Dry and wet foods, and combination feeding?

Hello everyone. I'm new to the forum. I have a sweet little 6 month old orange tabby boy. He's been fixed recently and knock on wood, is healthy.

When I adopted him he was on a Pet Valu brand of kibble. I switched him to Blue Buffalo and then read about some of the issues with that company and its ingredients. So now I switched him to a canadian brand, Boreal. Im still in the process of actually switching him over. He seems to have a good digestive tract since he doesn't develop any diarrhea or issues when he eats new foods, and he is not picky. He loves to eat!

He's quite an active little guy. Very sweet and affectionate. I love him to bits. I've owned dogs most of my life and have less experience and knowledge when it comes to cat nutrition.

I wanted to get some input on what I should be feeding. Start him off right while he's young to avoid issues later. I don't know if I'm ready for raw, so I ask that we maybe stuck it dry and wet foods for now.

I feed him Wellness Core and Natural Balance canned, but I intend to find better and it seems like rotating won't be an issue. Like I said, he loves to eat!

I wanted to know which canned food is "the best" so to speak. What should I be looking for? Any recommendations?

I'm feeding him 1/2 cup of the dry per day, and between half to 3/4 of a 5.5 oz can. Is that a correct portion per day for a 6.5 lb kitten? How much wet and how much dry should I be feeding? The vet said I shouldn't free feed him anymore because he has some skin showing on his belly. I'm not sure what the heck he's talking about since you can see his back hip bones, feel his ribs quite freely when running your fingers on his sides, and he looks slim to me. I will post a photo later.

Anyways, here is the dry I purchased. But what do you guys think about feeding all wet diet? What's the difference and should one type of wet be fed or is rotating ok? I have so many questions.

http://borealpetfood.com/chicken/

Thank you!

Welcome to The Cat Site!

I'm sure you'll get lots of varied responses to your post: there's often a bit of controversy about the wet/dry question. I can't answer your question about how much food to feed your cat each day since foods can have such varied calorie counts. @LTS3 is particularly good at suggesting daily calorie totals for cats, though. All that said, there's generally a recommendation to feed kittens as much as they'll eat since they're still growing, active, and need lots of calories and nutrients to develop.

As for what to feed, I think a wet diet is best. To paraphrase our cat specialist vet's recommendation, it's best to feed a grain-free, low-carb wet-only diet. My suggestion for "best" foods would be canned foods with as much meat as possible and minimal (or, better, no) carby stuff like grains of any sort, peas, potato, and tapioca. Cats don't need those things: they're essentially empty calories for them. Kind of like donuts. Many of us avoid other ingredients (like carrageenan, gums, etc.) because our cats have sensitivities or tetchy stomachs but I'd probably start by just feeding more wet food and seeing what your cat likes. Some have preferences for a certain protein or food shape. You just never know with cats!

Rotating foods is good if a cat's body can handle it. It sounds like your cat can, which is good, because rotating foods helps keep a cat from getting bored with its food.

Thank you for the response! I hope other can also offer their recommendations. Is it true that cats, especially males, should avoid fish proteins? I heard that it can contribute to kidney problems and crystal development. Is this true?

I hope the calorie specialist can offer some insight on how much to feed. I also don't know if my vet is right in my stopping free feeding. Like I said, my little guy just turned 6 months. I don't want him to get fat, but I also don't want to deprive him when he's not finished growing.

lisahe always is so knowledgeable about feline nutrition so I don't have too much to add except to say that I think it's so great you are being so thoughtful about your little ones nutrition now when he is so young. I have to admit I was ignorant about cat nutrition until my cat developed struvite crystals. With regard to your inquiry about fish and crystals: I've also read the same but most importantly with regard to crystal prevention is water consumption. The easiest was to increase water consumption is to feed a primarily canned diet.

Here's a great link to a website created by a vet that is a great resource about feline nutrition:

http://catinfo.org/

This website has a ton of information [emoji]128522[/emoji]

I'd love to see a photo of your little ginger boy [emoji]10084[/emoji]️

lisahe what can food do you feed your cat? All the recommended ones have peas, carrots, etc

Some wet food recommendations:

Weruva 'Cats in the Kitchen' chicken frick a zee

Tiki Cat Puka Puka Luau Chicken

Nutru Chunky Chicken, Chunky Turkey, Sliced Turkey

Ziwi Peak Rabbit and Lamb

Natures Variety Limited Ingredient

Merrick Limited Ingredient

Sheba pates

Fancy Feast classic 

Halo Impulse Rabbit 

Whole Earth Farms pates

If you can afford it feed primarily tinned food, just like at the ingredients, top ingredient should be named meat, no cereals, sugars etc. The same with dry foods. The top tinned foods look like something you could eat yourself. The dry you've linked above seems fine. I'd still overfeed him a bit at that age, work it down in a few months.

