POLL-Which do you prefer to feed your cat?

I raw feed my cats.

I'd like to go completely raw, but for practical reasons (mainly Milla's seemingly incureable aversion to meat), I feed lot of dry too. A top quality wet would be better than dry perhaps, but it's just too expensive for me.

Zissou gets dry kitten food all she wants, which isn't very much, and then about 2 ounces of wet food. I don't worry about her eating too much because she is a skinny binny and still growing. Will have to see if that changes.

I read the article about dry food. I don't understand it though, because the problem seems to be that cats don't have the amino acids to digest carbs and so that makes them overweight? If they can't digest it, then it is just roughage, they equivalent of cellulose or whatever to us. Can someone please clarify this for me?

Also, some cat food companies claim to have done feeding studies that prove that corn is good for cats (not as a first ingredient). Is this just propaganda?

Help!

Dry mostly, but wet food every now and then.

My 6 get dry throughout the day and then share one 400g tin of wet food at night. Because Max is still young, he gets some kitten food too.

I feed my 2 cats a can of wet food in the morning, dry food in the afternoon & more dry food before bed. I can't afford the expensive top-quality food, but they do get good quality name-brand cat food. I also give them treats here and there too. And sometimes they get scraps of meat from dinner.

Also, if you would like, you can make this thread into a real poll by clicking 'Thread Tools', in the yellow/red bar at the top of the thread, then 'Add Poll'.

Wet AM/PM, with dry left out in between for fiber.

Wet and dry. Each gets 1.5 ounces of wet in the morning, and again in the evening. Dry food is out to self-feed in between.

Jamie gets dry in the morning, and wet in the evening, and it has been a hard battle getting him to eat canned food (my preference) at all. His predecessors only got canned, because I really don't like all the grain in dry foods, and worry about urinary tract/kidney problems. He doesn't like raw food, and with all the trouble with avian flu (which has killed exotic and domestic cats in Asia fed raw poultry http://www.vet.cornell.edu/FHC/influenza.htm) and salmonella, I wouldn't feed it to him now even if he did.
The canned food I give him is all meat, all fish, meat and fish, or meat/fish with 1 - 2% whole grain rice. His dry food also is "human-grade" (yes, I know that designation is controversial) meat and fish, with very little in the way of grain.

Okay i feed my cats dry food only for a couple of reasons and that is because that is all they really want they will eat a can of wet food occasionally and if it is offered to them they will walk away and it goes bad all the time. The other reason is that they stink the whole house up on wet food, we even have the automatic litter box and that still does not help the smell

So my random question is what is the raw diet and does it benifet the cats and how? i have never heard of this before so i am really curious. thank you

Sienna gets both wet and dry, although she prefers eating dry more unfortunately.

We tried adding wet food into Tori's diet; however, she just refuses to eat it. We thought we were making progress when we got her to pick at one brand of food from our clinic...but her minimal interest only lasted about a day.

If I had it my way, they both would be eating wet.

For those who are trying to switch their cats from dry to wet, I have a tip: Start with very small cans (2 to 3 ounces) or pouches. As I stated above, I had a heck of a time with Jamie, and our former "half cat", ZsaZsa, who ate canned in her previous homes, joined him in insisting on small, one-meal cans once she was living here. Wet food is preserved through heating. The smaller the serving, the shorter the time it's heated, and the more the flavor is preserved. I was told that by a guy who works in the pet food branch, in response to my inquiries, and it has since been confirmed by others. My sister, who has several cats, has also found that they more readily accept small cans. Her cats were insisting on dry cat food, or dog food (she also has 3 dogs). When the cats were offered small, individual cans, they really "went to town". After an initial period, she was able to introduce larger cans, split between the cats. Small cans/pouches are more expensive, but are still cheaper than expensive surgery/prescription diets for UTIs/CRF in the long run.

wet& dry, fifty-fifty. used to feed them all wet, but that got expensive. (this was before we adopted some out, so might switch back now that we're down to a sane number)

Originally Posted by katie7897

Okay i feed my cats dry food only for a couple of reasons and that is because that is all they really want they will eat a can of wet food occasionally and if it is offered to them they will walk away and it goes bad all the time. The other reason is that they stink the whole house up on wet food, we even have the automatic litter box and that still does not help the smell

So my random question is what is the raw diet and does it benifet the cats and how? i have never heard of this before so i am really curious. thank you

Click to expand...

I don't know much about the raw diet but what kind of wet food are you feeding them? My cat's won't touch some stuff but they love wet food with no 'chunks'. I've found sciene diet for adults to work best for them. I used to have smelly problems with their litter too with cheaper brands but SD doesn't make them smell.

Jcat,

When we first got Kiaira, she was eating both wet and dry. Upon discussing it with a vet years ago, we were told dry was better for them. So Kiaira was switched to dry only and when we got Tori she was put on a dry diet as well.
Once I started working at my current clinic a couple of years ago, I learned wet food is healthier and a dry diet can contribute to CRF, IBD etc. So needless to say, we quickly purchased wet food. Kiaira readily accepted the wet food (but she used to eat it) and continued to love it until we lost our fight to renal failure last year...something I know years of dry food probably contributed to.
Unfortunately, Tori refused to have anything to do with it as she had only ever known dry and she was free fed for years which I also know is a no-no. So that combined with her grazing habits, has made our attempts at trying to convert her to wet food quite difficult.
When we tried to introduce wet food into Tori's diet again about a month ago, we only gave her small portions to decrease her chances of developing G.I. problems. Still no go...
She's has just started a prescription diet for her weight and she is now no longer being free fed...
Her weight is another reason why we have to be very careful in introducing food she doesn't care for... It's so frustrating sometimes!
Anyway, if you or anyone else have any other good tips (we have tried a few which haven't worked but I'm always open to more ideas), I would be more than willing to try it.

Napolean gets all wet food. He gets Evanger's Game Meats.

Kiaira-

I had to convert a kibble addict much like your Tori. I started out by giving him chunks of freeze-dried chicken. Not like a kibble, but the actual chicken breast freeze dried...so it would have a crunchy, hard texture like what he was used to. Slowly, I added some dry, baked chicken into that mix until it was all dry baked chicken. THEN, I added moist, boiled chicken to that. Then, after a few weeks of him being used to something other than crunchy food, I put a tiny little dab of wet food on his chicken. I slowly built that up, while at the same time, putting a tiny dab on his nose. He eats it now. He'll eat a whole 2 brands, but he'll eat it! Also, I feed Evanger's Holistic Pheasant for him, and I've never heard of a cat not liking it. It seems to be extremely palatable to them.

My kits get a mix between wet and dry....and they get fed it twice a day.....

Its pretty much 50/50

I do a mix of both.

With the exception of Sage, She gets canned food only.