Just found out I'm feeding my cat wrong, some insight would be nice. :)

Edit : Also, I'm from Canada so my selections are a little more limited from waht I undertand.

Edit : I'm also wondering if JUST wet food is fine, does it make  a complete meal and how much should I be feeding my two cats?  Both 1 year old, slim in shape (or so they look)

So I understand that kibble food for cats is a terrible thing to do based on :

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080516141642AA2vtrg

http://www.catinfo.org/

http://www.catnutrition.org/

and many more, now what I'm wondering is this :

From what I gather, the "best" food I can give them is raw meat, hearts, liver, bones ect.. however I don't trust myself to make a balanced weekly meal plan for them plus I don't have a grinder so my next best solution would be this :

https://www.felinespride.com/

But that's a little more than extremely pricey (unless I'm missing something)

Than from what I understand the next best thing is "wet food" now I know to look for foods that don't have any kind of grains/animal bi-products ect but I really don't know what to look for...

Do I really need a crazy amount of variety?  How much better is this wet cat food vs kibbles vs making it myself?

Please add any insight you have, even on things I haven't asked..  

Also : What do I do for my cats teeth so they don't have a de-cay problem in 10 years?  My cats are a little over  a year old and I want them to live long and happy lives.

What I do is the grain free kibble diet with high protein and high grade stuff and I mix that with canned chicken with no salt or gravy added for breakfast.  I also have an evening meal of semi cooked chicken or turkey and occasionally salmon that I give mine, no garnishments because a lot of the garnishments people put in their cats food to "flavor" it are actually toxic to cats.  Some do this raw and they have their own receipes which is great but not for everyone. 

I hear just wet all the time is not good for them.  Then others say thats not true that it's just kibble alone that is not good for them.  I think it depends more on the grade of food you are giving them than the word of mouth or heresay of others.  That is my opinion.  I use Wellness Core and Taste Of The Wild kibble grain free.  They are supposed to be some of the best rated out there.  I don't know if you have it in Canada but that is what I am using.  I am sure others will come on with all kinds of suggestions.  Best of luck!!

For teeth, I have found that natural prevention works best and is the easiest.

A raw chicken wing or turkey or chicken neck at least once a week will keep teeth beautiful.

My 17 year old that recently passed had never had a dental, nor any tartar build up.

Whereabouts in Canada are you? There's a huge variety of excellent pre-made raw products here that are considerably cheaper than Feline's Pride. Or you could do a combo of commercial raw and high quality canned food. I'm a big fan of feeding a large variety of wet food to cats to help avoid addictions, allergies, and nutritional imbalances. There really is no good reason to feed cats kibble (doesn't actually clean teeth any better than you eating pretzels would). 

P3 and The King,

Thank you for your input but I really don't want them on kibbles if they don't have to be...

Arlyn,

I have no problem giving them a chicken wing a weak, in fact I would love to but my question would be how would I administer it to them?  I understand they can eat raw meat with little to no problems based on their digestive system, however I don't want them tossing a raw chicken bone around the house due to the problems us feeble humans can have with them.

Sugarcatmom,

I'm just outside Toronto (40 minutes west) in the Tri-Cities, I have no problem giving a variety if that's what they need, I just need to know and understand how to give them a balanced food diet.

Thank you for everyones input so far!

I crate my cats separately when I feed them bone in meats.

Usually takes them about 20 minutes to finish a chicken wing or turkey neck and about 10 minutes to finish a chicken neck.

Once they understand that the tasty treat will only be given in the crate, they go in willingly and vocally.

For the other stuff, I too feed grain free dry food (free fed) and canned (once a day).

Canned and raw I can only give at night due to the temperatures here, that and a serious lack of freezer space is all that keeps me from going 100% raw

Welcome to TCS!

If you want to feed raw, this is an excellent resource thread: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread

You've already found some of the resources included in it.

