Varying Flavors/Varieties of Wet Cat Food

With everything that recently happened with my sweet Sabbath (may she rest in peace). I want to do everything I possibly can to assure that her sister Ichabod stays healthy. 

The only question I have really is the variety of flavors that are out there. 

Ichabod will eat pretty much anything I offer her. So she is no picky at all. 

There are so many flavors and things to choose from that I want to know if variety is good? For instance.. is it good to have her eat say turkey for a couple of days and then the next couple of days have duck etc. Or should you only mix up flavors and varieties weekly or even monthly?

I mix up recipes every day or two - however long it takes me to work through a can. I have some 13oz cans and some 5.5oz cans, and infrequently I might get some 3oz cans too. Most of the time, I'll mix different foods together, but in differing proportions of each food for each meal so there's a bit of variety. Our cats don't like shreds or chunks in canned food, but they love raw food (probably because the stuff in canned food is stringy, soggy, and thin whereas raw meat is denser, chewier, and juicier as opposed to being soaked in gravy).

For example, right now, I have a 13oz can of beef open, and this morning's meal was all beef. Tonight, I opened a 5.5oz of tuna and whitefish and mixed it in with the beef at around a 2:1 ratio, as well as some dried turkey bits and raw ground lamb with a scallop. I vary it up for each meal, so they tend to get a different piece of raw in there for each meal too. Since our older cat needs to put on weight, he gets some turkey and cheddar food as a third night time meal, which is a food they don't get for breakfast or dinner (mostly because it's the shredded variety, and he'll eat it more begrudgingly ).

If Ichabod's not picky, may as well try a few different foods and mix them up. If there's one thing a lot of people would recommend avoiding feeding long term or too frequently, it'd probably be fish. The phosphorus and magnesium levels are higher, which can exacerbate urinary issues, and there's also a concern with seafood quality and its rising mercury levels. I tend to crack open a fish flavoured can once a week.

I'm always shopping around for new brands or recipes to try. Pates, IMO, are better bang for your buck. They're higher in animal-based protein because they're pretty much condensed meats. Gravy formulas use more space/weight for moisture and adding starches to thicken up the gravy.

Mixing it up every meal or every so many meals like pinkdagger suggested is a great idea!  You never know when something may happen like a recall, or a formula change and now Ichabod doesn't like a certain flavor, etc. 

I usually have a few cases going at once, and rarely feed the same brand or flavor more than two meals in a row.

I have 7 different brands/ flavors each week. Some times its longer. But i dont give them the same one twice in a week.

Awesome! I have been giving her a variety as I was testing out so many wet foods on Sabbath to try to see if she would eat anything other then chicken (on her own). Ichabod enjoyed the leftovers whenever she snubbed her nose at them ha ha.

The only one I notice she doesn't seem to finish is the minced ones. She tends to make more of a mess trying to eat the tiny bits then actually eating them ha ha. Been very successful with pate. 

Haha, nice! Food never goes to waste!

Those little strips of food, I find so useless. They're so small and flimsy that cats have to lap them up, so most of it ends up flung away from them. I'm sure it's as frustrating for the hungry cats as it is for the people who have to clean the walls and floor around them.  

My cats tend to like two kinds:  any brand of pate and the prime filets from Friskies. I stick with chicken and fish varieties and mix them up every other day or so. I stay away from turkey and beef because my old man cat tends to yack those up for some reason.

pinkdagger said:

 
Haha, nice! Food never goes to waste!

Those little strips of food, I find so useless. They're so small and flimsy that cats have to lap them up, so most of it ends up flung away from them. I'm sure it's as frustrating for the hungry cats as it is for the people who have to clean the walls and floor around them.

 

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Amen!

I have Sebastian on kind of a weird rotation schedule, but it seems to be working really well for him. He gets premium canned and supplemented home-cooked with a different single protein every three weeks. Its very strict; no cheating or mixing proteins. His treats are also 100% freeze-dried meat that come in the same protein. We're also restricted to cooling/neutral proteins and limited ingredient canned foods without guar gum. Makes me crazy! 

I never feed Rupert the same flavor for more than 2 meals in a row as well. I think it just keeps things interesting for them, and varies the nutrient levels and sources.