Feeding our babies??

Okay so I have some questions. I have done extensive research on the whole cat nutrition thing and what is essential for their diet to remain healthy and avoid certain ailments.

So I have really been considering switching to raw and sometime in the very near future I am going to need a serious schooling lesson to decide exactly what to do and how to do it and what way is best for my situation. I know there are many options for feeding raw and many many things you need to learn before making the transition.

So that aside, for now I have just been feeding my two cats a mainly wet only diet. I put a very minimal amount of dry out overnight only because my younger one is still bordering kitten age and eats a lot, and also my older one is a very picky slow grazing eater and refuses to eat his meals in one sitting. So by the time he goes back to finish his meal, most times the kitten has cleared his bowl.

I usually give them 3 3oz meals per day of wet food for now because the bigger guy is about 10lb male and still looks too thin, and the teenager is 6.6lb female who is still in her I'm growing and always hungry still stage.

My problem is with finding a good wet food for them. At first I was feeding friskies because when I first took in my older guy he was so upset by the move he would not eat. The only thing I could get him to eat was friskies shredded varieties and only certain flavors. As time went on he opened up to most flavors but never different textures. He is my picky, finicky, special guy :-).

Then looking into different things and going through certain problems with him as far as stress and allergies and that sort of thing I started all my research into diet. Now I know all about the protein, fat, carbs, ingredients etc. And it just seems that all of the more expensive brands such as wellness, even, blue, etc. are not much better than the grocery store brands as far as how high in carbs they are and protein etc. The only difference may be the quality of ingredients. Also they all claim grain free, but use ingredients such as potatoes or vegetables that are useless for a cats diet. So for being sometimes three times the amount of money for one can, how much better is it, and is it really worth it?

The only can food I was able to find that seemed to really be healthy and meet the requirements, all natural ingredients, no fruit and vegetables, almost 0 carbs, was tiki cat. But most of their foods were fish ingredients and the price is just astronomical. So basically I am at a loss.

My other issue is I did try experimenting with some of the higher priced foods to see at least if my cats liked them and I saw any improvement in coat quality and stool issues. Mind you the answer is none. No difference even tho my older guy was on them for a bit. And now he will barely touch the friskies. I just can't see spending three times the money for nothing. If the quality was really what they advertised and I knew for a fact it was benefiting my cats I would have no problem. But I feel that the benefits are nowhere near the price.

Help. What is a decent wet food that my cats might eat that I am not just paying for a name until I can learn the is and outs ups and downs of raw???

Hi Faythe,

The Friskies brand is actually not too bad. It is 16% carbs because of the gravy in the shredded variety. If you can get him switched over to the pate style it is better. That goes for all brands, not just Friskies.

Another brand that is good and easy to find is Fancy Feast classic line (again, pate). Most cats will like Fancy Feast.

There are other, harder to find brands of cat food like Hound and Gatos or By Nature (only some lines) that don't use fruits/vegetables. Overall, though, I'd say that the higher priced brands are going to use better grades of meat, rely less on by products to get the high protein percentage, possibly use organic ingredients, and source their meat from the U.S.

In order to transition your picky pal to pate or other foods, have you tried toppers like bonito, parmesan cheese, or FortiFlora? You can even crush a kibble or two of dry food as a topper. If you don't have any dry you can pick up sampler packs for free at some pet stores, perfect if you're just using it for a topper.

No I have not tried using toppers to getting him to eat other textures of foods, I will have to try that. I know the dry food one won't work because he refuses to eat kibble lol unless he is really hungry and really can't stand the wet that I have put out, which is not a bad thing. But I will try the other suggestions, don't know how well it will work because even now with the friskies he used to love he will take a few bites and walk away, come back and try to bury it for twenty minutes before he reluctantly eats any more of it.

He really enjoyed the wellness shredded and cubed brands of turkey salmon and I forget the other one. But to feed them both on that it was pretty steep. But now that he was eating that I really can't get him to eat anything else haha.

Oliver has been getting an all wet diet for several weeks now. I feed him Fancy Feast Classics (as all the other varieties have a bunch of grain, carbs, and other stuff he doesn't need). He enjoys most of them, though I've pared it down to about three varieties (chicken, beef, and turkey) and the occasional fish. His vet commented on his coat during his visit a few days ago. It's very soft. And FF isn't expensive. It's a grocery store brand. Retails for about 65 cents a can, but between Food Lion and Dollar General, it's on sale almost every week for between 50 and 60 cents a can.

