Best dry and wet food for cats

Hello!  I need some help and recommendations for good, healthy cat foods.  I have 3 cats (ages 6-11).  I have noticed in the year that one of the 11 year old cats (Lucy) seems to be losing a little bit of weight.  Granted, she was overweight before so she is not looking malnourished or anything, just thinner.  I think part of it is the addition of the 6 year old cat (Rita) we got.  Lucy seems to be eating a bit less and running around a lot more with this new cat.

However, it makes me worried that she has lost some weight so I am looking at what I can do diet wise to help.  In terms of dry food, I cam currently looking at : 

Blue Buffalo Indoor Formula

Purina ONE Indoor Advantage

Goodlife Indoor Cat

I've been trying to find ones that list meat as the first ingredient and don't have certain grains.  At this point, I am overwhelmed with the choice. 

For wet treats, my cats love the Whiskers Choice Cuts in Gravy...which in reading I have found might not be too good for them.  It looks like the wet foods should not have much gravy or grains in it.  The wet food I am thinking about getting is Purina Beyond Natural Canned Food.

I am just overwhelmed and want to be sure I am choosing the very best things to feed my cats.  Can any of you let me know what you feel are the best forms of dry food, weight food, and treats you give you cats?  Also, any recommendations on encouraging weight gain on my Lucy?  I just want to be the best kitty mom I can be and give them a super long, happy, healthy life.  If you can give me any tips on good foods, I (and Lucy, Dez, and Rita) would greatly appreciate it!  

I'm not a lot of help living in a whole other country but I believe blue buffalo has had a number of recalls?

Grain free dry (in my opinion) isn't the be all and end all. There are plenty of grain free foods that have LOTS of carbs from potatoes etc instead of rice or grains. Not all cats need all food to be grain free. I try to feed mostly wet grain free and limited grain in dry (I do a mix of 1 grain free and 1 with rice).

Wet foods are sometimes a case of if your cat will eat it. I know there's a list on here somewhere of the good US brands but some of them are wellness, orijen (might be a dry food only), canidae/felidae, cats in the kitchen/weruva, fancy feast classics are grain free (only the classics) and sheba gets mentioned a lot as being okay for a cheaper option.

The odd whiska's isn't a problem, but probably not great as a sole food source.

As for weight gain, I have a kitty who is a hard gainer and kitten food is often higher in calories and fats than regular foods are.

 

You are correct in that the choices are VAST.  It's a daunting task!!!!!  And, of course, once you find something you (and your furkids) like, there could always be a recall, so don't get too comfortable with anything you choose.  Always have a couple of back-ups.  I, personally, don't feed ANY dry food, only canned, except for their treats. 

For their canned foods, what you've learned so far is pretty accurate, to a point.  You want to try to keep the CARBS low, basically.  Below are some articles that you might find helpful.  I will say that currently I feed a variety of wet food, and I do have the Purine One Beyond in my rotation.  I don't feed it too often because my furbabies aren't that fond of it, but once in awhile I can sneak them a can and they eat it.  Well, ONE will .   The very favorite food in the household right now is by far Nutro Natural Choice.  Remember, I'm strictly talking cans here.  Even their non pate type foods are pretty low in carbs.  As far as I can tell, their drawbacks are the size of cans (3 oz only), and they don't have too many flavors that don't contain fish.   Anyway, I just ordered four cases of different flavors of Nutro Natural Choice yesterday, that's how much my kits like it.

For treats, I give my guys freeze dried raw (meant to actually be served as meals, (rehydrated), but I just toss them to them for treats.  I use Primal and Stella and Chewys.  I also use Wholelife and Purebites 100% per dehydrated meats.  These also work well as food toppers for those days when someone is being picky as they crumble into powder over their food very easily.  But they love all these items as treats.

Now for the dry food, I'll have to refer you to articles:

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-dry-cat-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/how-to-compare-cat-foods-calculate-carbs-dry-matter-basis

Here's one on canned food:

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/what-makes-the-best-canned-cat-food

mrsgreenjeens said:

The very favorite food in the household right now is by far Nutro Natural Choice.  Remember, I'm strictly talking cans here.  Even their non pate type foods are pretty low in carbs.  As far as I can tell, their drawbacks are the size of cans (3 oz only), and they don't have too many flavors that don't contain fish.   Anyway, I just order four cases of different flavors of Nutro Natural Choice yesterday, that's how much my kits like it.