I can't afford, and they won't touch, the fancy wet so I feed mine quality dry and Sheba - the ones without cereals and sugars. My boy's just been to the vet who was perfectly happy with him.

Remember to leave out plenty of fresh water and change it regularly.

Welcome to the world of cats, we need a photo too.

trisha422 said:

@LisaHEwhat can food do you feed your cat? All the recommended ones have peas, carrots, etc

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Their canned food brands are Tiki, Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen (plus one Weruva Truluxe), Feline Natural, and Rawz. The last two are fairly new brands for canned: they're pates but our cats love them both despite an overall preference for shreds. We only feed one canned meal a day (the rest is homemade cooked and commercial raw) and these are the foods that the cats like and that don't contain carby ingredients or ingredients that I don't trust for whatever reasons. Those include fish, which I feed only a few times a year, and carrageenan, which might or might not be a contributor to digestive ailments: our Siamese mixes definitely have sensitive stomachs so I'm very careful! I've also cut back on gums in canned food for the same reason; they only get foods with gums (Weruva) twice a week and I may cut that even more.

@HelloMissKitty: Thank you for your kind words. Like you, I was ignorant (absolutely clueless, really) about feline nutrition until I had a cat who got very sick, most likely as a result of the poor diet we fed her over many years. Unfortunately, our previous cat's vets weren't knowledgeable at all about cat food, so I was on my own when she was sick, most likely with IBD and lymphoma, among other things. catinfo.org was what got me started, too, so I'm very glad you mentioned it: it has all the basics. The cat specialist vet we take our current cats to is great: she recommended catinfo.org and was thrilled when I told her I'd already read it and already planned to feed the cats only wet food, from kittenhood on. (We adopted them at 10 months.) She's very happy with how our cats look on their combo wet diet... so are we!

@yogakitty: This doesn't apply to your current situation but you be interested to know that our vet often recommends that overweight cats be put on a wet food diet, fed twice a day, in timed feedings. I'm not sure of specifics since we haven't had to do that but it worked great for a friend's cat, first for weight loss, then for maintenance. She'd been free-feeding him dry food and he ballooned! I should add that her cat was an adult, not a kitten, at the time and that there are probably additional guidelines for individual cats, to fit their needs. (For example, it would never work for one of our cats who's a scarf-and-barf cat: we feed the cats five meals a day because she has a habit of eating too fast and gacking!)

One other thought, yogakitty, about your calorie question: that's something you might not even need to worry about if you do switch to all/more wet food. I don't count calories for our cats, who are now almost 4, despite our fast eater having a tendency to gain weight and the cats' slightly lowered activity as adults. Since the cats eat only protein-rich wet foods that don't have junk ingredients that don't satisfy hunger for long, their food satiates them. Small, timed meals help, too, I think, because they never get too horribly hungry between meals. All that said, though, I really think the trick, at least with our two, has been feeding them such low-carb foods that they actually enjoy: cats are built to eat meat and these two really enjoy theirs! Good luck! And I agree with @Pegleg about a photo!

Thank you for all the replies everyone. I really appreciate it. Any information I can get and learn more is a big deal!

I will post a photo today for sure. I've been so busy at work and at home with him, I haven't even had a second. And I have so many photos of him on instagram. He has his own account hahaha. Yes, I know, crazy cat lady over here! He's more popular than me!

@LisaHE  what is your opinion on not feeding fish based? And does that include a chicken recipe with say, some fish meal or meat as one of the ingredients?

Lokhismom said:

 
Some wet food recommendations:

Weruva 'Cats in the Kitchen' chicken frick a zee

Tiki Cat Puka Puka Luau Chicken

Nutru Chunky Chicken, Chunky Turkey, Sliced Turkey

Ziwi Peak Rabbit and Lamb

Natures Variety Limited Ingredient

Merrick Limited Ingredient

Sheba pates

Fancy Feast classic 

Halo Impulse Rabbit 

Whole Earth Farms pates

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Do any of these foods contain the gums and carrageenan? That is also something I want to avoid. I'm really looking for the best possible brand of wet I can find. I honestly don't care about the price. I'll give up something else in my life if it means the cat gets the best possible nutrition I can find. I noticed Fancy Feast on there? Isn't that food normally considered low quality with lots of fillers?