Oh, as for toppers, I tried that with him yesterday. I put some FortiFlora on some scrambled egg (he won't eat yolks). That didn't work! Luckily, I only used part of the pack. I hadn't thought to use parmesan cheese, though. That's a good idea!

Laura love what was the scrambled eggs for?

I agree Fancy Feast Classics and Friskies are pretty good canned foods.  Have you seen this site?  http://catinfo.org/  it was written by a veterinarian.  Just don't expect your vet to support the Fancy Feast or Raw. 

Yes thank you cprcheetah I have seen that site, that is where I have learned most of what I have haha and I downloaded the pdf so I could compare all of the different foods once in the store and thats how I found out I was basically being ripped off by the bigger more expensive brands. But now I can't get my cat to eat the friskies anymore so the wellness must taste better with the higher quality ingredients.

Faythe said:

Laura love what was the scrambled eggs for?

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cprcheetah said:

 
I agree Fancy Feast Classics and Friskies are pretty good canned foods.  Have you seen this site?  http://catinfo.org/  it was written by a veterinarian.  Just don't expect your vet to support the Fancy Feast or Raw. 

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   I was surprised that when I mentioned to Oliver's vet a few days ago that I was going to transition him to an all raw diet, she was very pleased to hear it. She said it would be good for him.

   And she was pleased to hear that I'd been giving raw along with his Fancy Feast Classics. Vets are just so all over the place in their positions on food!

I can only comment on a couple of brands that we've tried.  My kitten is 6 mos. and I still don't have this figured out.

First, she came to me on a diet of Special Kitty or Dollar Store Dry and some kind of discount fish-based canned without labels and with the pull tabs removed. She never cared much for that wet food and made "yum-yum" noises when she got her first can of FF.  After transitioning her to Wellness foods, her coat did become less coarse and her stool was not as hard.  FF is .58 at Walmart here or sometimes you can get it cheaper.

In a stressed moment, I ordered chicken Tiki Cat and I have no issues with it except that it seems overpriced for what looks like a can of shredded chicken white meat and some vitamins. The cat likes it and tolerates it and we have it on holidays. Well, the cat has it on holidays . We can't afford it.

Hound&Gatos is a reasonably priced food with much to recommend on paper, but I'd strongly suggest obtaining a couple of cans to try before ordering a case.  The texture is different.  Dandy didn't tolerate the Lamb, Chicken & salmon very well and her poop was larger, softer and stinkier. We gave up on trying to get her to eat the chicken, although I'm going to give it one more shot to see if it's H&G or that flavor.

Faythe said:

No I have not tried using toppers to getting him to eat other textures of foods, I will have to try that. I know the dry food one won't work because he refuses to eat kibble lol unless he is really hungry and really can't stand the wet that I have put out, which is not a bad thing. But I will try the other suggestions, don't know how well it will work because even now with the friskies he used to love he will take a few bites and walk away, come back and try to bury it for twenty minutes before he reluctantly eats any more of it.

He really enjoyed the wellness shredded and cubed brands of turkey salmon and I forget the other one. But to feed them both on that it was pretty steep. But now that he was eating that I really can't get him to eat anything else haha.

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If he doesn't want kibble he probably won't like FortiFlora. FortiFlora has animal digest in it, which is what they spray on kibble to make cats like it. Other toppers include dried fish (bonito, mackerel, sardines) and commercial toppers/additives like Halo Dinner Party or Wysong AddLife/Call of the Wild.


http://www.wysong.net/cat-dog-supplements.php

If he's eating the shredded and cubed cat foods, he might just be really happy on raw!

Yes I really want to do raw but I need lessons and time to gather everything and find out where to get everything at reasonable prices.

Faythe said:

Yes I really want to do raw but I need lessons and time to gather everything and find out where to get everything at reasonable prices.

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Take the shortcut and head on over to the raw feeding forum. I tried raw feeding once and the information on the internet is too overwhelming. The raw forum here is outstanding, the members there will be more than glad to help, and they know their stuff.

