Rotating canned food

Hi guys. I am currently feeding my two kittens Natures Variety Instinct limited ingredient grain free turkey canned food. However I've read it's good to rotate food.

What canned food do you recommend for rotating? Would also prefer to remain fish free because I've heard seafood can contribute to uti issues in male cats (kittens are male).


Any suggestions for a grain free (no wheat/soy/corn etc), thickener/carrageenan free canned food? Is it a good idea to rotate?


Budget is a non issue.

Looking for venison, duck, chicken, or lamb based. I've heard of weruva and merrick LID.

peacefulchaos said:

Hi guys. I am currently feeding my two kittens Natures Variety Instinct limited ingredient grain free turkey canned food. However I've read it's good to rotate food.

What canned food do you recommend for rotating? Would also prefer to remain fish free because I've heard seafood can contribute to uti issues in male cats (kittens are male).


Any suggestions for a grain free (no wheat/soy/corn etc), thickener/carrageenan free canned food? Is it a good idea to rotate?


Budget is a non issue.

Looking for venison, duck, chicken, or lamb based. I've heard of weruva and merrick LID.

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Rotation is generally a great idea for wet food!

I would recommend more of the NVI LI. Our kittens liked the Turkey and loved the Lamb. Besides that they have Pork, Rabbit, Duck, and some other flavors. The regular NVI line has chicken, beef, venison.

Tiki Cat (Chicken flavors only) is another good choice with no thickeners. It's quite different in consistency than NVI, looks like shredded chicken in broth.

Our kittens love nutro natural choice kitten (chicken), it has guar gum as a thickener but no Carrageenan. Also Ziwipeak (all flavors), they have agar-agar as a thickener.

what are your thoughts on Cats in the Kitchen?


Also considering ziwipeak, yeah. Weruva, merrick LID are all considerations.

peacefulchaos said:

what are your thoughts on Cats in the Kitchen?


Also considering ziwipeak, yeah. Weruva, merrick LID are all considerations.

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Never tried it, our kittens are eating so so much food we stick to pates since they generally have more calories. I've heard it's great quality though.

There's a "todays best cat food" list on the natural cat care blog, I don't agree with it completely but it's a great resource and where we got started when we were trying to add variety.

The Reviews section can be a good place to get ideas of new brands to try http://www.thecatsite.com/products/category/canned-cat-food

my 8.5 month old ragdoll is on my version of a "rotation" to keep interest/vary it up for both his sake and my pocket. each time i buy a new bag of the dried or frozen i rotate flavors/choices.

wet/canned:

Fancy Feast (classics) - up to 3oz per day or as a mixer/topper

Canidae GF Pure - all varieties (sparingly on fish/seafood), 3oz cans

Weruva Paw Lickin' Chicken - the "base" of most meals, 10 oz cans

Weruva Glam N Punk (Lamb/Duck)

Weruva Cats in the Kitchen - Fowl Ball (chicken/turkey)

freeze-dried:

Stella & Chewy - Chicken

Stella & Chewy - Salmon & Chicken

Primal - Turkey

frozen, raw:

Primal - Pork

If budget is a non-issue I'd look at Ziwipeak. My cats love the Venison and Beef varieties. Really good food, just pricy. They like the Rabbit and Lamb ok too. You might also consider raw. Rad Cat is a really good brand also has Venison along with Chicken, Turkey, Beef, and lamb. The Merrick LID is good, but i think they undefill the cans and they're only 5oz so you don't get as much bang for your buck. With that said my cats still really like the chicken. 

peacefulchaos said:

what are your thoughts on Cats in the Kitchen?

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Our cats like the canned Cats in the Kitchen a lot: they eat three of them that don't have chicken. They're very good food and affordable for Weruva but you might want to check the calories since you're feeding kittens who can need lots of calories to stay sated! They do have gums but there's no carrageenan or potato. (We avoid both.)

ftmba said:

There's a "todays best cat food" list on the natural cat care blog, I don't agree with it completely but it's a great resource and where we got started when we were trying to add variety.

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I agree that's a great resource!

Our cats like the Merrick LID a lot, particularly the duck.

You can just rotate between all of the NV Instinct canned foods You can of course add another brand or two to the mix for variety.

The occasional seafood is ok and many cats like it. It's feeding nothing but seafood that can cause problems in some cats, not all.

Any of the Weruva foods are fine to feed, including Soulistic line which is only sold at Petco The pouches tend to be mostly gravy with little actual food. They're good as a treat or a topper, IMO. Try to stick with mainly cans for more meat.

Here's a thread with suggestions on gum-free foods:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240335/canned-food-without-carrageenan-or-guar-gum

So far I want to rotate between weruva when they're older, tiki cat, merrick lid, NVI limited ingredient, and zikipeak. I'd love to do all zikipeak but that's ambitious at the moment. No stores here sell zikipeak, and I'd have to take a few buses to just get a sample can. So for now that's the roster.