The only thing I'm not ready for is raw. Primarily because my husband and I are deciding on pregnancy, and raw food increases the likelihood of toxoplasmosis. Maybe some might laugh at this, but I just don't want to take any risks. Also because I think its just cleaner and easier to feed ready made. Maybe that's not the best response. I am willing to consider home cooked though. I just wouldn't know where to start and maybe its not good to make things too complicated when he's this young and growing. I don't want to mess with his tummy and break something that isn't broken. I might very well return the Boreal and buy all canned instead though.

lisahe @
Thanks so much. You're obviously very knowledgeable and I'm so grateful.
Is it true that I should be feeding them a variety of cat foods instead of just one consistently?
Also, what commercial raw food do you suggest and that your cat's like? My cat loves the orijen dehydrated chicken treats. Anything similar to that?

@Lokismom
Thank you for the many suggestions. Of all my research none of those have really been mentioned.

yogakitty said:

 
Do any of these foods contain the gums and carrageenan? That is also something I want to avoid. I'm really looking for the best possible brand of wet I can find. I honestly don't care about the price. I'll give up something else in my life if it means the cat gets the best possible nutrition I can find. I noticed Fancy Feast on there? Isn't that food normally considered low quality with lots of fillers?

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There's a lengthy thread on gum-free canned foods: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240335/canned-food-without-carrageenan-or-guar-gum

The Fancy Feat Classic / Gourmet pate foods aren't bad at all. It has few fillers.

yogakitty said:

 
The only thing I'm not ready for is raw. Primarily because my husband and I are deciding on pregnancy, and raw food increases the likelihood of toxoplasmosis. Maybe some might laugh at this, but I just don't want to take any risks. Also because I think its just cleaner and easier to feed ready made. Maybe that's not the best response. I am willing to consider home cooked though. I just wouldn't know where to start and maybe its not good to make things too complicated when he's this young and growing. I don't want to mess with his tummy and break something that isn't broken. I might very well return the Boreal and buy all canned instead though.

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Just throwing this out there since many people who don't feed have have misconceptions about raw diets Many commercial brands of raw pet foods have been specially processed to minimize pathogens and/ or have undergone rigorous quality control. You don't need to make raw from scratch  using a recipe.

If you want to look into home cooked diets, see this: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264153/home-cooked-cat-food-resources There's a link in there for recipes. One easy way many people make home cooked raw is to cook meat of their choice and mix in a vitamin/mineral pre-mixh such as EZComplete or UStew with some water. Stir to combine and serve or portion out and freeze.

trisha422 said:

Also, what commercial raw food do you suggest and that your cat's like? My cat loves the orijen dehydrated chicken treats. Anything similar to that?

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Look for freeze dried raw. The texture is not much different from freeze dried treats. Stella and Chewy's and Primal Pet are popular brands. Nature's Variety Instinct Raw Market is another one. Just be sure to read the label and make sure that the food is a complete balanced diet with vitamins and minerals. Some brands of freeze dried raw food are only meant to as a supplement to other raw foods or regular commercial foods.

Are the Orijen treats crunchy? If so, ZiwiPeak is an air dried raw food that is crunchy but it's also very expensive for a little bag.

yogakitty said:

 
Thank you for all the replies everyone. I really appreciate it. Any information I can get and learn more is a big deal!

I will post a photo today for sure. I've been so busy at work and at home with him, I haven't even had a second. And I have so many photos of him on instagram. He has his own account hahaha. Yes, I know, crazy cat lady over here! He's more popular than me!

@LisaHE  what is your opinion on not feeding fish based? And does that include a chicken recipe with say, some fish meal or meat as one of the ingredients?

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My biggest issues on fish are the potential for mercury and other heavy stuff (our vet is very against fish for this reason), concerns about thyroid disease, plus the addictive quality of fish. Our previous cat was a fish fiend. I don't feed any foods with any forms of fish regularly. Dr. Jean Hofve, whose site is a tremendous resource, has a good post about the dangers of feeding fish, that goes far beyond my concerns: it's here.

Also, about your other post, asking about gums and carrageenan: my personal view (well, mine and our cats' since tastes and "issues" differ with individual cats) is that Tiki and Feline Naturals are the best. They're also among the most expensive but for us this is a case of you get what you pay for. Rawz is also very good: there are no gums and the thickener is fenugreek, which I think I'm okay with. Our cats really love that food, too, and it's more reasonably priced. 

trisha422 said:

@LisaHE@
Thanks so much. You're obviously very knowledgeable and I'm so grateful.
Is it true that I should be feeding them a variety of cat foods instead of just one consistently?
Also, what commercial raw food do you suggest and that your cat's like? My cat loves the orijen dehydrated chicken treats. Anything similar to that?

Click to expand...

You're welcome: a lot of this learning comes from trial and error, figuring out what cats will eat and how they'll react, and stumbling upon good advice from qualified vets, knowledgeable pet food store employees, and cat people in real life and on The Cat Site. And lots of reading!