Thanks will do.

Faythe said:

Yes I really want to do raw but I need lessons and time to gather everything and find out where to get everything at reasonable prices.

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This is the plan I'm carrying out this week. The supplies come out to about $100 on Amazon. That's for a grinder, scale, supplements, and baggies for portioning and storage. And I'm using the recipe found here  only I'm going to use egg shells for the bone substitute. Maybe this will be helpful to you.

Thank you so much .. I have been reading sites and recipes for hours I feel like my eyes are on fire!!!! O:-)

The things we do for our cats. I don't even have a piece of real frozen meet in my freezer to offer them! It's full of frozen dinners because that's what I feed myself. I care more about their health than my own. Haha. Now I'm going to have to give up my freezer space :-(

I'm actually quite interested in the "frankenprey" way of feeding them? But I guess I have to work my way up to that?? That way just seems better from what I can find because you can use a lot more variety, not as many supplements, and better for their teeth and jaws. What do you think?

My male cat(Baby) gets diarrhea very easily too. Like I said he is my special boy :-D. Even though Mamma, the teenager was the sick one this week, I have had a lot more "issues" with Baby.

It's funny because his name was oreo when I took him in from his old home who didn't want him anymore. I nicknamed him baby. Then Mamma came but her name was also oreo, so their names permanently changed. Anyway Baby, is a baby and his name is a perfect fit for him. He whines he has anxiety, allergies, he is a scardy cat and hides when I have company, it took a while for him to even let me pet him or for him to sleep neat me at night.

But I keep loving him and showing him I will never hurt him or leave him and things are getting better. He is so cute sometimes with the things he does. He is so meek and timid but very gentle. I don't know what happens in his past and I don't want to. I'm just glad I found him.

Anyway sorry, I can't help myself sometimes. He definitely has bathroom problems a lot and no matter what food I use or how slow I change it doesn't matter. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between the pee and the poop in the box. It's frustrating.

I hope I can figure all this out and switch them over soon.

Faythe said:

Thank you so much .. I have been reading sites and recipes for hours I feel like my eyes are on fire!!!! O:-)

The things we do for our cats. I don't even have a piece of real frozen meet in my freezer to offer them! It's full of frozen dinners because that's what I feed myself. I care more about their health than my own. Haha. Now I'm going to have to give up my freezer space :-(

I'm actually quite interested in the "frankenprey" way of feeding them? But I guess I have to work my way up to that?? That way just seems better from what I can find because you can use a lot more variety, not as many supplements, and better for their teeth and jaws. What do you think?

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Yea, that was me a couple of weeks ago!

I'm going to have to reduce the amount of space I use in the freezer. I cook a lot, but with school starting back up and it being my senior year... meh, we'll see what kind of time I have. But it's fine. I can come up with alternatives to complex meals that don't require my freezer. Ramen, I suppose. XD

I am also interested in the frakenprey diet, but he won't currently eat anything that isn't in small pieces. So it's going to take time to get him to that. We'll see how it goes. 

[/quote]="LaraLove" url="/t/270543/feeding-our-babies#post_3471415"]

I am also interested in the frakenprey diet, but he won't currently eat anything that isn't in small pieces. So it's going to take time to get him to that. We'll see how it goes. 
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So you are going to start solely ground and add bigger chunks as time goes on until he is eating bone in meats or however it's called? Lol. How do they account for supplementing vitamins or not overdosing on vitamins as you would change over?

Faythe said:

So you are going to start solely ground and add bigger chunks as time goes on until he is eating bone in meats or however it's called? Lol. How do they account for supplementing vitamins or not overdosing on vitamins as you would change over?

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Basically, that's my current goal.  With the current recipe, it's just protein that the supplements are being added to. My understanding (but confirm this with those more informed) is that once you start incorporating bones, heart, liver, etc., the supplements are less necessary, because you're getting the natural balance by providing all the necessary components of the animal, as would be obtained in the wild. It's then important to calculate the bone, fat, muscle, organ meat very carefully to ensure you're getting the correct percentages. 

However, I've only briefly looked into that because I'm not there yet. I've been more focused on the ground recipes. So again, double check my info. I may misunderstand or be confusing things.