Your opinions on blue buffalo kitten

Hi all, I've been feeding my 2 m/o kitten blue Buffalo kitten dry with some blue Buffalo kitten wet. He's been doing great on it and loves it, however my vet disagrees that I should be feeding this. I understand that holistic pet foods aren't really a thing because they are not held to any standard but I can read the ingredients and I like what I see. My vet wants me to switch to royal canin ( of course) because it is tested and "safe". Because of their affiliation with them, I have a hard time giving in to the vets endless appeal for me to switch my animals onto royal canin. They are also owned by proctor and gamble now which is a huge red flag.
What do you guys think about blue Buffalo kitten? The only concern for me is their added " lifesource bits" which they make it appear on the bag like there's plenty, when realistically about 1 in every 200 pieces is a lifesource bit. I do have concerns about the lack of standards in holistic but blue Buffalo seems to have such a good rap. And since I've brought it up, what are your opinions of royal canin?

Rubytuesday23 said:

Hi all, I've been feeding my 2 m/o kitten blue Buffalo kitten dry with some blue Buffalo kitten wet. He's been doing great on it and loves it, however my vet disagrees that I should be feeding this. I understand that holistic pet foods aren't really a thing because they are not held to any standard but I can read the ingredients and I like what I see. My vet wants me to switch to royal canin ( of course) because it is tested and "safe". Because of their affiliation with them, I have a hard time giving in to the vets endless appeal for me to switch my animals onto royal canin. They are also owned by proctor and gamble now which is a huge red flag.
What do you guys think about blue Buffalo kitten? The only concern for me is their added " lifesource bits" which they make it appear on the bag like there's plenty, when realistically about 1 in every 200 pieces is a lifesource bit. I do have concerns about the lack of standards in holistic but blue Buffalo seems to have such a good rap. And since I've brought it up, what are your opinions of royal canin?

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My opinion , unless there is a medical reason that your vet wants your cat on RC then stay with the BB . It sounds like your kitty is doing well and very happy with his current diet  ..  If it ain't broke , don't fix it  ..  

Blue Buffalo is fine Many vets know very little about nutrition. You do not need to listen to your vet's advice / suggestion / recommendation / push to feed something else.

Never tried Royal Canin, but on googling I see there are complaints about them using by-products.

When I first got Bud, he was tiny, his fur didn't look healthy, he had constant diarrhea, and he was limping on one of his front legs. So I probably went a bit overboard and fed him Blue Buffalo wet food 3x a day, and BB dry for overnight/morning munchies. (The advice I got was to feed him as much as he wanted in those first 6 months.)

This is just anecdotal, but within a week he looked a lot healthier, and his diarrhea problem was sorted out. Within two weeks he was completely healthy except for his limp, but that went away too eventually.

So BB seemed to do really well for him. The downside is that Blue Buffalo is $1.50 a can, give or take, depending on the flavor and version. Eventually I started alternating BB and Sheba, which seemed to be the best of the grocery store brands. With Sheba you can get a lot of coupons and buy one, get one promotions, so it's like paying 1/3 of the price of Blue Buffalo wet food.

This is strictly an opinion of course, but I think the blue buffalo canned, while okay, has unnecessary ingredients and that there are grain free alternatives out there for far less expense. We also started on blue buffalo kitten because someone recommended it to us but after some research, we decided it had some unnecessary fillers (cranberries and blueberries??) and that if we could find something comparable or better for less we would. We have used tractor supply's grain free canned foods (4Health), PetSmart's (Authoriry Kitten) canned which has Brewers rice in it but no other grains, and Kroger has recently come out with a grain free wet food (Advantage) which our crew also likes.
Each of these three brands have no by-products. Ingredients start with real meats, there are no veggie fillers, and all are grain free accept the Brewers rice in the authority. Best of all the prices range from $0.69 a can for the Tractor Supply Food to $0.80 a can for the Authority from PetSmart. And we are talking 5 oz cans and the Authority is a 6 oz can. As opposed to Blue's 1.49 for a 3 oz can. Cost was a factor but the ingredients were the driving force for us and the reduced cost was an added perk
As to Royal Canin...I'm with you. I think vets promote this stuff and I'm not overly impressed with its ingredients list.
I can't really speak to the dry food. I always select a dry grain free formula wham I can but have never used blue.
There's my opinion for what it's worth! Sometimes the best answer is stick with what works...if money isn't a factor for you and your kitty's digestive system is happy on the Blue Buffalo, why switch?

You might want to consider finding a new vet that doesn't want to pressure you into buying foods that benefit them. I find it hard to trust people like that. Blue is fine. I used to feed it to my kittens (the wet) but i stopped because Blue has had a lot of complaints about quality and I just felt like it was really going downhill for the price. 

I am not a fan of Blue Buffalo due to their crappy marketing g and the fact that every animal that comes to the hospital where I work who is fed Blue has diarrhea and gastrointestinal Issues.

As for vets not knowing much about nutrition- true they don't get much training In nutrition but they do know how nutrients affect the animal's bodies and their functions. You can also talk to vets who are ertified in nutrition. Even though I work at an animal hospital, I am not totally on board with all of the ingredients of the diets but they do have their purpose and are effective in supporting a cat with whatever conditon the cat has. For example, for a cat with chronic kidney failure, a veterinary diet such as Hill's k/d or Royal Canin s Renal diets, they have lower protein and phosphorous to decrease the waste products the kidneys have to filter out and they contain omega fatty acids to fight inflammation. Research has shown that these diets have helped CRF cats live longer and increase their quality of life. Vets don't get kickbacks but they do get access to research and education (not just the company's own research). This is not to say that pet store foods are not good; just be aware of marketing ploys. Of course veterinary diets are marketed in the same vein but they do have their place.

Thanks for your opinions.  I agree that Royal Canin can serve well to animals with health issues.  My Jug dog is on the RC Gastro low fat because he has pancreatitis, and I just don't want to risk him on anything else, I've also never found anything else so low in protein or fat so this is safe for him.

I still don't think I would put my kitten on it without reason.  I myself eat mostly organic and whole foods, so I try to feed my animals good stuff too, I feel RC is just crap with the added sufficient minerals/vitamins. But again, I'm not very knowledgeable on this subject, because I don't know whats true and what isn't.

Hi Sweetpea, thanks for your reply. May I ask what about BB's marketing you don't like? I'm wondering because I'm just trying to gain as much knowledge about them as I can

I've tried Blue buffalo before with one batch of kittens they seemed to enjoyed it and had health problem free lives. I'm currently giving my kitten and whenever I get another batch of Kittens, I give them EVO dry as their main free feed food. Then I give them some wet in the morning and at night. I do like to give my kitties and my other cats a boost with these  They are freeze dried so they are still raw treats so they have a lot of nutritional benefits that aren't found in baked treats/food. Just something I add to their food. I normally do 2-3 per cat. Your vet might of also heard about the recall BB had a while back on some of its food, I believe they lied or something like that in their commercials about the ingredients. Don't think it is completely relevant anymore since almost all pet food companies have had this happen before with some type of recall.