What do you feed your cats, and why?

Between sales/special offers/clearence canned friskies I am in the same boat.  I am currently letting those who want it willingly have some raw and the ones who don't eat canned.  Some in the diets better then none is my feeling.  I have a full size older fridge and the entire bottom is cuts/types of meat.  Getting what I can on sales and same day use/sell buys.  After awhile of having only wet the novelty of oh yes wet food!!! wore off a bit so they ate slower and less. 

I still wonder why the 22 oz cans left the market(haha)

Raw, she gets chicken, turkey, cgh, rabbit, mice and quail when I can sneak it in plus an occasional sardine.  Why, because she is a horrible puker, shedder, bad attitude kitty on kibble and shipping in high quality canned cost me $35 a month or so even buying in bulk and on sale.  Raw she eats about 9.5 pounds a month and costs me under $15. 

EmilyMayWilcha said:

 Patricia is 16 and refuses wet food now, so so matter how convincing it is that cats don't get sick on raw meat, I have no reason to start with her.

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Just because a cat won't eat canned doesn't mean they won't eat raw. Our most recent addition is 5 and I think she must have only ever eaten dry food because she will not touch canned. However, she now eats raw food with my other kitties. 

Melesine said:

Just because a cat won't eat canned doesn't mean they won't eat raw. Our most recent addition is 5 and I think she must have only ever eaten dry food because she will not touch canned. However, she now eats raw food with my other kitties. 

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My cat Lucky went from kibbles to raw too. She was a die-hard free-fed kibble addict.... yet, she is today on 100% raw, and loving it!

Melesine said:

Just because a cat won't eat canned doesn't mean they won't eat raw. Our most recent addition is 5 and I think she must have only ever eaten dry food because she will not touch canned. However, she now eats raw food with my other kitties. 

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Patricia used to love wet food. I have no idea why she stopped eating it. When I told the vet that, he said I should try to get her to eat wet food again. I told Mom about Weruva.

Weruva is great, best canned food IMO. (Except that some cans contain carrageenan and guar gum - avoid those).

kittylover23 said:

Weruva is great, best canned food IMO. (Except that some cans contain carrageenan and guar gum - avoid those).

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Not the Paw Lickin' Chicken and Nine Liver.

EmilyMayWilcha said:

Laurie, why do you feed the ferals cooked food while feeding raw to your own cats? That looks backwards to me.

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Carolina said:

I don't know if that will be the case for Laurie..... Friskies can be more expensive than a lot of commercial raw, and certainly more expensive than frankerprey or home made...... I have a feeling the amount of work involved would be kind of insane though.... Judging by the amount of work for my 3 cats.... I think Laurie wouldn't do much with her life if she fed her 8 kitties raw and the ferals too
Here is a cost comparison on canned food and commercial Raw: http://catcentric.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Canned-Raw-Table-1.pdf
Oh, and I forgot the freezer space! Laurie has a small freezer....
:lol3::lol3::lol3:
Maybe I should let her answer

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Willowy said:

Not really backwards. . .housecats can't go out and catch their own raw meat. Ferals can. Whatever you feed ferals is only part of their diet, so there's more room for error. Housecats are entirely dependent on the humans to provide a nutritious diet.
Carolina--I can't find any commercial raw that's cheaper than canned Friskies, not on a practical, as-fed basis. I wish I could . And I can't find human-grade meat for cheaper, either. It costs about 40 cents per cat per day for me to feed my cats canned Friskies. If I could find a way to do raw for anywhere close to that amount I totally would. But it's usually at least twice that.

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Carolina, that cost comparison was based on national pricing, not sale stuff. :nod: Between Friskies and Fancy Feast, they're always on sale. I don't actually know how much I spend on them. I do know that the way I manage frankenprey, I do not have the time to prep food for 11 outside cats. They do get all the stuff I trim, any carcasses, and all leftovers. They also got like 40 pounds of Nature's Menu my cats didn't like. :lol3:

Home made definitely costs me less than commercial raw, and probably costs less than the friskies and FF. The ferals do get more than just the scraps. I usually have 3 - 5 ounces of raw from my cats' meals to put out for them (I purposely bag up an extra ounce or two in their meal baggies, and Spooky usually winds up getting something different for her meal). But Dot, Baloo, and Tabby prefer the Friskies and FF. Babygirl, Kohl and Fog LOVE raw. The others? :dk: There's usually not any raw leftover.

