New cat owner of a rescue :) What do you guys feed your cat and WHY? In need of advice.

I am currently aware of the dangers of feeding exclusively dry food/ grained food/ food with not enough protein and too much carbohydrates. Also, I am a PhD student who is KIND of on a budget 

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What a gorgeous little guy :heart3:

What you're feeding at the moment sounds absolutely fine I'm not the best on US food brands, but if you're looking for cheaper foods you could look at bringing some of the cheaper canned foods into the mix. The Fancy Feast patés are grain free, as are the Sheba patés. A lot of members throw some cheaper foods into the rotation to help with budget constraints. Just read the labels carefully

Another tips to buy online. If you have space to store some food you'll be able to order in bulk, and likely save yourself some money into the bargins. I buy the majority of my pet food this way, and it really helps.

Amazon have some good deals, and Chewy.com do too, I believe. I'm sure other members will have some more ideas too.

You could also look for coupons and special offers - both online and instore. Members often post in the nutrition forum if they come across coupons for specific brands. Every little helps

Thank you He is quite a cutie in my opinion.

Wow! Thank you for all of the great words of wisdom  . That helps me a lot more than you know! Doing online research, it seems like a lot of people shame individuals who do not use the absolute best of everything or raw diets, so it is refreshing to know that you can still provide a balanced healthy diet for your cat on a budget (and time constraints). If it were up to me, I'd be buying pre made frozen raw food for every meal. So expensive though  . The buying online idea is great. Thanks again  

If anyone else has some wet food favorites please do not hesitate to tell me! Prefurrrrably less than $2.00 a can. 

Also, when you say "read the labels carefully", what exactly should I be looking for/ trying to avoid in terms of ingredients in a nutshell? Just in general if you don't mind me asking

We have 2 cats and are on a bit of a budget with them.

Earthborn over here (Australia) is one of the most expensive dry foods (that and my cat absolutely refused to eat it).

Canned I look for meat as the first ingredient and try to avoid "cereals" and unlisted by-products (I'm okay with some by-product but I prefer it be listed as chicken by-product rather than poultry by-product). I also avoid flour. Some people avoid wheat gluten. I don't mind as long as it's not in all the cans of food he eats. Others again avoid carrageenan due to possible cancer risk. Again, I feed it but mostly because there isn't many alternatives in Australia.

GhibliTheCat said:

Also, when you say "read the labels carefully", what exactly should I be looking for/ trying to avoid in terms of ingredients in a nutshell? Just in general if you don't mind me asking

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If I'm after grain free food, I'd just make sure the word 'cereals' doesn't appear on the label, as well as checking for specific grains.

I prefer not to feed wet food that has vegetable protein in it - there's no excuse for that in wet food, to my mind anyway. So, I avoid terms like 'vegetables protein extracts' too.

Meat by products are just fine - especially if you're on a budget. I have to avoid them because my girl has issues with certain meats, but otherwise it really isn't a problem. Meat by products are still meat, and a cat would eat whole prey in the wild anyway

My approach is to decide what ingredients I want to avoid at all costs, what I'm ok with feeding in small amounts and what I'm happy to feed as the main ingredients. This list will be different for different people.

In my case, I prefer named meats (to stop my girl getting a bad tummy), I avoid gums and carrageenan (again, my girl reacts to guar gum, so I play it safe and avoid them all), and I prefer to stay grain free.

Having said that, a couple of foods in my rotation have very small quantities of rice - they're not the whole diet, and I'm not going to let a tiny quantity of rice (3%) stop me feeding an otherwise good food from time to time.

There's a lot of scaremongering on the Internet about pet foods these days - particularly from some members of the raw feeding community. The fact remains that there are no studies proving that one type of diet is better than another. Raw feeding done correctly is a great option, but it's most definitely not the ONLY good option out there. There's at least one member here whose cats will only eat grocery store foods, and her cats have regularly live into their 20's!