Those are some good healthy foods! Our cats love Tiki: they get their (luau) chicken foods plus some of the Gourmet Carnivore foods. They seem to particularly like the ones with liver. They're very caloric so good for young, active cats, though they're also pretty rich.

peacefulchaos said:

So far I want to rotate between weruva when they're older, tiki cat, merrick lid, NVI limited ingredient, and zikipeak. I'd love to do all zikipeak but that's ambitious at the moment. No stores here sell zikipeak, and I'd have to take a few buses to just get a sample can. So for now that's the roster.

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Ziwi Peak is pretty expensive so unless you have an unlimited budget, it's best to buy it occasionally. The other brands you listed are fine to rotate and are pretty affordable   Some peple here like to buy cases of food online from Chewy.com and Amazon.com and other places. There is an online place or two that sells individual cans but I'm not sure which ones. I've seen it mentioned here on TCS before.

Don't forget that cats can be pretty finicky about their food. You can try all of the listed foods and find that your cats won't eat any of it. It's a good idea to try one can of each variety to see if the cats will even eat it before you buy an entire case. Sometimes pet stores, particularily the independent ones, have samples. I got a free can of Weruva from a Weruva rep who had a product info table at the indepedent pet store a few weeks ago

I'm currently rotating through Bozita, Almo Nature, Animonda Carny, Orijen dry food (I keep it around as a snack for her since she's a kitten and doesn't always eat all of her wet food, she's not a big eater. This way she gets some extra calories) and I make some raw a few times a week. She seems to like variety, and is more interested in the food when its something new.

Elfilou said:

I'm currently rotating through Bozita, Almo Nature, Animonda Carny, Orijen dry food (I keep it around as a snack for her since she's a kitten and doesn't always eat all of her wet food, she's not a big eater. This way she gets some extra calories) and I make some raw a few times a week. She seems to like variety, and is more interested in the food when its something new.

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Please keep in mind that Almo Nature canned and pouch food is for supplemental / intermittent feeding only. It is not complete and balanced for an adult cat, much less a kitten.

LisaMarie12 said:

Please keep in mind that Almo Nature canned and pouch food is for supplemental / intermittent feeding only. It is not complete and balanced for an adult cat, much less a kitten.

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Yus! I feed it to her maybe 4 times a week, because it's the only one I've found so far that she slobbers up like she's never been fed. I'm still trying to find a complete food that she really likes. She's very picky and rarely finishes her meals :/ Sometimes she starts "covering it" only after having had two bites or so. She got dry food at the breeder's and although I didn't want to feed her dry food I got Orijen a few days ago and she seems to like "grazing" it a few times a day. Hope to find a wet food that is complete that she'll like as much as she likes Almo Nature, though. Because according to the vet she does need to gain some weight.

Elfilou Have you tried Thrive Complete? My guys go crazy for it. It's pretty calorie dense too.

Elfilou said:

 
Yus! I feed it to her maybe 4 times a week, because it's the only one I've found so far that she slobbers up like she's never been fed. I'm still trying to find a complete food that she really likes. She's very picky and rarely finishes her meals :/ Sometimes she starts "covering it" only after having had two bites or so. She got dry food at the breeder's and although I didn't want to feed her dry food I got Orijen a few days ago and she seems to like "grazing" it a few times a day. Hope to find a wet food that is complete that she'll like as much as she likes Almo Nature, though. Because according to the vet she does need to gain some weight.

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Okay.  There's no taurine  - nothing, no vitamins / minerals that cats need - in AN.  As far as feeding incomplete foods on a regular basis, generally the amount has to be extremely low, I think about 10% of the daily diet (I may be wrong, someone correct me otherwise) which would be about 2 tbspns, provided you are feeding AN along with other complete and balanced foods.  Otherwise this creates an imbalance b/t the foods you feed that are properly supplemented, diluting the nutrients.

Not long ago I met a woman (I work at an indy store, pet food retail) who was feeding her adult cat mostly AN and some kibble from another brand. It was a fairly young cat and the cat is now having eye trouble - losing her eye sight, it is that serious.

Almo Nature Daily Menu and Almo Nature Bio ARE complete foods. All other Almo Nature wet food is for supplementary feeding only.

Supplementary foods should be regarded as treats, and should not be used for regular feeding except in the short term.

Columbine said:

Almo Nature Daily Menu and Almo Nature Bio ARE complete foods. All other Almo Nature wet food is for supplementary feeding only.

Supplementary foods should be regarded as treats, and should not be used for regular feeding except in the short term.

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Ah -  Daily Menu and BIO are available outside the US only, within the US only the unsupplemented AN cans / pouches.

The most common AM - the Classic range is the best known. I agree that labelling is an issue, but I think the same could be said of other well known supplementary food brands (such as Applaws and Canidae). The information is clear on the websites, but not on the packaging