But as Willowy points out, the food we provide for the ferals is just a supplement.

I only fed Patricia Friskies and Fancy Feast a few times, but she went crazy like they were desserts. Once I tried to feed Wilbur and Patricia put her silly tongue in the can. Later the pet store near me began to carry Blue Buffalo, so I put the cats on that. Wilbur's allergies forced another diet switch. Now Patricia is back on the BB she loves.

Well my adult cats get Purina Indoor. My kitten eats Purina Kitten. They get friskies canned cat food a couple time a week. I also give them the juice from the tuna cans when I eat it which is pretty often. I know many of you do not like commercial cat food brands. My cats look great! Their coats are beautiful, they're full of energy and 2 are overweight. I have 4 all together. Honestly, I'd like to feed them a raw diet but I cannot afford it. Even if I were to switch to something dry but more natural it would double my cat food cost. I'm thinking of switching to all canned but I'm still on the fence about it.

Thekittysaver said:

Well my adult cats get Purina Indoor. My kitten eats Purina Kitten. They get friskies canned cat food a couple time a week. I also give them the juice from the tuna cans when I eat it which is pretty often. I know many of you do not like commercial cat food brands. My cats look great! Their coats are beautiful, they're full of energy and 2 are overweight. I have 4 all together. Honestly, I'd like to feed them a raw diet but I cannot afford it. Even if I were to switch to something dry but more natural it would double my cat food cost. I'm thinking of switching to all canned but I'm still on the fence about it.

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FYI if a cat is overweight, it is not "doing great." Like it or not, commercial cat food often is to blame for that - especially kibbles. Friskies is not a good wet food and Purina is not a good dry food. Tuna is only OK in moderation, not every day. Don't feel guilty about not knowing all this in the past. Many people unknowingly feed their cats junk food only because they fell in the marketing traps - "complete and balanced" and "real meat is the first ingredient" claims. LDG started long threads about why these are lies stated to increase the bottom line. You are smart to say switching to raw would be better, but even if you can't afford it, there is no reason not to stop buying dry food and change which wet food your cats eat. You may not be able to afford raw, but you can definitely afford that. By not buying dry food anymore, you can buy a more expensive (and therefore better) wet food for your cats.

if you switch to all canned even just a little while, you'll be hooked.  then if you read, "food pets die for," you will never  buy friskies or any pet food made by a huge company again.  (the book "not fit for a dog" and the documentary, "pet food: a dog's breakfast," are good too, without being sensational in a PETAesque way.) 

i have written letters and asked all the questions i can think of (plus the ones ann martin suggests in the first book) and i'm satisfied with weruva and hound & gatos.  weruva also makes b.f.f. and i think they might make soulistic, i never got that far because i think it has grain.

i've been a vegetarian for over 35 years and i rarely eat processed food.  i eat vegan as much as possible, but it's pretty difficult.  i'm leaning toward homemade raw if i can work out the right deal with an urban homesteading co-op.  they have free-range organically fed chickens, goats and beef, but so far only deal in live chickens and i won't be wringing any necks.  and i doubt if my cats would be able to chase them down, tackle and pluck them for dinner. i would never try to feed my cats a vegetarian diet (even though some say it is possible, i don't think it would be fair) but the idea of handling large amounts of raw meat frankly just disgusts me, and pre-made raw is too expensive.  i distrust factory-made food so much that the only true way to get around that is to make it myself.  but for the time being, unless i find out something bad, weruva is #1, hound & gatos #2, then b.f.f, tiki cat or fussie cat on a random basis.  plus i'll finish up all that wellness i have but i don't think i'll buy anymore.

they gave me some free samples of rad cat raw and my cats ate it, so i doubt if i'd have any problems transitioning to it.

I just got Not Fit For A Dog! today. Despite the title, two cats and one dog are on the cover.

Yesterday, I got Buyer Beware. Parts of that book are quoted in various threads here.