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I feed 90% wet. For dry snacks I feed Merrick Purrfect Bistro chicken in yellow bag, first ingredient is deboned chicken. For wet I rotate high and lower end foods. It is up to cat what they like. I feed tiki cat and tiki carnivore, Merrick duck or chicken pates, Earthborne chicken jumble, Red Barn tricky Chicky, Pride rockstar rabbit, Nutro Natural Choice Chunky chicken loaf, Iams Purrfect delicasies turkey & liver, Sheba chicken pate, FF classic liver & chicken, wellness Devine duos chicken/ duck, Soulistic Good Karma, if they snub their food I crumble Purebites freeze dried chicken on top (I buy dog size online) I try to feed chicken, duck, rabbit, turkey, liver, occasional fish and I feed pate, chunks, shreds. I rotate about 12 different foods to prevent boredom and minimize damage in case of recall. I pick up a can of this or that at specialty stores before buying in bulk at chewy.com. If fussy girl won't eat it the boy gets it, if he won't eat it the little feral I TNRd gets it. Nothing is wasted ever! Hope this helps[emoji]128062[/emoji][emoji]10084[/emoji]️[emoji]128062[/emoji]

I think a lot of us who comment frequently about cat food share Columbine's approach: creating a sort of hierarchy of ingredients that we feel comfortable and uncomfortable feeding. And seeing what our cats will actually eat. The two don't always match up!

FWIW, my strategy is to feed high-protein, low-carb wet foods (both canned and raw) without grains, potato, peas, carrageenan, or a lot of fish. Our cats are moderately picky and have somewhat sensitive stomachs, too, so it's been important to find healthy foods they'll actually eat. If I had to cut back their food budget I'd start feeding foods with byproducts--like Fancy Feast classics or Sheba--before I'd add grains or carby fillers, though I agree with Columbine that the small amounts of rice in foods are not the end of the world! Columbine is also right about Chewy.com: we buy a lot of food there because (unfortunately!) local stores don't always stock what we feed.

As for raw food, since you mentioned that you wish you could feed it if it weren't so expensive: there's nothing wrong with feeding small amounts of raw food as a treat. That's how we got our cats started on it. They love raw food and I love feeding it to them because they always finish it.

Most important: your cat is beautiful, GhibliTheCat! We have a lynx mix, too, and she's a wonderful cat. Have fun!

Your cat is gorgeous... and there is no shame in putting your cat on a budget.  Most of us are on budgets, depsite whether we have a high or low income.  Everyone appreciates value.  Our cats eat mostly wet, with dry food available on demand. Finding a dry food that my cats would eat (besides Temptations Treats - which my ragdoll insists is a dry food and is pefectly fine to eat on demand) they don't like the higher priced brands, but will eat Friskies naturals, and so far none of them get an upset tummy over it.  Since it is a supplement to and not the bulk of their diet, and it is affordable and gets eaten, thats what they get for dry.  For wet food, All four cats agree on Max Cat (Nutro) which if you buy from amazon by the case I believe you can get for less than a $1.00 per can, and at Petco, watch for a sale, but at regular price in our area it is 95 cents a can.  They also have a large variety of flavors.  Personally, I think the stuff stinks - but my cats eat it... is agrees with them, and it is what we have found to be an affordable option.

I do not feed raw myself, but there are a lot here who do feed raw, and make their own so if raw is what you and your cat really want, there are threads around about how to make your own raw food, and how much it costs.  That might be the best route for you.

Aw, what a handsome kitty Ghibli is, congratulations!

You may want to look into Whole Earth canned food which is sold at Petco (or online via Petco). It's a premium food but has a reasonable price point.

As far as byproducts in food, sure, in the wild a cat would consume the byproducts of their prey, however, that's usually a fresh kill, and the byproducts part of the whole animal, there is no ambiguity as far as the byproducts being consumed.

In commercial foods, we don't know the source of the byproducts being used; that would be my concern.

Sounds like you are doing a great job.

Thank you everyone! Every person seems to be on the same track here so I feel like I got some really great information . I will continue his current diet and make sure to save on those wet food with the advice you all gave me! I will also feed him some raw as a treat