Anyone have experience with Orijen dry food?

My cat only eats dry (no lectures please), so I want him to have the best dry possible. I recently heard of this brand, Orijen.

I was thinking of switching my cat to it, this one specifically: http://www.orijen.ca/products/cat-food/dry-cat-food/cat-kitten/

The ingredients look GREAT.

But I wanted to know, is this really good quality? Better than most? Right now I am feeding my cat Halo grain free chicken.

It's on this list of the best dry cat foods: http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2011/08/best-dry-cat-foods-so-far/

Lots of people here seem to use it, like it, and recommend it.

I've given it to my cats, they liked it.

I use it half and half with another kibble, or alone.  Very good quality and the kitties love it.  But, I do not buy the fish flavor, only the poultry.

I have used Orijen, the poultry "flavored" one with a former foundation hybrid (F3 Savannahs), as well as, my pure domestics as a "snack". Since, I feed whole live prey twice daily. The other foundation hybrid (F1 Bengal) and pure exotic could not handle the food. All, but one of my pure domestics could. The only reason that I used Evo, the chicken and Turkey formula was that is was MUCH CHEAPER and still HIGHLY digestible to the F3 Savannah.
 

I do like orijen and do feed it to my very picky cat. He has been on and off it since he was a kitten. My only concern with it is that it has fish and apparently you are not supposed to feed fish everyday. I will now probably switch to a more limited ingredient food with a novel protein because I think he has ibs/ibd, but orijen is a good option for dry food. Though I would try to feed at least a little wet (even if she just licks the gravy like mine) to go with it because my cat did get a stress induced uti while on it as a kitten. 

It's a good dry food.  One thing about it that concerns me is that they don't add taurine.  They don't add it because of the organ meat that is in the food especially heart which is a very good source of taurine.  I am almost certain that I have read that taurine is quickly broken down by cooking which is why even the premium foods add it back in after cooking.  

Yes, Orijen Cat & Kitten has taurine in it. (See below.) I'm feeding this dry food along with Wellness Core Indoor Formula (no fish ingredients) dry as supplemental feeding while the Natura Pet sort out their recall issues (if they ever do). I don't like the idea of feeding fish every day either...

AMINO ACIDS
Source: http://www.orijen.ca/products/cat-food/dry-cat-food/cat-kitten/

jlc20m  

I wanted to revive this thread with a question,

I, along with a couple of friends, have been feeding our cats orijen for a couple of months now (cat and kitten, poultry). We all noticed that when the cats go for number 2, it smells horrible, it really takes over the room once the cat is done doing their business.

Another friend of mine gives her cat Arcana, and from what I understand, its a similar company and her cat also has very bad smelling feces. She explained to me that organic foods do that to animals feces....

Anyone else notice this in their cats? Anyone can corroborate the theory?

Thanks!

Sorry, can't say we've had that same experience. I rotate dry foods and just got done with (another) bag of the Orijen Cat and Kitten (which is the primarily chicken based version).  My two cats never have stinky poops at all.  I also feed them wet food daily.  

I don't know what difference organic over non would have as far as this being a side effect for lack of a better term.  Do you feed them other food or depend solely on Orijen?  And if so, which version?  

Thanks for your response!

I actually only feed them orijen, same as you do (the one thats mostly chicken, turkey...)

I rarely give them canned food, but when I do, I stick with core wellness, and in small treat portions, they dont eat wet food as a meal

I feed Miki Orijen Cat and Kitten dry food and Pure Vita wet food, but I do feed them the wet food as part of every meal. Hmm- the smelly feces doesn't seem to be a problem with Miki, but I have heard a friend complain about her cat's feces smelling after she ate the Six Fish Orijen Cat Food- maybe because of all the more oily fish sources that make it smell more? I know that they do include some fish ingredients in the normal Cat and Kitten food, but it's mostly turkey and chicken. I've never heard of cats' feces smelling worse after eating organic food (vs. not organic), but it is something interesting that I will look into!

Do you mix the wet and dry food together? or feed them at different occasions?

I feed her dry food in the morning and at night I feed her wet food.

Our two little meezers get canned three times a day and Orijen cat and kitten (poultry) for overnight munching. No problems so far, they love it.

Boy, the beat goes on about cat food.  There's more on cat nutrition than on human nutrition!  My 9-10 pound cat gets about 4 oz.  of canned food (about 130 calories) per day and has been getting 1/4 cup of Evo which I now realize has about the same number of calories.  She's a little chubby, but not bad yet, and I don't want her gaining weight.  I figure the wet food is fine, but I'm going to switch out the high-calorie Evo for something else, something that equals about 70-90 calories a day max.  What do you think?  I'm looking at Orijen, Eukanuba weight control or original, Avo Derm Natural, Nutro Natural and Chicken Soup, leaning towards one of the first two.  Unfortunately she loves the Evo, but I figure I'll have to cut her portion in half, and I know she won't like that.  She loves to eat!  She's the cat in my avatar. 

When we first adopted Jackie and were transitioning her to all wet and raw diet, we would give her some Orijen. She really liked it and while it is dry, I did feel a bit better about feeding it to her then other drys as it is grain free, 80% meat proteins, and all the ingredients actually end up being quite "local" to where I live (I am in Alberta, and the sources come from BC, Alberta, SK). They are very upfront about where they get their fish, venison, etc. I feel good about them as a company and so on, as did my husband. I still give her Orijen freeze dried treats now and then as I feel good about them.

Though, Evo is good too as I understand it. I am not sure why (DrBob) you need to switch it out if she is doing well on it...just measure it out so you are feeding her the proper amount of calories. Sure, it means less "volume" of food, but having a higher volume and less calories won't be more fulfilling for her anyway. The Orijen is about 500 cals/cup, so even when I would feed a meal of it to my kitty during her transition, that would only end up being about 2 1/2-3 TBSP (75-90 calories) for the meal.  I don't know anything about Eukanuba but I would generally avoid any "weight control" foods as they are often high in carbs, lower in protein and such. At 9-10 pounds, your cat (assuming she is spayed, and regularly active) only needs about 180-200 calories a day for maintenance (~20 cals/lb).

Is there a reason you can't switch her to an ALL wet diet though? It tends to pretty filling for the calories, and some varieties are particularly lower calorie so if she needs to eat "lots" to feel full, you can feed her like 1 1/2 cans or so per day of those lower calorie ones (I am thinking here of like Weruva Paw Licking Chicken, etc). If she likes wet food and already eats one meal a day of it should be pretty easy to switch her to all wet.