I would like some feeding suggestions for my family of 2 moderately chubby adult cats and three 2 month old pear-shaped kittens.
I currently feed the adults Purina Kit 'N' Kaboodle. I can get an 18 lb bag for $8, but would like to move them up to something better-qualitied. They are insanely un-picky, and will scarf anything I put in front of them. (i've tried them on iams adult, and they loved it, but i believe that it is STILL not quite the quality food I'm looking for). Both are fixed, and I have cut them back to 2 feedings a day (instead of free-feeding), as they were getting fat and I would like them to maintain a healthy, sub-Hutt weight. This is where we come to the first bout of questions:
1. On a better quality dry food, would I still have to keep them on their scheduled twice-daily feeding, or would they simply eat less, and therefore be able to free-feed again?
2. If possible, I would like to augment their dry-feedings with a can or 2 (split 2-5 ways, but most likely 5, as the kittens find the sruff irresistable as well) of an equally high-quality wet chow, as cats are carnivores, and dry-chow mice and birds don't exist in the wild. Should this affect their weight much?
I currently free-feed the kittens Purina kitten chow, augmented with 2 cans of 9 lives wet food (split 3 ways), one around noon, and one around midnight. Second bout of questions:
3. What are some good, high-quality brands of kitten chow?
Ideally, I'd like to switch them all onto foods with an absolute minimum of words I cannot pronounce or find in a dictionary in the ingredients listings, and keep the extra pounds to a minimum as well ( a tiny bit of pudge is fine, but i'd like to avoid obesity-caused health problems). Any and all help is appreciated.
I currently feed the adults Purina Kit 'N' Kaboodle. I can get an 18 lb bag for $8, but would like to move them up to something better-qualitied. They are insanely un-picky, and will scarf anything I put in front of them. (i've tried them on iams adult, and they loved it, but i believe that it is STILL not quite the quality food I'm looking for). Both are fixed, and I have cut them back to 2 feedings a day (instead of free-feeding), as they were getting fat and I would like them to maintain a healthy, sub-Hutt weight. This is where we come to the first bout of questions:
1. On a better quality dry food, would I still have to keep them on their scheduled twice-daily feeding, or would they simply eat less, and therefore be able to free-feed again?
2. If possible, I would like to augment their dry-feedings with a can or 2 (split 2-5 ways, but most likely 5, as the kittens find the sruff irresistable as well) of an equally high-quality wet chow, as cats are carnivores, and dry-chow mice and birds don't exist in the wild. Should this affect their weight much?
I currently free-feed the kittens Purina kitten chow, augmented with 2 cans of 9 lives wet food (split 3 ways), one around noon, and one around midnight. Second bout of questions:
3. What are some good, high-quality brands of kitten chow?
Ideally, I'd like to switch them all onto foods with an absolute minimum of words I cannot pronounce or find in a dictionary in the ingredients listings, and keep the extra pounds to a minimum as well ( a tiny bit of pudge is fine, but i'd like to avoid obesity-caused health problems). Any and all help is appreciated.