what do you think of orijen dry cat food?

I see. No one thing works for all. But hills makes pets dependent on them. They wont cure. Its just like pharmaceuticals.

Of course wet food is best, but my girl won't touch it anymore. She was on Wellness canned cubed until they added spearmint and green tea back in January 2014.
I gave her Orijen and she loved it, but she would sometimes barf it up a few hours later.
I started giving her Acana on the advice of Orijen because it has less protein and wouldn't upset her tummy. No barfing for three months now. Orijen and Acana are made by the same company.
She loves all three favors of Acana. I tried giving her a small amount of Orijen during some meals just to get rid of the bag and she will no longer eat it.
I offer 3 meals a day and I pour water on the dry. She eats it within 5 minutes.
I still offer various canned food, but she won't touch it.

I have found that stomach issues are helped very much by a raw diet.If cats are finicky sprinkle some Purina Feline Fortiflora on the food. You can get it through Amazon and it is cheap. Cats eat anything the fortiflora is on.Cats do not digest ANY dry food well. If a cat has stomach issues feeding him/her a dry food does not help.Cat only need to eat twice a day , free feeding isn't good for them. I use Primal Grinds and add the supplements. I also feed Primal Rabbit patties which is a complete diet. At Pet Food Express for every 3 you buy the 4th is free. I buy 2 grinds Turkey, 1 Chicken, 1 Lamb it costs about $35 a month and the bag of patties is $32 ( 1 bag a month) . With 3 cats this is still cheaper than what quality canned was costing every month.

I just had t add that Jackson Galaxy is not cool with dry food. If you read his site or anything he has written he makes it clear that cats should eat no dry food. He promotes a raw diet only. He said that Animal Planet cuts any mention of diet from his show. This is because Purina is a major sponsor but he is very intense about feeding raw.

While I love Jackson, I honestly think cats can flourish on a decent quality wet food. I would love to cut the dry out but last time I tried that, she rebelled. As soon as this bag of Epigen 90 is gone, I am going to give it another go.

MorgnsGrl I do agree with you that the food probably did contribute to the urinary problems. Fish is particularly not good for male cats due to its tendency to cause urinary problems which can be fatal for males. I also think there are times when prescription foods are necessary, and some health problems aren't worth the risk of not using them. If the price is within reason, there is also a canned C/D (not sure which you are already using) My male also had urinary problems as a kitten and we did use Rx food temporarily but his problems were stress induced not food related so he is eating regular canned now. I don't really recommend switching Rx diets without talking to your vet first. 

Mosimom said:

Of course wet food is best, but my girl won't touch it anymore. She was on Wellness canned cubed until they added spearmint and green tea back in January 2014.
I gave her Orijen and she loved it, but she would sometimes barf it up a few hours later.
I started giving her Acana on the advice of Orijen because it has less protein and wouldn't upset her tummy. No barfing for three months now. Orijen and Acana are made by the same company.
She loves all three favors of Acana. I tried giving her a small amount of Orijen during some meals just to get rid of the bag and she will no longer eat it.
I offer 3 meals a day and I pour water on the dry. She eats it within 5 minutes.
I still offer various canned food, but she won't touch it.

Click to expand...

I looked at my wellness core cans and found no spearmint or green tea???

bonepicker said:

I looked at my wellness core cans and found no spearmint or green tea???

Click to expand...

I read it here http://petfoodtalk.com/catfoodreviews/wellness-cat-food/


I tend to believe that the pet food industry isn't monitored well on regulations. I believe they have six months to put changes on labels.
No one goes after them for violations. I'm very suspicious of what is in the cans as well. If you travel a lot by car in this country you will be amazed at all the rendering plants in this country. What is really in pet food is the big question IMO.

MorgnsGrl, bladder issues are often invisible until they get completely bad, especially in cats - they hide their symptoms well.

"My cat drinks like a horse" Means they already had problems with their bladder, drinking a lot because they're unable to expel unneeded stuff in concentrated urine. It wasn't the Orijen itself, it was just dry food and time. Cats never really drink enough because they barely drink water in the wild, they get liquids mostly from prey. Cats are constantly at least a bit dehydrated when they're eating only or mostly dry food and that's a slow process to illness.

I also find it so funny that people in this thread analyse so hard the fish in the dry food as a possible culprit for bladder problems when the real problem is right before their faces - THE FOOD IS DRY, ADEQUATE HYDRATION IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR THE ANIMAL.

Source: Prematurely dead cat and hindsight.

W

Cat Person said:

I used to feed my domestics and hybrid exotic cats, Orijen dry cat food. The formula, I used to use was: Orijen Cat and Kitten (http://orijen.ca/products/cat_kitten). All my cats, did very very well on it :nod: . However, it got too expensive for my liking. So, now my cats, are eating Evo, the Turkey and Chicken formula dry (http://www.evopet.com/products/1441). Plus, they are given, whole live prey twice daily .

