thoughts on these brands

[mx4878]

Hello!
So i currently feed weruva and tiki cat wet food (Only 2 meals that contain seafood per week). However they are both very low in calories so i tend to need to feed more which affects the amount my parents have to pay monthly. Im looking for a brand similar to their quality that is more calorie dense.
I got a box of carnilove cans adult chicken and lamb + kitten turkey, the can had a pic of meat shreds so i assumed they were shredded meat but they are pate + chunks of meat. Is carnilove a high quality brand?
My friend feeds her cats wellness core, and im wondering if that too is a good brand?

Im looking for brands that have very low carbohydrate content, no by-products, no carrageenan, preferably a low amount of thickeners, and no legumes to replace the grains with.

Another question i have is, can i safely feed the weruva wet food that contains tuna without worrying about the mercury? They say they use smaller tuna so lower the percentages of mercury, but cats are small animals and i wonder if what seems like a low percentage of mercury to us is actually a lot to them. What about tiki cat aloha? is that fine to feed, it is much cheaper that their tiki cat after dark line which is what i usually feed my cats.

 

[Maurey]

Carnilove isn’t great, sadly. It has cranberries in it, which are toxic to cats, and the omega source is linseed, which is something cats can’t process into omega 3 effectively, if at all.

I would suggest wellness complete over wellness core. There aren’t any official reports, but a lot of people feeding exclusively wet food and core as apart of their rotation had their cats develop urinary stones. Good foods in that series are Turkey, chicken, beef and chicken, and their kitten pate, if you have any cats under a year — the others are adult maintenance only.

I would never feed tuna, it’s very nutritionally poor and addictive, and you can never be certain the company’s claims are true.

Assuming you’re in the states, some other great wet foods are Rawz, Lotus Just Juicy, Instinct (you can just remove the veggies as they’re not mashed into the food), Dr Elsey’s, Feline Natural (some recipes are very high in fat, so be careful w your rotation), and Identity (also fairly high in fat). For some more budget options, Fancy Feast Classics, Tiny Tiger, American Journey.

 

[mx4878]

Thank you, unfortunately I cant find wellness complete locally. Do you mean that people only feeding wet food from wellness core, or a wet food range that includes wellness core?
I have salmon oil that i add to the days that they eat weruva as that too is lacking omega 3 that cats can process. I thought that cranberries were fine for cats, when my cat had urinary issues my vet prescribed a medication that had cranberries as an ingredient, perhaps they are not something to be fed daily though.
I have tried Instinct, but it is always sold out and not widely available. All the other brands you listed are not available in my country except fancy feast classics.

 

[Maurey]

They had it in rotation, but it was fed often. Could be a coincidence, but a good 50 people had that experience in a nutrition group I’m in.

Cranberries aren’t effective at treating UTIs in cats not sure why you were advised that. Cranberries contain benzoic acid, which cats can’t metabolize. Here are two reports on benzoic acid in cats: Nutrient Requirements of Cats,: Revised Edition, 1986 | The National Academies Press

557. Benzoic acid and its calcium, potassium and sodium salts (WHO Food Additives Series 18)

And a report that cranberry doesn’t benefit cats:

Growers' pet project - The Boston Globe

Which country are you in? Can you order off of Zooplus?

 

[mx4878]

Im in kuwait, i dont think i can order off of zooplus. I dont think i want to feed wellness core or carnilove now though, thanks for the information. I found another brand that according to the company contains no by-products. Wellfed (showed up when i searched for wellness complete and it is available near me) However, only the cans targeted towards sterilized adult cats are available. It claims to be completely carb free.
My cats arent sterilized yet but will be in a few months, is it okay if i feed them this food too? (For my adult cats, I couldnt find anything for the kittens)
It is 90 kcal per 100 grams which is great for the price
Weruva paw lickin' chicken is only 57 kcal per 85 grams and Tiki cat after dark chicken and duck is 59 kcal per 79 grams

My adult cats on average need around 270 kcal per day which is around 4.5 cans a day and one of my cats refuse to eat more than three cans a day.

 

[Maurey]

That food looks pretty great, yes the only real distinction with sterilized food is that it’s usually lower calorie, so should be fine to feed entire cats with.

 

[Flybynight]

Maurey
Can you post a link to the nutrition group you are in - where over fifty people had cats develop stones on Wellness Core and all fifty people said full wet diets only?
My cats have eaten Wellness Core as part of their rotation since 2018 and no issues. Both males.
So I am a little curious.

 

[Maurey]

Maurey
Can you post a link to the nutrition group you are in - where over fifty people had cats develop stones on Wellness Core and all fifty people said full wet diets only?
My cats have eaten Wellness Core as part of their rotation since 2018 and no issues. Both males.
So I am a little curious.

The wellness brand, in general, isn’t recommended for susceptible cats in the FLUT group (Feline Lower Urinary Tract) — they say there’s a tendency for wellness brand food to raise urinary pH, which would explain issues with crystals.