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Nutro Natural Choice is probably the most popular canned food around here, too: I also buy it by the case. The runner-up may be Merrick's LID duck and turkey, which they really lap up, even though it's pretty much a pate. I think all those should be calorie-dense, too.

Wellness CORE's canned foods are high-calorie as well. Some of them have potato, which raises the carb levels, but the duck/turkey and the one with venison and lamb (I think it is) are good. And our grown-up cats still love the CORE kitten food so much I still give it to them as an occasional treat.

I hope you're able to help Lucy gain back some of her weight, Dwidget!

I feed a lot of Nutro natural choice too. My foster kittens love it, and my other cats like the sliced variety. For the price, it's good food. 

I found this site very helpful, the person that keeps it up does a tonne of research http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2010/12/the-7-best-natural-commercial-cat-foods-so-far/  Some of the food is more expensive but if you can, buy the best food you can afford to hopefully reduce the risk of any major illness. It is great that you are looking into this for your kitty. Best of luck  

I love the Natural Cat Care Blog, too, and highly recommend her lists!

Thanks so much for all of your suggestions and links!  I'm going to look into all of this and make some choices.  I just worry so much and I made the mistake of looking up weight loss in cats, and before you know it I was convinced Lucy had a million major things wrong with her!  I always tell my patients not to WebMD their symptoms, so I should probably take my own advice!  

I think a big part of it is age and the addition of the younger cat, who is a bit of a bully.  Lucy is still very active and her behavior hasn't changed (which all the sites listed as an indicator of health issues).  I'm not too worried about her being picky with the new foods-she is my eater and will pretty much eat ANYTHING put in front of her, and she doesn't have a very sensitive tummy.  So I have that in my favor!  She does tend to get a lot of hairballs due to her thick coat and her grooming the other 2 kitties, but I see a lot of "helps with hairball" varieties that I can try.

I've also seen some of the sites sell these supplements/pastes that are high calorie to help with weight gain (I think the brand I saw was Nutra-cal?).  Has anyone tried these or know if they are any good?

In the meantime, I will do some research on all of your suggestions and pick out some new wet and dry food for the fur babies.  Thanks again for all of your help.  I just want my kitties to live the longest, healthiest, and happiest life they can!

For weight gain, try mixing in a raw egg yolk once or twice a week.  Not only is it high caloric (for a cat), but it's great for her coat.  You can just mix it into her wet food.  You might need to blend it with a little water so it's not too "sticky", but added water is good too.  when looking for food, just look for the most high calorie food you can for awhile.  Tiki Cat and Weruva are NOT in this category.  Typically the Pate's will be higher in calories.  I know this is true of Nutro Natural Choice.  It's even true of Fancy Feast. 

For hairballs, many of us use Egg Yolk Lecithin, also added to their food.  It really seems to work.   I give each of my furkids 1/2 capsule per day (maintenance) to keep hairballs at bay.  I just mix it into their canned food.  During hairball season, i may up this amount to a full capsule per cat. 

Awesome!  The egg yolk seems like a really easy thing to try.  I will definitely try working that into her routine.  I'll look into the egg yolk lecithin too-she has always been prone to hairballs and I have never seemed to find anything that really helps her with them. Can I do both the egg yolk in wet food AND the egg yolk lecithin?  I always feel so helpless when she has a bad one!  

I went a head and got Canidae Grain Free Pure Elements with Chicken for dry food, and also ordered the Fancy Feast Classic and Sheba Premium Pate wet food (I know they have tried this in the past and liked it) and also went and got the Nutro wet treat as well to see how that works.  Hopefully, all 3 of the cats like the new food and this helps Lucy gain a little weight back.  You guys have all been so helpful-I'm really glad I found this site.  You made this task not quite as daunting as it was when I first started looking into it!

Yes, you can do both the egg yolk AND the egg yolk lecithin.  The egg yolk lecithin is not a remedy to be given at the time when you notice her actually trying to hack up a hairball.  It's more of something you give them regularly to keep the hair constantly moving thru their digestive tract.  (at least that's how I understand it).  Once she's got one built up and is needing to hack it out, then she make need something different, like a petroleum based hairball gel type remedy that comes in a tube