Best Cat Food

I have a 1yr old and 4 6 month old kittens who all love to eat friskies wet canned food and purina kitten chow but lately Ive noticed their poop has a pudding texture to it and is extra smelly. I would like to switch them over to a more natural, grain free diet, there are so many different brands I don't know which one to start with. If anyone could give me suggestions Id appreciate it! 

Thanks!

I would cut out the dry food if you can (www.catinfo.org for reasons why). As for good canned foods, some good ones are EVO, Hound & Gato, Tiki Cat (non-fish varieties), By Nature Organics, Weruva, Nature's Variety Instinct. The catinfo site also has a great comparison chart of protein/fat/carbs of most of the commonly available canned/pouched/raw foods in US. You are looking for high animal protein / moderate fat / low carb foods. After that, it's a matter of what's important to you. Some people avoid all grains & starchy vegetables. Some also avoid feeding fish. Others avoid ingredients like carrageenan, xanthan gum, added colors, too much by-products and liver.

In all honesty, I don't think there is a perfect commercial cat food. It's a balancing act of which ingredients you can tolerate plus what fits in your budget plus what the cats will eat! It's not easy or cheap to feed cats a healthy species-appropriate diet from commercial choices alone. That's why a lot of us who have started down this road of better nutrition for our cats have ended up preparing cat food at home, in either raw or cooked form. It ends up being better quality and cheaper than high-quality canned.

I tried about a dozen "healthy" canned varieties with my two cats. They got tired of all of them quickly, with the exception of "Simply Nourish" (Petsmart brand) and "Sheba" (sold everywhere now, not grain-free). I also feed FreshPet refridgerated food ("Roasted meals" in 1 bags).

You have to realize that cats have tastes too What one of them loves, the other will not touch. Experiment a little, buy a can of each variety you like at the store and see which one they prefer.

vadzilla said:

 
I tried about a dozen "healthy" canned varieties with my two cats. They got tired of all of them quickly, with the exception of "Simply Nourish" (Petsmart brand) and "Sheba" (sold everywhere now, not grain-free). I also feed FreshPet refridgerated food ("Roasted meals" in 1 bags).

You have to realize that cats have tastes too What one of them loves, the other will not touch. Experiment a little, buy a can of each variety you like at the store and see which one they prefer.

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For clarification Sheba is grain free.

CrazyCatMom2 said:

 
I have a 1yr old and 4 6 month old kittens who all love to eat friskies wet canned food and purina kitten chow but lately Ive noticed their poop has a pudding texture to it and is extra smelly. I would like to switch them over to a more natural, grain free diet, there are so many different brands I don't know which one to start with. If anyone could give me suggestions Id appreciate it! 

Thanks!

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I would also suggest to experiment with different types of food. Try signing up for free samples or coupons. I like to feed my kitten mostly wet(about 90%) she rotates so many brands and flavors! She goes from 9 lives, friskies, sheba, wellness, evo, soulistic, wellruva, chicken soup..., innova, wysong, natures variety, freshpet, honest kitchen, etc etc etc. The dry I like to feed her is Wellness.