The Feline Nutrition group has also noticed some tendency that cats on wet food with blockages were on wellness core. Apparently they changed their formulation somewhere around Q4 last year, though, so maybe it’s less of an issue now. Personally, I wouldn’t feed it just to be safe, if other alternatives were possible.

 

[ladytimedramon]

When I gave Delilah Wellness and Wellness Core, she had soft, smelly stools. I had to stop.

 

[mx4878]

I got the food (from wellfed) and there seems to be some hard white stuff inside? its a very small amount and can be broken easily with a little pressure, i wonder if it is bone? It says on the can 100% boneless fresh meat though

 

[Flybynight]

Maurey
Thanks for mentioning the source.
The tricky thing is there are various varieties of the Wellness Core line. They have differing ingredients. The pouches with chunks are not the same as the shredded tins in content for example.

I would be curious what variety or varieties were used and how often by those who claim the link. As there are differences in the food depending what you feed in the line.

Did the people move their cats to fully wet before or after the diagnosis and how often were they fed the food in their rotation would be factors. If the food is an actual linkage.

To be fair, it could be anecdotal as correlation is not causation, especially if the cats were already prone to the condition.

That the owners all joined a group for cats with urinary issues would not be very representative overall of cats who ate the food as part of their rotation necessarily. If you went on a feline heart forum and found a segement of owners whose cats all ate Purina brand food it would not mean Purina caused the condition.


That said, I do not think Wellness Core is the perfect wet food, I don't think any are, which is why I have a pretty wide rotation. Wellness Core to my mind is not top of the range but not Felix, Whiskas or Hills and such.

 

[Flybynight]

mx4878
Can you post a photo?
I don't know that brand but often I see white bits in other brands. To me it looks like vitamin additives, maybe taurine.

 

[mx4878]

The white stuff circled in green is what is presumably bone, its hard, i can crack it with my fingernails. this is the beef and salmon pate and i noticed the some of the bones looked like fish bones. The white stuff circled in black is also white stuff, pretty soft, paste like texture when pressed which i guess would either be fat or vitamins. I find bone like stuff in a lot of pate textured foods, i just hope im mistaken.

 

[Flybynight]

Could be gristle or tendon type bits. I see in some pate type foods what looks at times like fat and other times I think are parts of the vitamin/supplement mix added to foods.

 

[mx4878]

Perhaps, i personally dont want to take the risk and either way oscar hated it so i had to return it. It also didnt have any official balanced and complete statement. Perhaps i could feed a high calorie treat? I just dont know where to get one or even look for one. I got weruva chicken and chicken liver but tiki cat was out of stock. Most cat food was out of stock on petzone (biggest pet store in my country) so i had to get carnilove again, could i continue feeding it until i get my hands on a different food? Its less than half of their regular diet and i can remove the cranberry as it is most of the time intact (im assuming it wasnt cooked with the food) Is it better if i remove the cranberry? I also wonder why it has not been recalled yet for the use of cranberry? Fancy feasts is available but unlabeled by-products scare me, it could be any animal and amber has sensitivities that i have to trace down and exclude from the diet.

 

[Lazy Orange House Cat]

Cranberries are not toxic to cats. That's raisins. Cranberries are in many, many cat foods and are perfectly safe.

 

[Maurey]

Cranberries are not toxic to cats. That's raisins. Cranberries are in many, many cat foods and are perfectly safe.

Cranberries contain benzoic acid, which cats can’t metabolise, so they can lead to culminating toxicity over time.

some very old papers on benzoic acid causing neurological symptoms in cats:

Experimental benzoic acid poisoning in the cat

The toxicity of benzoic acid in the cat was investigated under experimental conditions. The maximum permissible single dose was found to be 0.45 g....

eurekamag.com

Europe PMC

Europe PMC is an archive of life sciences journal literature.

europepmc.org

also see my previous post for more information on cranberries and benzoic acid. Just because something is in pet food doesn’t mean it’s healthy or completely safe. Tomatoes are toxic to cats, too, yet they’re weirdly common in wet food.

 

[mx4878]

Would it be okay if i removed the cranberry as it is mostly intact in their canned food line?

 

[Lazy Orange House Cat]

Cranberries contain benzoic acid, which cats can’t metabolise, so they can lead to culminating toxicity over time.

some very old papers on benzoic acid causing neurological symptoms in cats:

Experimental benzoic acid poisoning in the cat

The toxicity of benzoic acid in the cat was investigated under experimental conditions. The maximum permissible single dose was found to be 0.45 g....

eurekamag.com

Europe PMC

Europe PMC is an archive of life sciences journal literature.

europepmc.org

also see my previous post for more information on cranberries and benzoic acid. Just because something is in pet food doesn’t mean it’s healthy or completely safe. Tomatoes are toxic to cats, too, yet they’re weirdly common in wet food.

Yeah, cats are just dropping like flies from tomato and cranberry poisoning. Tomato greens are toxic to cats, not the red fruit.