. Our Sheldon was looking thin - certainly leaner than the rest of the cats. He went to the vet for his annual check up, and we were informed that he could stand to LOSE a pound. I think we're just used to looking at overweight cats, and a healthy weight will actually look "skinny" to most of us.

I agree that cats don't need as much as it says on the can/bag. I have a lot of cats so I don't feed them individually. But every day I put out 4 13.2-ounce cans and 5 cups of dry food. Divided by 20 cats, that comes to 2.64 ounces of canned and 1/4 cup dry each. Not much! And they usually have leftovers, so most days I only give them 4 cups of dry, and that's only 1/5 cup each. And some of them are still fat. . .sigh. So obviously that's more than enough.

I think I forgot to say how much I was feeding them. I was splitting basically one 5.5 oz can of food and one 3 oz can of food at each meal between 8 cats. I feed them four times a day. That works out to about 4 ounces of wet food per cat daily. And most of them didn't finish the food at each meal.

Hello! Nice to meet you, Mystearica! I hope i could give some useful tips

I am completely agree on what LDG said previously. Cats are obligated carnivore & they actually don't need carbs. Although most kibble contains high carbs, at least you could always have option to choose the grain-free one.

I'm so interested about this type of dryfood (grain-free, as we called it 'holistic-type'), that i keep on searching for more & more information since I adopted my lil' Baron last month. I even have switched his food for about 4 times now since his arrival (from Friskies, then went to RC Babycat, now Nutrisource & mixed up w/ Felidae & Nature's Variety Instinct & will completely change his food to Felidae mix NV's Instinct after the transition passed)

Nowadays, there are many grain-free brands out there. Orijen, EVO, Nature's Variety Instinct are just few to mention. These grain-free diet is more healthier for cats since they don't contain useless fillers such as corn & the 'devilish' gluten meal on it. So, if you can't afford to switch their diets totally to wetfood/rawfood/cooked food, feeding them up with this kind of food will be much better. And, as LDG said, you can always dilute them with water.

You could also give them rawfood/cooked food at least once per two days for a healthier option. & if you do give them cooked, make sure you give them the broth too & if they show no interest in devouring them, you could mix them up with a spoonful of good-smell canned food (usually cheaper price canned food has gorgeous smell) to trigger their appetite.

I am a bit envious that most people who lived there could get many better brands & cheaper (in price) canned food there. Good brands canned food here is very expensive, cost you around 4USD per can.. & they don't sell them bulk.. So I still couldn't afford to switch them completely to canned. & I haven't even found any stores here that carry EVO. I also heard that Natural Balance is good in quality but affordable at price, so you might want to try them too (we don't have that here )

For the water, i don"t have a water fountain, but my furball is a great drinker. He could pee 5-6times a day. The trick is using filtered water our country doesn't have drinkable tap water, so mineral water is a household staple needs. But i do read it somewhere that said that mineral water is not that good for cats, since they still contain minerals even if it's just a little. Fortunately, my house have a water filter tank, the water is usually used for cooking purpose, so I give him that since he came here & he drinks a LOT until now! (my houesemaid once said to me that the water tastes better than cooked tap water so maybe that's why he like the water so much )

I do know that water fountain have their own filter, but many reviews said that it's actually useless because it's so small, and also need to be replace often. So maybe if you could afford (or already have) that kind of water filter, you might want to use that to fill your water fountain

Good luck & hope it helps!

I have 4 cats as well and when selecting dry food I make sure that it is high in protein and free of additives, wheat, soy or corn. Blue Buffalo* was my first choice and they have varying types for different feline conditions. A big bag costs about $36-$40 plus tax. I use to feed it to my cats and was amazed by how much less they had to eat because they were actually getting full and could digest the food easier. It also cut down on how much they had to use the litter box as well, because they just weren't eating as much. I actually only went through their largest bag every 4-6 weeks, because they just didn't need to east as much. I switched to a different local brand from Zamzows with the same ingredients, because I like to support local business - but again, look for a product that has actual meat ingredients, vitamins and minerals, but is free of additives, wheat, soy and especially corn. 

 

None of my cats like soft food, so I have no input there.

 

*There was a recall on Blue Buffalo's soft canned food products a few years back, so I never purchased any of that particular product. The dry food was great, however.