Is This A Good Diet?

ameys1

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My Ocicat baby is currently being fed a dry mix (Science Diet and Blue Buffalo), and wet food fed 2-3 times a day in controlled portions. He really loves it and is doing great, but as far as wet food goes, I'd like to get him off of the Fancy Feast and onto something better for him. I've been looking around and I'm thinking Natural Balance would be a good option for him. Does anybody have any suggestions? I'm open to hearing anything from dry - wet! Thanks in advance!
 

wermy

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Dry-wise, Science Diet and Blue Buffalo aren't in the top tier (despite what their massive advertising budgets would have you believe), I would instead try to get my hands on some Nulo, Nature's Logic, Go!, Nature's Variety Instinct, Acana, or if you can afford it, Wysong or Orijen. Alternatively, there are many people who swear by freeze-dried raw such as Stella and Chewy's, Ziwipeak and Feline Natural.

Fancy Feast Classics are actually a decent line, it wouldn't hurt to keep a few flavours in the rotation. Natural Balance is a great choice for wet. I would also recommend Nature's Variety, Nulo, Weruva, Wellness Core, PureVita, Halo and Tiki Cat. Cheaper decent brands in the tier of Fancy Feast include Grreat Choice, Soulistic and Friskies wet.
 

mingking

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Great suggestions from above!

I don't feed dry so I can't give you my input in that area. 

Like @wermy  said, Fancy Feast classics are quite decent - they don't have carrageenan or wheat gluten. Here's a good list of them: http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm I tend to stick with Turkey & Giblets and Tender Chicken and Liver feast because they don't have fish, unlike the Classic Chicken Feast.

I also like Cats In The Kitchen by Weruva - it's shredded meats so it's a change for my cat who is fed mostly pate style. The problem with Weruva is the low calorie count which might be a problem if your cat is a big eater like mine. 

I also feed Nature's Variety Instinct - rabbit flavour. However it has montmorillonite clay which is something some pet owners avoid. I avoided this ingredient for a while but then one of my favourite brands started using it and they explained it a little bit of why they decided to add it and I made the decision to try it. Plus I hear so many good things about NV. I pick out the peas as advised by someone on the forum. 
 
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ameys1

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Thanks! I'll have to wait until he finishes all of this food which will be a while because there's a lot left. He seems to be doing well on it, and I tried giving him Blue Buffalo wet mixed with the Fancy Feast today and it gave him diarrhea this evening, so no more of that. How do you guys suggest transitioning the wet foods? I'm currently feeding him roasted chicken which he likes.
 
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ameys1

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I think I'm going to try to wean him onto Orijen, and feed controlled portions of wet throughout the day!
 
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ameys1

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Dry-wise, Science Diet and Blue Buffalo aren't in the top tier (despite what their massive advertising budgets would have you believe), I would instead try to get my hands on some Nulo, Nature's Logic, Go!, Nature's Variety Instinct, Acana, or if you can afford it, Wysong or Orijen. Alternatively, there are many people who swear by freeze-dried raw such as Stella and Chewy's, Ziwipeak and Feline Natural.

Fancy Feast Classics are actually a decent line, it wouldn't hurt to keep a few flavours in the rotation. Natural Balance is a great choice for wet. I would also recommend Nature's Variety, Nulo, Weruva, Wellness Core, PureVita, Halo and Tiki Cat. Cheaper decent brands in the tier of Fancy Feast include Grreat Choice, Soulistic and Friskies wet.
When you say Nulo, the only dry food I see is for adults. Is there anything else that you'd recommend that can be fed to kittens too?
 

wermy

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When you say Nulo, the only dry food I see is for adults. Is there anything else that you'd recommend that can be fed to kittens too?
Get ready for some truth bombs (lol):

1) A kitten's nutritional needs are exactly the same as an adult cat's - only they need more of it per ounce of body weight because growing takes a lot of energy.

2) Most commercial kitten food is the brand's adult cat formula + additional fat content. This is a dirty trick pet food companies use to save money on the good stuff (lean meat and organs). Kittens metabolise fat much better than adult cats do so pet food companies can get away with piling cheap fat into their kitten food varieties, but that doesn't mean fat is any better nutritionally for kittens.

Have a look at all the top, top tier brands of cat food - Orijen, Wysong, Wellness, Tiki Cat, Nulo, etc. - NONE of those brands offer foods targeted at kittens only. A kitten eats what mummy cat eats - just proportionally more. Most reputable brands will have feeding directions for kittens as well as grown cats, just follow those. :)
 
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ameys1

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Thank you so much for the clarification! I had a feeling it wouldn't affect him if I were to feed him an adult mix, I just wanted to be 100% sure before I go out and buy the more expensive foods (Orijen is way out of my price range, it turns out). I'm going to try Nature's Logic with Nulo wet eventually to see if he would eat that!
 

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As far as wet food goes, you don't have to stick to one specific brand. In fact, most of us here use a rotation of brands for canned (I feed Nature's Variety, Nulo, Fromm and Purina's new Muse line.)

You also don't have to transition from one wet food to another *unless* your cat has a very sensitive stomach.

If a food causes problems (vomiting, diarrhea) then there is an ingredient in the food your cat does not tolerate. This can be a protein (turkey, duck, rabbit...), a thickener (guar gum, carrageenan, xanthan gum...), a carb (pea, potato, grain of any kind), or even an ingredient like eggs (even if they tolerate the muscle meat of the same protein).

So, you mention your kitten started having loose stool on BB. Read over the ingredient list and see what differs from the FF. I know BB has carrageenan, which FF does not. See what else differs.
 

mschauer

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Get ready for some truth bombs (lol):

1) A kitten's nutritional needs are exactly the same as an adult cat's - only they need more of it per ounce of body weight because growing takes a lot of energy.
That is sort of true. A kittens rapidly growing body requires more nutients per day than an adults. Theorecially if an kitten just ate enough of a food formulated for an adult they would get the nutrients they need. But as much as kittens eat, and they sure do eat a lot, they can't eat enough of an adult food to meet their nutritional needs. They need a nutrient dense food that will provide the nutrients they need given how much of it they are able to eat. That is why the AAFCO nutrient profile for kittens requires higher levels of protein, arginine, lysine, tryptophan, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, vitamin A, and vitamin D on a per kg basis.

2) Most commercial kitten food is the brand's adult cat formula + additional fat content. This is a dirty trick pet food companies use to save money on the good stuff (lean meat and organs). Kittens metabolise fat much better than adult cats do so pet food companies can get away with piling cheap fat into their kitten food varieties, but that doesn't mean fat is any better nutritionally for kittens.
A food can be formulated with a nutrient profile to be appropriate for adults and kittens. The higher nutrient density required by kittens isn't harmful to adults. Such a food would be labelled to be for "all life stages" and can be fed to both kittens and adults.Given the amount of calories kittens burn it is a good idea to feed them a food that is more calorie dense than a food meant for adults. Fat is higher in calories than protein and carbohydrates so taking an all life stages food and adding fat to increase the caloric density to make it more suitable for a kitten seems reasonable to me.
 
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