Several of us are transitioning our cats to raw right now. Three of us (Feralvr, Carolina, and me) didn't trust ourselves to provide properly balanced meals either, and we started with commercial raw, most of which is properly balanced from a nutritional perspective, but not from a "frankenprey" perspective. Those that feed home-made raw to their cats tend to simply "mimic" the balance of meat, bones, and organs that would be in a cat's natural prey: 80% meat (which includes muscle organs: gizzard and heart); 8% - 10% bone, 3-5% liver, and 3-5% "other" secreting organs (kidney, spleen or pancreas, though kidney is usually easiest to source). Then you simply rotate proteins (once introduced to your cat). Cats are designed to get all the nutrition they need from meat - they are true carnivores, and have no dietary requirement for carbs, and lack the digestive enzymes necessary to convert many vegetable sources into the vitamins they need. :nod: When fed chunks of meat, there is little oxidation of the required amino acids, taurine and arginine, which cats cannot synthesize from other amino acids, so must have. If meat is ground, the taurine and arginine oxidize, so at least taurine is typically added as a supplement.

When starting on a raw transition, it is really helpful to get your cat on probiotics right away. Many of us plan to use probiotics for life (I use them myself daily). The probiotics help maintain a healthy gut flora, which the cats really need when eating raw food. It is also recommended when you begin to transition to raw that you use digestive enzymes. Many cats can't handle bones at first; also, the raw food requires more acid than they've been producing to digest the food.

But there are a lot of commercial raw foods available in Canada! There is a GREAT whole prey provider that is ONLY available in Canada. You might want to check out this thread: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/239950/questions-about-commercial-raw

You may also want to contact the owner of this site: http://www.catcentric.org. She is always happy to help with questions and transitioning!

Arlyn,

Thank you for your input, now I just have to get them a crate.

LDG,

That thread you linked to has a lot of information, I'm going to work on getting them in to a wet only food rotation and than move in to a raw food rotation once I understand what they need a lot more, I really don't want to make them sick and I don't know what I need to suppliment and where..

If I put them on a wet only for the time being (transitioning slowly) is there anything else I will immediatly need?  I'm going to try to give them a raw small chicken wing a week once I get them on wet successfully for their teeth and than go from there.

Edit : Can anyone also give me a "basic" idea of what it will cost to feed raw?  I have two 1 year old cats, they are both slim and in shape, I can't say that they are more than 7-10lbs or so.

Yes, we discuss costs in a couple of places.

Here's one: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/241317/what-60-lbs-of-homemade-ground-looks-like

And if you buy canned cat food that is nutritionally balanced & complete, they'll get everything they need from the canned! Just in a healthier format than the kibble. :nod: Of course... still best to look for grain free, and you want to find foods that have the first 3-5 ingredients listed being meats or broth. I used Instinct and Before Grain (and Wellness grain free foods, though I tried to keep those to a minimum). Just look for foods with the least amount of vegetables, peas, potatoes, etc. I also bought Weruva, and picked out the vegetables.

But to compare costs, basically all you need to do is figure out how much you'll spend on the food per pound fed to the cats. I have 8 cats, and fed about 6 cans of food a day. That's 33 ounces (they didn't eat all of it, but they do need 32 ounces - 2 pounds - of food a day). I bought high-end foods. They cost me on average $12 per day for about 2 pounds of food. So if I can keep my cost per pound feeding raw to under $6.00 per pound (though I gave myself a budget of $7), I'm saving money feeding raw.

All of that said... if you start with commercial raw, many of them are supplemented, so they're already nutritionally complete, just like canned cat food.

LDG,

Again thank you for the input, I went to a pet store today and picked up some Instinct from NV, the ingredients are (This is just one of the cans, the others are similar, some have a few vegetables) :

Crude Protein (11%) , Crude Fat (8%) , Crude Fiber (max 3%) , Moisture max (75%) calcium .25% , Phosphorus .20% , Vitamin E 25 IU/kg, Taurine (min) .05%  , Omega 6 1% , Omega 3 .2%

That's all of the ingredients, it says nothing about what kind of protein it is at all, (other than the front says 95% Chicken, Tureky & liver and 5% vegetables fruits and wholesome ingredients) all of the other cans I looked at blew my mind though, some of them the first thing was water, others it was vegetables, and some the main ingredient was even animal bi-products... I didn't realize how shady this business was lol.. One even had the second ingredient as some kind of sugar...

None of the other wet foods seemed to have what you said I should look for, I was at a Pet Value which is local to me, I'll try another place next.

Aside from that, I was wondering where to look for how much I should feed my cats (like weight wise) , I know I should slowly transition them from hard to wet which I will do slowly but currently I feed them a little bit three times a day on the hard stuff, I'm thinking based on their energy levels and whatnot I'm doing it just fine but I don't want to over/under feed them.