As for commercial raw foods, our cats love Rad Cat (turkey, chicken; frozen only), and Primal (pork, freeze-dried), Northwest Naturals (turkey, freeze-dried), and Feline Natural (lamb/chicken, freeze-dried). We feed the freeze-dried foods rehydrated with plenty of water. I don't know about the treats you use but if they're raw meat that's been freeze-dried/dehydrated, like Pure Bites or Bravo treats, they're probably similar!

I came across Stella & Chewy's while picking up some cans at the pet store yesterday. What does everyone think about their freeze dried dinner for cats? I'm specifically referring to the "Chick Chick Chicken?"

Also, I picked up the canned in this brand, chicken and the turkey. Here is the nutritional analysis. Any comments on this one?

http://catfooddb.com/product/firstmate/Grain+Free+Chicken+Formula

yogakitty said:

 
I came across Stella & Chewy's while picking up some cans at the pet store yesterday. What does everyone think about their freeze dried dinner for cats? I'm specifically referring to the "Chick Chick Chicken?"

Also, I picked up the canned in this brand, chicken and the turkey. Here is the nutritional analysis. Any comments on this one?

http://catfooddb.com/product/firstmate/Grain+Free+Chicken+Formula

Click to expand...

Oof, it's so tough to buy cat food! I'm very tough on cat foods and am not a fan of either one of these foods.

I used to feed Stella & Chewy's in limited amounts (limited because data they gave me seemed to show it had pretty high phosphorus) but have stopped since they changed their recipe to include a pea ingredient as well as menadione, a vitamin K ingredient that is somewhat controversial. (There's a Cat Site thread about the changes in the S&C recipe here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/329261/stella-and-chewys-ingredient-change#post_4173811 ) I'm particularly impatient with companies using carby ingredients in raw foods: I'm okay with things like small amounts of kale in Primal because they provide nutrients without raising carbs but peas are a different story!

The FirstMate food is pretty high in carbohydrate because of the potato: dry matter carbs of 23% is pretty high for a wet food. Dr. Pierson, of catinfo.org, recommends staying under 10%; cats just don't need the ingredients that raise the carbs so much! One of our cats vomits when she eats potato. When I told the vet, she said, "Potato doesn't belong in cat food anyway!" It's too bad so many companies use it as a thickener for "gravy."

OMG....this is just so difficult lol. I guess since I already bought a few cans I'll feed it to the little guy and avoid this brand later on. I'm seriously considering raw now... but as I mentioned before, I'm a little worried about it since my husband and I are planning on having a baby, and no matter how you put it, the consumption of raw meat by kitty will increase the risk of toxoplasmosis. At least, this is what I keep reading. Perhaps this is something I can think about in another year or so though. I am getting rid of dry food completely in the meantime.

I know, it's really hard! I've made weird food mistakes, buying things with ingredients I don't like, but I generally just spread them out over time and don't worry about it.

Raw is great but I definitely understand concerns about pathogens. (I feed only commercial raw foods because I don't trust myself in storing and handling raw meat for the cats!) If you decide to look into it more and are considering commercial raw, you might want to contact some of the raw food companies to find out about their procedures: freezing will kill toxoplasmosis under certain conditions (the US government says -4F for 2 days) so if those are met, it shouldn't be a problem. You could also start a thread in the raw/homecooked food forum on the site: it's very possible someone else has already asked companies about this very issue.

Congrats on your new kitty!

I thought Blue Buffalo dry food was good food as well and exclusively fed my cat that for a little over a year.  My cat started to turn her nose up to that food so I started to research cat nutrition and found this site.

It took a few months for my cat to get used to a canned food diet.  Right now she is primarily on canned food. I've tried several brands of food.  What my cat likes is Fancy Feast Classic (pates) and Sheba pates.  For some reason she only likes pates.  I would like to incorporate a "higher" end canned food, but for now since I recently switched her to canned food I am not going to mix it up at this time. I am an Amazon Prime member. I can get 36 cans of Fancy Feast for around $20 including shipping and I am happy with that.

My cat gets dry food in the evening.  This is the food she gets:

https://www.chewy.com/wellness-core-grain-free-original/dp/34437

She doesn't eat that much and only nibbles on it.  

It may take a while to figure out what food works best for your cat, but you will and try not to stress yourself too much over it.

I am looking at the UStew and EZ Complete online right now that @LTS3  pointed out, if interested in mixing with cooked meat instead of raw. Would this be superior to feeding a good quality canned food? And which of the two is the better choice? TC Feline has xanthan gum as one of the ingredients. I am assuming this is not similar to guar gum....? I'd have no idea which of the two is superior in ingredients and nutrition.

These pre-mixes, if I could mix them with cooked meat, would probably be a great option. Would I have to add cooked liver/organs as well? Or just muscle meat? Skin, no skin?

So sorry for all the questions. I honestly just have no clue...