 

Click to expand...

. Wow live prey what do you feed them?

m0nsterrawrxx said:

I'm sorry but you all seem to be making this harder than it is. Call your vet and ask what food they would suggest. At the end of the day a mix of dry and wet food will be perfectly fine for the vast majority of cats. My boy almost died last December because of urinary issues. Since then I switched to purina one chicken and turkey dry food and Sheba wet food. I also mix half a crushed up tablet with his wet food. Dry food is the only food that doesn't make him vomit so he can only get a spoonful of wet at a time. The vet looked my boy over recently and said that he is extremely healthy and has a lot of muscle making up his body weight. That can only come from high protein diets. Dry food really isn't an enemy and being expensive doesn't make it better.

Click to expand...

I agree with some of the others that you can't exactly trust what vets tell you to feed your cat/pet. Apparently, they don't know much about what pets' proper diets should be. It's actually the same with doctors who are not taught much in medical school about human diets and/or supplements, vitamins or medications. Salespeople are a huge problem. If vets get kick backs from Hills or anyone else, most will push that food so that they can profit.

I've experienced the problem of prescription salespeople too many times. They come around to my doctors' office and push their latest and "greatest" medication. Some doctors are dumb and lazy and don't bother researching this new medication to see if it's actually better. They just start prescribing it to their patients and giving out the free samples they just received. In the past, doctors would get rewarded with free gifts, dinners, conventions and cruises by Big Pharma drug companies for prescribing medications to their patients. Things have changed, but I don't know how much. I've had several doctors in the past five years who have tried to push different new "wonder drug" medications on me all because a sales rep just stopped by their office. Once there was almost catastrophic consequences as I became very ill because of the new medication and had to be switched back to my previous medication, so I have learned to not necessarily listen to dumb and/or lazy doctors. The consequences actually were really very bad and I was the one who mainly suffered, not the doctor or the drug company although others ended up suffering as well...Anyway, what I am trying to say anecdotally, is to not trust your vet 100%. Research for yourself, but also pay attention to what works best for your particular cat(s) as their needs vary cat by cat. Older doctors/vets or not-up-to-date doctors/vets might be prescribing older medications/foods that are not as good as new medications/foods and vice versa for younger doctors who only want to prescribe newer meds/foods when older meds/foods might actually work better. Newer meds might have long-term consequences also that are not yet discovered. Same with the pet food we feed our cat(s) or new diets we put them on.

I also wanted to say thanks for your post, @m0nsterrawrxx! I have been concerned lately that my cat has gained weight and may be tubby now. She was only 7 lbs and an okay weight when I got her and she had been on Acana. I did want her to put on a couple ounces as I was concerned she might need a couple more to be at her optimal weight. She was 6.2 lbs when she was captured by the animal shelter, then made it up to 7 lbs on mostly Acana when the rescue shelter saved her. Now I switched her to Orijen cat &kitten chicken kibble, which she LOVES, but I have been worried it made her gain a little too much weight.

She only eats ~1/4 cup a day and a little bit of wet food in the morning and the evening, which is barely 1/4 of a 3 oz can of wet food max per day. I just bought Fortiflora to entice her to eat more wet food, but I couldn't understand how she gained weight.

She is definitely a lot heavier now though in the past month!! And I have been thinking lately how surprised I am at how muscly and hard and solid she is...it really has been surprising me as I thought how could I have not noticed before? I had noticed she was hard before when she lay against me, but now she's even harder & more muscly!! But I didn't put two and two together that it must be a lot of muscle she has gained from the new Orijen high protein diet. The Acana is 70% protein and the Orijen is 80%, but she wolfs down more Orijen kibble than the Acana kibble she used to eat, so she must be getting more protein. It sounds good for her that she has gained more muscle.

She runs around and is pretty active sometimes and seems to be thriving on the Orijen; however, she is drinking a lot of water, which I am now concerned about after this thread. I thought it was great that she was drinking enough water and that it was because she likes the taste of the filtered water and her little water dispenser that I tilt often to make sure the bowl is filled up properly ever since I noticed her drinking out of it, but I really hope she is not experiencing a bladder issue of some sort...her vet visit is scheduled for next month...I am waiting to take her in so that I can get her annual rabies vaccination done at the same time as blood testing for diseases/illnesses. Hopefully, she is just drinking more water because I am making sure now that the bowl of her little water dispenser is actually filled with water...

I'm going to cut back on the dry Orijen kibble and keep sprinkling Fortiflora on my cat's wet food so she eats more wet...that Fortiflora is like crack to her!!! But I disagree with the other poster that it's "cheap". I have to keep sprinkling it to get my furbaby to keep eating more of her 1/4 can of wet food.

eat the wet food, baby! Please eat more wet food... Hopefully, with the Fortiflora, I can get my catbaby up to eating 1/2 of a 3 oz. can of wet food each day. So far, Sheba mixed grill is the only 3 oz. can she'll almost eat all of in one day. Fortiflora is another added expense that I had not considered along with the Comfort Zone Feliway plug-in, but it's all worth it for my little Angel baby who this morning was actually looking like she does in my profile picture! She usually looks sweeter ever since we bonded and she figured out she has a new home, but I saw the face in my profile picture this morning! Ah, I find my cat to be so cute, especially her naggy complaining!!!  

