Orijen Cat & Kitten dry food, what's your opinion?

So my 11 weeks old kitten Loki, previously had some GI problems a little over a week ago. He was throwing up for 3 days, then diarrhea for 2. He was refusing to eat and then it just went away. (I posted previously bout it)

Anyway, now the only thing he will eat is his Orijen dry food, mixed with water. Now I am aware that a lot of people feel that a soft or raw food diet is the best and some say the only option. But I have tried numerous soft foods in various types, and tried making my own from a recipe on thecatsite.com, and he refuses it all, even if left as his only food option. I swear he thinks it smells bad and is turned off by the stench, since he just paws around it and walks away.  

I have read all over how Orijen is "the best" when it comes to dry foods, but I would like to know your input. 

Do you think it would be ok to just feed him the Orijen exclusively, as long as it is moistened so no kidney problems?

He doesn't even like it dry anyway lol only with water. 

Spoiled little baby

I think for a dry food, it's not too bad, especially if it's the only thing he'll eat!  It's actually fairly low in carbs for a dry food (around 19%). 

Even though it does contain fish, I, personally, think the type of fish is ok, since it's not BIG fish.  That's just me...others may say different. 

Hi Kreyessa 

I think Orijen is a fairly good brand. Their guaranteed analysis is good as a dry food, ingredients are better than most brands, and they even manufacture the food themselves.

Still, dry food needs carbohydrates to form kibble. Their standard food is 19% carbs as dry matter basis. Since cats don't process carbs well, it's better if you can switch to lower-carb canned food. This way you can avoid unnecessary carbs, at the same time adding moisture to the diet.

I personally think adding water to kibble is fine, as long as you take away the leftovers after a while. On the contrary, some people say it's dangerous because the bacteria and mold can grow once kibble is wet, and I understand that too. So in any case, it's safer if you don't leave out the moistened dry food too long.

Just as pet food manufacturers claim, I think freshness is important too. It's better if we feed the food fresh, rather than break down nutrients by overprocessing and add supplements to compensate for the loss. However good the ingredients look, kibble is kibble. Since it's highly processed, many natural micronutrients are lost during manufacture.

So if you afford to make your own food from fresh ingredients, kudos to you and why not transition? Few people recommend eating only processed food in human nutrition, but oddly, many animal nutritionists seem to recommend processed commercial food. Whenever I see pet food ads boasting of its fresh and high quality ingredients... if it's true, I'd hope they sell the fresh unprocessed ingredients, in addition to processed kibble, so I can use their fresh ingredients for our homemade food.

If you make your own cat food, it's surely better if you can get him to eat your food!
http://www.catinfo.org/
This website has tips in transitioning your cat to canned food from kibble. And you can transition to homemade from canned too. It's much easier while he is a kitten. Even if your cat continues to eat dry food, in the long run it's better to add variety by adding canned/homemade food.

As much as Orijen seems to be a good brand, I think almost every manufacturer has something they don't tell consumers. So I trust no manufacturers in particular. As for Orijen, I'd found a story a while back... it's about their ingredient. If you 100% trust the manufacturer, I guess you don't have to read below because it's a bit long.

A company (Freshwater Fish) sells all of their minced by-products to Champion Petfoods according to this source. Champion Petfoods manufactures Orijen and Acana.
http://www.freshwaterfish.com/system/files/L2PNewsletter Winter 2011.pdf

Freshwater Fish says they had been paying to have the waste trucked to a rendering facility, so the by-products they sold to Champion don't seem to be edible to human. Generally, not all parts of byproducts are dangerous or contaminated, but we can't tell if their byproducts particularly contain such parts. Champion seems to have at least tested the by-product if it met their quality. And I'm not sure if Champion still buys these by-products. It's not clear if they use them for Orijen, Acana, or for both.

Still, Champion's websites tell as if they only use whole fresh fish. They never mention by-products. By only looking at their websites and ingredient label, it's impossible to tell the quality. I don't know which is telling the truth, Freshwater Fish or Champion Petfoods...

Although this case doesn't mean Orijen is worse than other brands. Because there's no telling if other manufacturers maintain any more transparency about their products. I still think Orijen is a fairly good food (given that everything else they claim is true) and I like their idea of using less synthetic vitamin/minerals. I too think it's hard to find a good cat food.

So if it were me, I'd transition from kibble to homemade. Or at least add homemade (or canned) and give variety. This way it's so much safer as long as you can make a balanced diet.

And thanks for a cute pic! 

Hugo has been on Orijen Cat & Kitten since I adopted him. I never had issue and am hearing about the by products issue just now. I do try to make his meals half wet and half dry. I used to add water to his dry but stopped doing that because of all the reasons.

Anyhow, I think Orijen is one of the better brands because I once tried to switch to NB and Hugo started getting fat. One key problem is that there has been some issue with getting Orijen food stock and there was an instance where I had to switch to Orijen's regional red because there wasn't any Cat & Kitten left.