What: Our ferals get a mix of half Purina One and half Wellness Core kibble.  Our three adult indoor cats used to be kibble addicts, but they have now transitioned to all canned food (unless my husband sneaks them some of the feras' kibble).  The canned we feed is what the adults will eat: a rotation of Blue Buffalo Gourmet, Friskies, Merrick Gourmet, Nutro and Weruva.  Our two kittens eat canned three times/day and get and 90/10 mixture of kitten kibble and "diet" kibble at night as recommended by our vet. 

Why:   The ferals get what they do because we know it's only supplementing their diets; and because they don't all eat at the same time and I don't want to leave wet food out for too long (heat, bugs, etc.).  We switched the inside adult cats from dry to canned because one was obese and had trouble cleaning herself, and another one was overweight.  Switching to canned has led to weight loss in both of those cats.  Our inside adults are very finicky about texture and won't touch pate, so we feed them the canned foods they will eat (ANY canned food is better than any form of kibble, right?).  We rotate the brands because feeding five cats nothing but Weruva is just too expensive for us right now.  I would love to feed them raw, but I have neither the time nor patience to prepare it, and the commercial options are just too expensive.  The kittens get a mix of canned kitten food and whatever the adults eat because they finish whatever the cats don't eat.  Our vet recommended the kibble mix because of their bowel issues after having a really bad worm infestation.  She recommended free-feeding them kibble until they are around six months so they keep gaining weight, but weaning them completely from it then so they don't develop weight issues like the other two did. 

TX_Kat said:

What: Our ferals get a mix of half Purina One and half Wellness Core kibble.  

Why:   The ferals get what they do because we know it's only supplementing their diets; and because they don't all eat at the same time and I don't want to leave wet food out for too long (heat, bugs, etc.).  

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i think that's pretty good for ferals. i used to feed my ferals purina kitten chow. i used gravity feeders on top of the antser in styrofoam coolers with a door cut out to keep the ants and rain away.

Jinx is on raw. Why, because he has IBD and any other kibble/canned food we tried him on was not helping. He was wasting away. I have wanted to feed him raw for a very long time because I know it's the best diet for them.... my family just needed him to hit "rock bottom" before they decided that their fear of contracting salmonella was not worth letting Jinx suffer
 

sometimes i think vets (and advocates of hill's) make too much out of the salmonella/e.coli/listeria risk with raw.  if you buy organic free-range meat that's privately processed instead of from a huge processing plant like swift or conagra, the risk is much lower.  if you buy ground meat from the grocery store, you never know what you're getting and that would bother me.  70% of ground meat contains "pink slime" (the ammonia enhanced meat "product") and that's for humans, and it's perfectly legal.  i can't remember the percentage, but if it's lower than a certain amount, they don't even have to say it's in there.  but if you get cheaper ground meat, that's probably why.  and this doesn't even address the bacteria that's ground into all of the meat, so no thanks kroger.  but if it's properly handled, i think it's probably extremely safe for the cats, and if you make it yourself, it most likely is cleaner than anything you buy canned, no matter how good the company is.  a factory is a factory is a factory, and things happen.  buying a grinder is not a huge outlay, but it's an investment.  that's why i want to make sure it's something i'm going to do before i get all the stuff, but i'm going in that direction.

I think vets are unaware raw food does not make cats sick because they don't learn in medical school short digestive tract + high acidity = natural ability to avoid bacterial food poisoning. What they do learn is cats don't chew their food, need all the water in cans, and don't need kibbles.

EmilyMayWilcha said:

What they do learn is cats don't chew their food, need all the water in cans, and don't need kibbles.

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There are plenty of vets who will actually advise against feeding canned food. I don't think they learn much, if anything, about cat nutrition. If they have opinions about what to feed cats, itt's their own opinions and not based on their education.

Considering cat was semi feral, he's a fussy little sod

He won't eat what he doesn't like and his favorite foods change.

At present, he loves Miaow Mix dry food, Publix small cans, Friskies large cans

Prefers shreds over 'pate' (except when he prefers pate )

 I think he catches birds but I've only ever seen him with one (looking real smug with himself)

I haven't seen any piles of feathers so probably a 'one of'f' ?

 He did dig up a mole, but only to play with, let it go when he got bored