Hello,
I'm curious if anyone has had the same issue but I decided to switch to Orijen from Blue Buffalo. For a while my baby was eating the Blue Wilderness Rocky Mountain Red meat and Trout flavors. I was doing some hunting on pet food lines that use reliable resources in their food and Orijen seemed like a highly qualified brand on what I was looking for. I bought a bag of the Six Fish and my baby instantly loved it. Soon she started ignoring the six fish and would not eat. I had a little bit of her Blue buffalo left and mixed it in with the Orijen and she would eat only the Blue kibbles. I'm wondering if I should try the Regional Red considering that she loved the Red Meat Blue brand. Has anyone else experienced their cats rejection to the Six Fish and been successful with a different flavor?

Update: I wrote that my cat was thriving on Orijen cat & kitten dry kibble, however, I've gotten my cat to eat a bit more wet food with FortiFlora and she is actually thriving even more not that she is eating a bit more wet food twice a day and less dry!!! She's leaping everywhere, drinking less water, but still has good urine output, and seemed to lose her "chub" weight in just a week!!! O_O For my cat, I like the 1/2 wet, 1/2 dry since it's Orijen diet for her.

Alyssia said:

Hello,
I'm curious if anyone has had the same issue but I decided to switch to Orijen from Blue Buffalo. For a while my baby was eating the Blue Wilderness Rocky Mountain Red meat and Trout flavors. I was doing some hunting on pet food lines that use reliable resources in their food and Orijen seemed like a highly qualified brand on what I was looking for. I bought a bag of the Six Fish and my baby instantly loved it. Soon she started ignoring the six fish and would not eat. I had a little bit of her Blue buffalo left and mixed it in with the Orijen and she would eat only the Blue kibbles. I'm wondering if I should try the Regional Red considering that she loved the Red Meat Blue brand. Has anyone else experienced their cats rejection to the Six Fish and been successful with a different flavor?

Click to expand...

It could the the protein that she doesn't like in the Orijen. I would try the Regional Red, or the Cat and Kitten (chicken and turkey), and see if that boosts her enthusiasm! My cat loves the Cat and Kitten from Orijen! Seafood doesn't sit well with her, so the chicken and turkey (which still has a some fish content) works great!

I recently made the switch to Orijen roughly a month ago, and noticed a few things as well. I noticed she was drinking more water than usual, and she gained a bit of weight/looked bloated. I was giving her 1/4 cup at dinner time. Her breakfast is a wet, grain free, high protein canned meal. I've cut back slightly on the Orijen, just under 1/4 cup (not a heaping scoop anymore, slightly below the level), and that has seemed to bring her back to normal. She doesn't look as bloated, and looks like her lean self again. 

However, I'm going to venture into trying to switch to 100% canned/wet diet. She definitely prefers her Orijen though so this is going to be tough!!

Orijen and Acana is in my opinion THE BEST of the best to feed  your animals, "commercial wise".  It is manufactured in Canada and uses human grade meat, non caged animals, and nested eggs. Canada has much higher standards than America for pet food. Mine preferred the taste of Acana over Orijen.  

you can't go wrong with it.  They will be healthy, shiny and act like kittens.

I had my cat on Hills z/d wet and dry and he still got a UTI. Hills is full of carbs even the wet so I m trying to get him off it but he has allergies so I m limited as to what I can feed him. The vet said he s allergic to chicken so I am trying the Orijen Regional Red no chicken and canned limited ingredient food. He s only getting 2 T of dry a day and then wet. Anyone have cats with allergies and what do you feed them .

Nora1 said:

I recently made the switch to Orijen roughly a month ago, and noticed a few things as well. I noticed she was drinking more water than usual, and she gained a bit of weight/looked bloated. I was giving her 1/4 cup at dinner time. Her breakfast is a wet, grain free, high protein canned meal. I've cut back slightly on the Orijen, just under 1/4 cup (not a heaping scoop anymore, slightly below the level), and that has seemed to bring her back to normal. She doesn't look as bloated, and looks like her lean self again. 

However, I'm going to venture into trying to switch to 100% canned/wet diet. She definitely prefers her Orijen though so this is going to be tough!!

Click to expand...

Just thought I'd update on this - Orijen wasn't agreeing with her stomach unfortunately. It ended up giving her runny stools. I've switched to Acana, Orijen's sister brand. She loves the Acana Wild Prairie! She's on 100% canned, with the occasional kibble bits on top, or as a late night snack. So far Acana has been great