Hi @Kreyessa, my rescue cat is much the same way. I think a lot of cat owners just don't understand when they hear about other people's cats who are extremely picky eaters. They think if you keep trying, it will work because it does for their cats. My cat is extremely picky, even when starving. She will refuse the canned food if she does not like the smell and just starve. Same with dry kibble if it is not the particular one that she wants. 

My current situation is that she was ill recently and went from 7.2 lbs down to 5 lbs 11 ozs. She came home not wanting to eat until I figured out that she wanted Hill's kitten kibble. When I put some out, she wolfed it down like she was starving, which she was. I've been opening can after can of wet food and she is not eating any, unless it it Hill's prescription a/d (I have a prescription since she was ill). She's even tired of that already and will only eat a little. 

Anyway, I bought a baby scale so that I can weigh her and it arrived yesterday. I was shocked she is only 6.15 lbs now! She should be 6.7 lbs as of her last vet visit just a week ago! She has already lost a lot of weight over the past couple days because she is on a food strike and wants only Orijen Regional Red now. Before it was Orijen Cat & Kitten kibble. I have most of a huge 15 lbs bag of that one, but she no longer wants it. Literally, I have four types of dry kibble out for right now to eat and she is barely touching one of them -- Acana Pacifica. Now that I know (as of last night), that she is only 6.15 lbs, I am going to pick up a 12 oz sample bag of Orijen Regional Red at the local Urban Pet store. Apparently, they have really good prices and I paid more for the sample 12 oz bags of Orijen & Acana on Amazon than the prices at the Urban Pet store. My long-winded point is if your cat is so picky that they choose to starve if you will not give them exactly what they want, then just give it to them. However, keep trying with the wet food cans. If you need a break, give yourself a break. Different cats will like different brands and types of wet food. My cat ignored all wet food until I accidentally bought her Iams kitten pate and then she loved it until she got sick of it. I've had some success with a handful of wet foods, but right now, my cat is not eating wet food except for a little Hill's prescription a/d, which I pulled out  again after finding out her weight last night.

But if your kitten only eats dry kibble, you do have to make him drink more water. I'm lucky in that my rescue cat drinks lots of water when only eating dry kibble. Get a water fountain if necessary. The first one might not work, so then you might need to find another design, although one of those simple little water cooler ones might work.

Oh, by the way, I had ordered a 15 lbs bag of Origen Regional Red on Monday for my picky baby, but the order is delayed and won't arrive until next Wednesday, so I am running out after work to pick up 2 12 oz bags of Regional Red to get through the week. I can't believe how picky my baby is. Origen Cat & Kitten kibble is out for her to eat (looks like the Regional Red), but apparently it is no longer okay now that she wants only the Regional Red. I also had to order the Regional Red sample bag and other sample bags because after the vet specialist fed my baby the Hill's kitten kibble, she no longer wanted the Orijen Cat & Kitten kibble. =/ 

And my baby may also have GI issues...not sure if it was pancreatitis. Vet specialist said maybe cancer, but I'm thinking now it may be GI issues -- IBD. Unfortunately, the emergency vets charged me $3,300 total. The cost hurts but made me love my baby more in a way. Now I know what to do next time if she starts vomiting again...

My 3 cats have been on Orijen cat & kitten for several years. I recently started transitioning them to raw so my older cat (who's 12.5) now eats about 80% raw and 20% Orijen, but our Bengal still eats 90% Orijen because the only wet food she'll nibble at is Fancy Feast (and refuses raw). I think if you can it would be good to try and get your kitty to eat at least some wet food, but in terms of dry Orijen is a good brand with pretty decent ingredients. Wet/raw is all trial and error, sometimes you have to try and try again to get them to even nibble on something. 

Bonitababy said:

Oh, by the way, I had ordered a 15 lbs bag of Origen Regional Red on Monday for my picky baby, but the order is delayed and won't arrive until next Wednesday, so I am running out after work to pick up 2 12 oz bags of Regional Red to get through the week. I can't believe how picky my baby is. Origen Cat & Kitten kibble is out for her to eat (looks like the Regional Red), but apparently it is no longer okay now that she wants only the Regional Red. I also had to order the Regional Red sample bag and other sample bags because after the vet specialist fed my baby the Hill's kitten kibble, she no longer wanted the Orijen Cat & Kitten kibble. =/ 


And my baby may also have GI issues...not sure if it was pancreatitis. Vet specialist said maybe cancer, but I'm thinking now it may be GI issues -- IBD. Unfortunately, the emergency vets charged me $3,300 total. The cost hurts but made me love my baby more in a way. Now I know what to do next time if she starts vomiting again...

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I feel sorry for you, how old is she and how long have you had her?

Thank you. I thought my cat was 4, but from the x-ray & ultrasound, the vet specialist said more like 6 or 7 because of the early arthritis on the spine they found. I wonder if my cat might be older even. I'd had her less than 8 months when she became ill. I think it was my fault for the human food I started giving her. I hope that's what it is. Now I've had her for 9 months. I love her so much! I'm optimistic.

