Friskies Dry Food, Gourmet flavour

lizzie356

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I have been giving my neutered little boy.Toby, now 1 year old Friskies Dry Food which he seems to love and once a week give him a whole pilchard in a bit of tomato sauce to water it down a bit.    I mash it up and he gobbles it down - I think after eating dry food every day he needs some fresh food that we humans would eat ourselves.   I buy canned Pilchards in Tomato Sauce which I make into fish cakes or serve cold with cut up onion on toast and always give my Toby a whole fish.    It's a bit expensive to include the Friskies wet food as well because it's expensive in South Africa and a packet every day would cost the same as the Hills Science Plan (which I wish I could give him instead as it is full of added vitamins and minerals).     I do however buy a small 40g bag of Hills dry and mix a handfull into his weekly amount of Friskies as a supplement to his diet.   He still goes out hunting for other things though and I often, well every day, finds geckoes, cockroaches, anything goes even a baby bird dead in his food bowl which he leaves there for later eating.   Naturally I remove the offending dead lizards, cockroaches and baby birds.    He has even put a dead snake in his food bowl.    Is he trying to tell me something.   He is such a character.   He is slim, has a healthy coat, seems content and no runny poo or other problems.
 

Willowy

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If he's doing well, that's what counts! Normally I would not recommend Friskies dry food, as it is one of the lower-quality foods available, but it may be your best option where you live. The fact that he supplements his diet with fresh meat will help him stay heathier.
 

LTS3

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What are the ingredients of the fish in tomato sauce? If it contains garlic and onion, then you should not give it to your cat. Garlic and onion are toxic to cats, most likely if a large amout is ingested but it's better not to take the risk.

Are Friskies and Science Diet pretty much the only brands available in South Africa?
 

solomonar

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My tomcat refuses Gourmet flavor cans. 

He liove supermarket wet food (the small 100 g envelopes of supermarket  own brands - Lidl and Kaufland, not others).

On the other hand he eats only Purina Delicat and a German brand  dry food (I do  not remember the brand right now). He also loves big granules, although only 9 months old (that is the reason I cannot feed him Junior food, which is usually of low granules).

So, you see, a pretty mixed behavior in terms of food.

I also treat him rarely by raw meat. I tried to mix egg shells to reach the calcium level and/or boiled rice, without much success.

I gave up raw home made food, as it is very dangerous to feed un-balanced diet. Although my background helps me in calculating  nutritional balances, I found this extremely laborious and risky.

I am not saying not to feed meat or fishes (raw or prepared - have an eye on salt content! Many cans do have extremely high salt content which is pure poison for kitties kidneys). Just make sure you are on the treat side (not on the feeding side) and stay away from Tuna fish and liver.

Some human food cans also have sugar added. You wont believe how many!

Reason is the producers are not bound to report sugar content as a chemical adjuvant. So they add it to make food more palatable (sufgar is cheap). The sugar can be disguised in 2 different components: glucosis and fructosis, then sending these 2 sugars at the end of the content list and leaving the impression that the sugar content is lower than real. Sugar is another poison for cats, although the humans may not notice it in their human canned food.
 
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lizzie356

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Hi Willowy,

As a kitten my cat had lovely soft thick fur but after a year on Friskies dry food, gourmet it became rough to the touch and he also seemed to have breathing problems.   I insisted on changing him to Hills from our vet despite the high price.   It's now been 3 months and his fur is beautifully shiny and soft, his respiratory problems have gone away and he is full of naughty nonsense.   He also loves it.
 
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lizzie356

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Hi LTS3,

Friskies is a supermarket grade cat food along with Whiskas and Carmor, and we only have Iams and Hills Science Diet at the Vets.    I have changed our cat to Hills Science diet and he is doing much better.    The pilchards I give him occasionally does not have anything with it, only a tiny bit of tomato sauce from the can and I mash it up for him.   The tomatoe sauce is pure with no additives.

Thanks for your concern.
 
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