Other than waiting for LDG to respond, is there anyone else with any other input here at all?

Have you gone to the NV website (http://www.naturesvariety.com/)? What exactly are you looking for when you say what kind of protein is in it? Sorry, I'm just a little confused. One of the nice things about NV is that it's antibiotic, hormone and genetically modified free. You can also buy the bigger cans of NV Instinct that have the picture of the dog on them, they'll be with the dog food, but they're the exact same thing. Sign up for the email list too, they send out coupons every 3 weeks or so. You can print out as many as you want when you get them and use them, it's not limited to one coupon per person. When you sign up, you'll also get a $3 off coupon in your email from the Instinct Raw, you can use this to purchase a trial sized bag (with the coupon it should be about $2.99) to try your cats on raw. They also offer a money back guarantee, so just keep your receipts and if your cats don't like something you can return it to the store you go it from. 

Here are the ingredients for the Instinct Chicken cans:

Chicken, Turkey, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Ground Flaxseeds, Montmorillonite Clay, Eggs, Peas, Carrots, Lecithin, Vitamins (Choline Chloride, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Biotin, Riboflavin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid), Dried Kelp, Potassium Chloride, Tricalcium Phosphate, Salt, Taurine, Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide), Artichokes, Cranberries, Pumpkin, Tomato, Blueberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Kale, Parsley

If you have a Global Pet Foods near you, they tend to have better prices than Pet Valu and they have a larger selection of grain free foods.

HelpMyCat said:

Crude Protein (11%) , Crude Fat (8%) , Crude Fiber (max 3%) , Moisture max (75%) calcium .25% , Phosphorus .20% , Vitamin E 25 IU/kg, Taurine (min) .05%  , Omega 6 1% , Omega 3 .2%

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That's the guaranteed analysis. Somewhere on the can - yes, usually very small LOL - will be the list of ingredients. But most cat foods have websites, and the products and their ingredients are listed there! Nerdrock already posted a link, so you can look it up.

But there are very few canned foods with out any veggies. EVO has some, as does Before Grain.

LDG said:

But there are very few canned foods with out any veggies. EVO has some, as does Before Grain.

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Kind of off topic, but I picked up some BG that they had discounted at Pet Valu a few weeks ago (coming up to expire) and noticed that it said something along the lines of "for supplemental feeding only" on it. Why is that? 

nerdrock said:

Kind of off topic, but I picked up some BG that they had discounted at Pet Valu a few weeks ago (coming up to expire) and noticed that it said something along the lines of "for supplemental feeding only" on it. Why is that? 

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Can't imagine. :dk: Pet foods have to list that if they don't meet AAFCO requirements for balanced and complete. But the Before Grain canned foods are balanced and complete: http://www.beforegrain.com/pdfs/BG-Cat-Can.pdf

nerdrock said:

Kind of off topic, but I picked up some BG that they had discounted at Pet Valu a few weeks ago (coming up to expire) and noticed that it said something along the lines of "for supplemental feeding only" on it. Why is that? 

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The older versions of canned BG were not supplemented with vitamins/minerals, they were just plain meat. They've since revised the formulas to be balanced (and now say something like "96% Turkey" instead of the original "100% Turkey", for example). Would still be fine for a treat or the occasional meal.

Sugarcatmom said:

The older versions of canned BG were not supplemented with vitamins/minerals, they were just plain meat. They've since revised the formulas to be balanced (and now say something like "96% Turkey" instead of the original "100% Turkey", for example). Would still be fine for a treat or the occasional meal.

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Ahh, that's probably what I got then... maybe that's why they were actually clearing them out. Thanks!  

HelpMyCat said:

 I'm going to work on getting them in to a wet only food rotation and than move in to a raw food rotation

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Just curious how it's going.  I'm in the process of converting my four from dry (free fed) to scheduled feeding wet, then to raw also.  They are not cooperating!

It's going fine for me, I did a mix yesterday of 10% wet and 90% hard and it disappeared fast, doing a 20% - 80% tonight and I'm sure they will do fine, my cats are very young and they eat EVERYTHING, honestly if I leave anything on my desk and walk away they have their faces in it so I'm sure that they wont have a problem going to raw from there, we'll see however.

I bit you good luck on your mission.

Things are going well, the only question I have is that I was wondering if there was a site I can trust to tell me how much I should be feeding my cats on a daily basis.

Thanks everyone for their input!