Hi all. It's been a while since I've posted here. This is quite long: skip down to the last paragraph if you've not got the time to read. My two cats are indoor cats, doing really well, and eating Iams dry food (original: first five ingredients are Chicken, Corn meal, Chicken By-product Meal, Corn Grits and Poultry By-Product Meal). I've read a lot of the general advice here that wet is better than dry, and that By-Product is bad, but Chicken is the first ingredient, and they have been happy on it, so I haven't changed their food.
However, my spouse (S) is currently running his crazy (C) mother's rural disaster area as she's recovering from an operation. C has horses, goats, a bull (wandered on from neighbor's yard and they are co-owning, for no discernible reason), dogs, and, of course, cats. S loves cats, and can't stand to see them living brutal and unhappy short lives. C says she spays and neuters (when she has the money), but the age structure there is that the majority of cats are under one year old, so she's obviously failed at keeping the cats fixed. In order to make the place sustainable and eventually cut down on cat numbers, S decided to pay for spaying and neutering himself. On Friday he got four cats fixed: two females and two males. One of the newly neutered males declined in health after the surgery and crashed Monday night. S got him back to the vet, where they put him in an incubator and on IV fluids. It now appears that the cat simply wasn't healthy enough to withstand the neuter. The other three cats are doing very well. C brought in four more cats to be fixed today, and the vets did it, but when he picked up the four newly fixed cats and talked about the sick cat (still at the vet, might survive, might not), the vets told him that he needed to get the cats healthier before bringing in any more to fix. The cats are too skinny and just not generally healthy enough to fix.
S is buying food tomorrow, and wants to know what food to buy. There are probably something like 40 cats on the property, including 11 kittens. S really doesn't have a lot of money, and he needs to set up a sustainable system where these cats will be healthy after he leaves. He claims that C is not capable of feeding wet food without letting it go bad. (There are rusting cat food cans all over the property, both still full and empty.) C buys whatever food is cheapest, changing foods and giving all of the cats diarrhea to save less than a dollar on 20 lb bags of food.
Right now S is mixing the two brands of dry cat food on the property. S has been setting up better systems of feeding (two goat-free areas for cat food instead of just letting cats tear into 20 lb bags of food themselves), and might be able to make some rooms in the house safe and healthy enough to put cats in. S is the reason that I feed our two indoor, well-loved cats Iams and is planning on simply buying Iams kitten and adult food. He called me and asked me to figure out where he can buy Iams cheapest, or if there is a better food for his purposes. S will be paying the vet to continue to take care of these cats, and might be able to set up a system where his brother will buy cat food and deliver it to the property, but even this might encourage bad behavior on the part of C. (The fact that S is paying for cats to be fixed has caused C to refuse to pay for hay and oats because S must have money, if he's got money to fix cats.) Giving C money, even expressly for cat food, will result in it being spent on horses and goats and other things, and will not improve the cat's lives.
So, I need to find 1) a healthy but affordable as possible dry cat food and, 2) a healthy but affordable wet food to supplement, if I can convince him that this will help. Any advice on specific foods and whether or not to feed everybody kitten food? Any specific reputable sources for nutrition and foods in an "owned colony" sort of situation? How do I figure out if the problem is the food or how it is fed to the cats?
However, my spouse (S) is currently running his crazy (C) mother's rural disaster area as she's recovering from an operation. C has horses, goats, a bull (wandered on from neighbor's yard and they are co-owning, for no discernible reason), dogs, and, of course, cats. S loves cats, and can't stand to see them living brutal and unhappy short lives. C says she spays and neuters (when she has the money), but the age structure there is that the majority of cats are under one year old, so she's obviously failed at keeping the cats fixed. In order to make the place sustainable and eventually cut down on cat numbers, S decided to pay for spaying and neutering himself. On Friday he got four cats fixed: two females and two males. One of the newly neutered males declined in health after the surgery and crashed Monday night. S got him back to the vet, where they put him in an incubator and on IV fluids. It now appears that the cat simply wasn't healthy enough to withstand the neuter. The other three cats are doing very well. C brought in four more cats to be fixed today, and the vets did it, but when he picked up the four newly fixed cats and talked about the sick cat (still at the vet, might survive, might not), the vets told him that he needed to get the cats healthier before bringing in any more to fix. The cats are too skinny and just not generally healthy enough to fix.
S is buying food tomorrow, and wants to know what food to buy. There are probably something like 40 cats on the property, including 11 kittens. S really doesn't have a lot of money, and he needs to set up a sustainable system where these cats will be healthy after he leaves. He claims that C is not capable of feeding wet food without letting it go bad. (There are rusting cat food cans all over the property, both still full and empty.) C buys whatever food is cheapest, changing foods and giving all of the cats diarrhea to save less than a dollar on 20 lb bags of food.
Right now S is mixing the two brands of dry cat food on the property. S has been setting up better systems of feeding (two goat-free areas for cat food instead of just letting cats tear into 20 lb bags of food themselves), and might be able to make some rooms in the house safe and healthy enough to put cats in. S is the reason that I feed our two indoor, well-loved cats Iams and is planning on simply buying Iams kitten and adult food. He called me and asked me to figure out where he can buy Iams cheapest, or if there is a better food for his purposes. S will be paying the vet to continue to take care of these cats, and might be able to set up a system where his brother will buy cat food and deliver it to the property, but even this might encourage bad behavior on the part of C. (The fact that S is paying for cats to be fixed has caused C to refuse to pay for hay and oats because S must have money, if he's got money to fix cats.) Giving C money, even expressly for cat food, will result in it being spent on horses and goats and other things, and will not improve the cat's lives.
So, I need to find 1) a healthy but affordable as possible dry cat food and, 2) a healthy but affordable wet food to supplement, if I can convince him that this will help. Any advice on specific foods and whether or not to feed everybody kitten food? Any specific reputable sources for nutrition and foods in an "owned colony" sort of situation? How do I figure out if the problem is the food or how it is fed to the cats?