Let cat try different food or stick with one?

Hi everyone,

I've been hearing mixed opinion on this one but should I buy different types of food and let my cat try them (even though he's fine with the current food) or stick with one type? As of now, I've been sticking to one type of dry food (Orijen) and wet food I stick with the same brand but rotate between chicken and turkey flavor.

I've heard many saying you should expose your cat to different food when he's young (my cat's almost a year old now) but there are others who say because most cats have sensitive digestive system, I should stick with one type of food.

I would try different brands for a couple of reasons.  The formula of the present food may change without notice or warning; or be bought by a larger/smaller company and change the formula; or the company may stop making the product entirely; your cat may become 'addicted' to one kind of food (especially fish).  What is the company that makes the canned food you are feeding?  I'd try a similar brand, i.e., grain free, first sticking with chicken and turkey flavor.  If you want to proceed extra cautiously, try mixing a few tablespoons of the new food with the old food and see how  your cat reacts.  Ultimately, I'd branch out with different flavors, like beef, rabbit, pork, venison.  Chicken and Turkey are similar foods.  Avoid fish, especially with male cats.  And read the ingredients carefuly; some food that says "chicken" have fish listed as the second or third ingredient.

Some cats have sensitive digestive systems, some cats don't.  If your cat has shown a propensity to having a sensitive stomach, proceed slowly.

Lastly, it's not a bad thing only feeding a limited variety of food, but it doesn't hurt to try other flavors, brands.

Hi Ritz, thanks for your reply. Nowadays it's not easy to find dry food without some sort of fish in it. For example, Nature Variety's Instinct chicken flavor still has a bit of herring meal in it. As for wet food, I feed FirstMate, which is a pretty new company. They don't seem to have fish in it, which is good.

I would definitely try different foods, for all of the reasons Ritz mentioned,

plus it is possible that your Kitty could develop an allergy to his current food at some point.

Additionally, I like to use a few different brands for the variety of nutritional supplements.

Finally, some of my Kitties get tired of one type of food suddenly,

so it is nice to have others on hand that they like.

California Natural Chicken & Brown Rice doesn't have fish, and has very limited ingredients.

It does have a little Brown Rice, but my kitties do better on that than on

the peas and potatoes that Grain Free dry foods tend to overuse.

Ingredients:

Chicken, Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Rice, Chicken Fat, Natural Flavors, Sunflower Oil, Flaxseed, Vitamins,

Potassium Chloride, Minerals, Taurine, DL-Methionine), Rosemary Extract

Great price on PetFoodDirect, especially if you use "AutoShip"

which can be changed or cancelled at any time.

Just remember, when switching up DRY food, it IS important to do that slowly, mixing the new food into the old food a little at a time.  Maybe over a period of a week of so.  First 3/4 old, 1/4 new, then half and half, then 3/4 new, 1/4 old, then all new, as long as the cat tolerates it well.  Switching up kibble seems to cause the most tummy upsets.  Switching kibble doesn't normally cause tummy issues

When I fed kibble, I always mixed different kinds. That way I had the variety, plus the benefit of them being used to the different tastes so if one got discontinued they wouldn't be picky. But I HAVE A LOT OF CATS; I think it would be harder to mix kibbles if you only had one cat, because the opened bags would get stale before one cat could eat it all :/. It's one thing to consider if you can manage it, though.

And, yeah, with canned food, feed as many different flavors and brands as your cat will tolerate.

I have different kind of wet cat food and switch them around so they rotate and my cats get different one every time. Right now I have 3 different brands of food and kind of 3 different variety for each brand. I noticed that my cat would get bored of always eating the same one, which is one reason I started doing this and seems to work well. My cat seems to like mainly poultry varieties but I also give them fish variety but much less often. They do seem to love fish, though the fresh one, like the one I eat

I also noticed some brand that seems very good but are more expensive, so I rotate the expensive one with cheaper one, so I don't spend too much but also hope to give a more balanced diet this way. I also give them dry food and often buy a different one.

In general I would recommend switching around so the cat gets a more complete diet.

Thanks for all the input guys. It's great getting help from everyone, especially for a new cat owner

Recently my male vomited his wet dinner, probably from eating too fast. Well he decided it was the food that made him sick and then would not touch his wet food again. To be sure it was nothing else AND because I had nothing else to offer him, I let him have his dry. He ate that and kept it down no problem. OK...so..I let it go a day..still he wouldn't touch his wet. So out I run in a desperate attempt to find SOMETHING wet he'd eat. If I had been offering a more varied wet diet from the beginning, he'd have just gotten a different wet right away. But as it is He went 2 days before I found another wet food he'd eat. So this is another argument and lesson learned to vary his diet more. I am obsessed that he eat a wet diet, with dry only for snacks. So I am now on a new mission, looking for anything they will both like to keep in their feeding rotation.