do you always feed your cat the same thing?

Have you been feeding your cat the same food for years, or do you switch to a different brand when you buy a new bag, just for variety?
Is variety or consistency healthier? or does it not matter?

I have one who ate the same thing for 13 years... my younger one eats the same dry but both get different wet... if you want to give variety switch dry slowly and mix canned together if totally different( say kitty eats tuna normally and you give beef mix a bit of beef in the tuna..

I change my kitty's food often. She'll eat most anything and I do this because I want her to be able to eat different brands in case one brand is discontinued. Her diet consists of dry, wet and cooked chicken and salmon. I tried giving her some raw chicken, but she would have none of that.

My two cats eat the same two kinds of food (one wet, one dry) every day. They're not finicky eaters or anything (although Spike snubbed kitten food when he was younger), it's just that we buy the best food we can afford that our vet recommends, which doesn't change. If our vet suggesting changing their diet, we'd do it in a heart-beat, but for now it's not necessary, and they don't seem to be bored with their meals.

Bijou and Mika get the same dry food all the time (which they prefer over all others) and rotated on 3 different flavours of Merricks' canned food.

Loki gets the same flavor dry and wet every day - never had a problem

I feed raw food, so it always has the same suppliments, but different kinds of meat.

Tiny, Sister and Bucky are all in agreement on the Wellness Dry, and I get them the Organix or the Chicken Soup every now and then for variety (they aren't in total agreement on those brands, so I always have to put out the Wellness anyways.) I leave the dry food out for them all day. Bucky eats more wet food than Tiny and Sister, she will eat almost any flavor. Tiny has always been terribly picky and will only eat it once in a blue moon, and Sister just prefers the dry food.

They get a variety of the canned; Wellness, Evolve, Felidae, Newman's Own,Chicken Soup and Nutro Max in the seafood and chicken flavors (none of them like the rabbit, lamb or beef.)

Our girl kitty Angel would live on french fries and potato chips if she had her way. She loves people junk food, lol.

Dexter & Sadie always eat the same food.
Twice I have attempted to change their diet & failed.
They have wet pouches AM & PM with dry out all the time.

Mine will eat just about any kind of dry! I try to mix it up just in case something isn't made anymore, but they usually feast on nutro or purina one. I always slowly mix them so they are usually eating a combo of foods. The kitten also eat purina one, but now that they are free to roam around seem to eat the cats food. Now I have 3 bags of purina one kitten for them that is only "snacked" on. They all get 1/4 can or 1/2 pouch wet twice a day. The big boys refuse to eat anything that isn't sliced in gravy or in a pouch. Grrr. So unfortunately that means they mostly get friskies wet. They will eat the gravy from science diet beef chunks, and will usually eat meow mix pouches, friskies pouches, iams and nutro. They aren't crazy about whiskas pouches, and that's okay, b/c I'm not crazy about feeding them that.
The kittens are eating nutro max kitten wet, but have slowly lost interest and are now more interested in leftover wet from the cats. Still, it is mostly gone. They get three different flavors.
On the wet foods, I try to vary the flavors so they don't get "attached". For a long time, the big favorite was friskies turkey & cheese.

We buy whatever's on sale at when we're buying cat food. We have seven cats, and as long as we stay away from certain generics because of one cat's finicky tummy we seem to do well.

Of course that's not to say our cats don't like people food as well. My cat Bubba would live on chocolate if you'd let him, and George seems to think it's his right to eat whatever food we're eating at the time...as long as it's cooked, don't try to give him raw food or he'll hiss and prance away.

since all mine are under a year old i feed them kitten food and around here there really isn't a lot of "choices" for kitten food so i usually feed them the same thing... for now

Usually I take my cats off of kitten food when they're about eight months old or so and start getting them used to adult food. Of course we only have one kitten now and he's been eating adult food since he was about six months old because he snubbed the kitten food.

Just a suggestion

mine have not been on the same thing forever for dry food. when i first got raven and nabu, IAMS was the best available. so they got that. then Eukanuba came out, and we switched to that. when they got crystals, they got c/d dry. and after a while we switched to Nutro Max. they were on Nutro when we got stimpy. when raven's FIC flared up, the vet put them on c/d again. then we moved, and consulted a cat specialist that recommended Sensible Choice which they are on now.

the guys get a variety for canned food. and we go through 12-15 oz canned a day. they don't like most of the high end premium, so they mostly get Fancy Feast, Pro Plan, and Meow Mix pouches. and the occasional can of Nutro and Friskies pouch.

I rotate between a variety of extremely high quality foods. A major goal for me is to keep them from getting picky. I also avoid grocery store brands, both because of the quality and because they are much tastier than most premium brands so again they tend to encourage finickiness.

I wish I had rotated food when my kitties were younger. It would be so much easier for them to adapt to a new food.

Originally Posted by semiferal

I rotate between a variety of extremely high quality foods. A major goal for me is to keep them from getting picky. I also avoid grocery store brands, both because of the quality and because they are much tastier than most premium brands so again they tend to encourage finickiness.

Click to expand...

We've only had gus for a few months, but he gets the same brand of kitten food. We leave dry food out for him, and every once in a while we'll mix it with wet food. We got him kitten treats, but he doesn't care for them. So as a treat, and whenever we eat our meals, we give him some rotisserie chicken, or if what we're eating is safe, we'll give him a little.

Originally Posted by xocats

I wish I had rotated food when my kitties were younger. It would be so much easier for them to adapt to a new food.

Click to expand...

That's exactly the point I stress to all my adopters! It's a lot easier to convince a healthy youngster to try something new than it is to get a grumpy 14-year-old who's just been diagnosed with kidney disease and doesn't feel well to do the same!