I personally love Orijen and Acana as my pets chosen kibble. I used to feed Now, but with all the unneeded fillers and with Nala vomiting up any dry food I tried with her, I found myself stumped... That's when my coworker mentioned Champion Pet Foods, I took a look into them, read reviews, looked for recall info, anything I could get my hands on. All I saw was a great dry kibble option to add to my one, now three, kitties diets. Nala doesn't vomit it at all, she always had an issue with dry food and I rarely feed dry, canned food was and is her staple diet, dry was every other day with barely a half a handful. Nala's always had an issue with dehydration, so my last choice before cutting out all kibble even as a rotation treat (I would never feed it as a staple major part or as the only thing). All my kitties love it and their fur, eyes, claws, everything, is beautiful!

But like a said, wet food is the major part of their diet, 6oz a day for each cat (a little less for Nala because she is spayed and spayed females gain a ton of weight on their guts). I rotate both dry and wet food brands because it's a myth that rotating dry hurts your cats digestion, it's actually better for them and is just like rotating wet. Just don't go from a good brand to a crap brand, always stick with the same quality, if you're really worried you can rotate dry kibbles from in the same brand. A rotation of meats is better than sticking to just one and if rotating dry hurt your cat then rotating wet would too because one dry is different from the other just like one wet is different from the other. If rotating one hurts then rotating the other would too because it's the same idea of going from different to different and not same to same. Though some cats have sensitive digestions (just like some humans) which means rotating dry and/or wet can make them sick to their stomachs.

I put A LOT of research into what brands I feed. I don't go for commercial anything, or vet recommended anything. Hills Science Diet is owned by Colgate and is the recommended dry by vets, just like collate is the recommended tooth paste by dentists, see the common thing there I'm also not a fan of Royal Canin (just look at the ingredient label and research the food), or Blue Buffalo (they've lowered their quality, upped their prices, and their new CEO is the old CEO for Purina nastiness, Nutro, or Natural Balance (also lowered their quality and sold out to Delmonte, the makers of crappy dog treats like Milk bone). Commercial Poison food brands include (not all are listed, pretty much anything sold in a big box store like walmart, or anything that can pay thousands for commercial daylight TV time, or anything found in grocery stores or even in the walmart of pet stores: Petsmart): Whiskas (owned by MARS, yes the chocolate bars), Special Kitty, iAMS, anything by Purina (a crappy Nestle owned company) including Friskies and Fancy Feast... etc... Read the ingredient lists, if you won't eat it then why would you feed it to your pets? It may seem affordable, but in the long run feeding good quality is horribly detrimental to your pets health.

I also recommend to look up the difference between human grade pet food ingredients and feed grade pet food ingredients.

Anything that says by-product is the slop scrapped up from whats left over from meat processed for human food.

Anything that says meat or meat by-product is unspecified for a horrible reason. It can be anything from euthanized pets (kitties and dogs eating kitties and dogs... ew), to euthanized zoo animals, to sick and dying animals before slaughter, to expired meats, to tainted meats, to road kill picked up off highways and streets. The FDA and AAFCO approve of all these meat sources for feed grade quality pet food, commercial brands.

If the meat isn't specified, don't buy it. If there's corn or large amounts of grain and fillers, don't buy it. If there is more veggies than meats, don't buy it.

Also remember, cats are obligate carnivores, they need meat to survive, veggies are put in to be appealing to the pet owners eyes and to add vitamins, too much veggies is just to appeal to you. Cats don't need excessive amounts of veggies... Their bodies aren't structured to process it. Your food for them should consist mostly of meat sources, also remember that some veggies have a lot of veggie protein which can affect the meat protein content of the food, keep that in mind when reading protein content in the guaranteed analysis on the back of the bag.

Corn is bad in pet food because only cheap brands use it, it has no nutritional value (it isn't even good for humans), it contains a ton of sugar (bad for cats, causes excessive weight gain and diabetes), and a lot of corn used in pet food is feed grade which means it's tainted/expired which means it contains mold and mycotoxins which causes kidney failure and death in pets. Mold is a toxic and silent killer in cat and dog foods.

In my opinion, if you're gonna go for dry food Orijen is the best.

To me from best to worst the types of food are: raw (balanced) > high end grain free wet food > high end grain free dry food > low end wet food > low end dry food.

I totally get that raw isn't for everyone and some kitties will not take to it. Shunso my most recent rescue is still on a mix of raw and high end wet because he won't touch raw on its own other than bones. 

Schrödinger, my other cat, was on Orijen before raw because wet food gave him the crazy runs and made him throw up, regardless of the brand.

If your cat is happy and healthy on Orijen, then give Orijen!!! We have to adapt to our animal's needs and wants, there's no one best diet.

Mixing it with water is fine as long as the food doesn't stay our for more than a few minutes. 

Orijen is a decent dry food. Just be very careful about adding water directly to it - it can trigger bacterial growth, so be sure to chuck out any food uneaten after 20 mins. It's very important to keep fluid intake up when feeding kibble. This article has some great tips http://www.thecatsite.com/a/tips-to-increase-your-cat-s-water-intake