thanx again I understand completely now
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What to feed my ragdoll kittens, lost in a sea of brands and types!
- Thread starter avangelava
- Start Date
Ho boy. I can't remember where I found it, but I found a website dedicated to answering what is the best cat food and it did a analysis of all the good brands, pluses and minuses. Y'know, so I picked the one I liked best for my Ragdoll boy. I don't remember why I chose it, but he did very well on Wellness Core Kitten (wet) food.
Ah, but when I got him a playpal from a Rescue, she found that food too rich because she always vomited it up. I didn't want to separate them so I had to come up with something they both liked and I still liked.
Anyway, if it was just him, that is what I fed him, twice a day, with some free feeding of Ideal Balance kitten food. But everyone has their reasons.
Ah, but when I got him a playpal from a Rescue, she found that food too rich because she always vomited it up. I didn't want to separate them so I had to come up with something they both liked and I still liked.
Anyway, if it was just him, that is what I fed him, twice a day, with some free feeding of Ideal Balance kitten food. But everyone has their reasons.
One note on senior cat food: I know about the dangers of dry (I too lost the perfect companion to kidney disease, less than 3 weeks ago, and had fed dry all her 18 years), *but* a couple of years ago we started feeding her Hill's Science Diet Age-Defying and could really tell that it made a difference! I'm sure the low phosphorous was part of it, knowing what I know now. I'm not comfortable recommending their Mature canned varieties but if your parents feed him dry I'd suggest they try that. (In dry they have regular, mature, another step, then the age-defying, lol!)
That being said, I agree w/many others on the things to look for - high quality protein, low carb, no/limited fish, no carrageenan.
And to Scotty Parno, yes, there are coupons on both the Instinct web site and Facebook page.
That being said, I agree w/many others on the things to look for - high quality protein, low carb, no/limited fish, no carrageenan.
And to Scotty Parno, yes, there are coupons on both the Instinct web site and Facebook page.
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I know this post is kind of old and you might have found answers to many of your questions by now but I wanted to add a thing or two here.
You asked a question about the L-Lysine treats, I give both of my cats L-Lysine powder supplement in their food to boost their immune system. It is supposed to help with outbreaks of the herpes virus and upper respiratory infections in cats and perfectly safe. As long as you don't give more than the recommended dose because too much can be hard on the liver. But it is all natural.
The other thing you mentioned was about feeding raw being too expensive. All the wet can varieties you mentioned here feeding two cats will be expensive. I have been going through the whole what to feed thing for a little while now myself with two cats.
I have been reading every site, experimenting with different foods etc.
One site I read the woman wrote for her to feed her two cats fully grounds raw it costs her about .90$ a day. Today it cost me close to 7$ to feed my two cats on wellness.
Granted raw is a bit more work than dumping food out of a can. But the health benefits for our pets. And obvious savings it can have for us from feeding supposed high quality canned food. I can not deny The benefits outweigh the inconvenience and am currently researching making the switch.
I do also want to warn you about purina brand, most people laugh at me when I say this but I don't care, I'm not taking any chances. Our cats are already suffering enough problems from not getting the right food I'm not going to risk making it any worse and I don't trust a lot of companies who just want to line their pockets.
I bought a bag of purina brand dry food once because I was trying to find a dry food that my picky eater would actually eat, just to leave some out overnight because my teenager still eats like a pig and eats half his food when he does not finish. Anyway, I bought one of the more expensive brands, healthy coat or something. I gradually changed it over the course of a week or so like they say to, but only after a few days of them eating it I noticed the poop was starting to smell worse. As soon as the food was totally changed their crap smelled so bad I almost threw up and could smell them going to the bathroom all the way across my apartment.
I had no idea what was going on, not long after I walked into the bathroom one day to find my boy in the liter box with this look on his face and the whole apartment smelled like a septic tank, he got out of the litter box with poop hanging out of hit butt. Sorry for the graphics. Finally I decided to really take a look at this bag of cat food. Saw that purina is really made my nestle, and nestle uses GMO. They were one of the companies who paid the most money to fight to keep GMO off product labels. After that I don't trust them.
It wasn't just my boy either the kitten had loose smelly still from that crap too and it cost twice as much as the other dry food in the grocery store.
It's so hard to trust any of these companies anymore, most are looking for the best way to make an easy buck. They don't really care about the health of our pets or what's best for them because if they did they wouldn't be making all this cheap unnatural crap to begin with.
That's why so many people have been making their own pet food, and honestly it really does seem like the best option the more I look into it and think about it. It can be overwhelming when you first start reading about it, but really it looks quite simple once you get everything down and your cats are actually eating it.
Your cats are only 6 months old too so it won't be that hard to make the transfer. I mean do what's best for you in your circumstances, and with what you have the means to do. But if you are going to spend the money on tiki and wellness, you cold feed raw for less than half that. And prepare food twice a month a portion it out on a free Sunday or something. Especially if you order it all already pre-ground.
Idk where you live but if you ever tested your cats out with raw and found they liked it you could order it all done for you from this site or something similar, just so you can see prices.
https://www.hare-today.com/feed.php
You asked a question about the L-Lysine treats, I give both of my cats L-Lysine powder supplement in their food to boost their immune system. It is supposed to help with outbreaks of the herpes virus and upper respiratory infections in cats and perfectly safe. As long as you don't give more than the recommended dose because too much can be hard on the liver. But it is all natural.
The other thing you mentioned was about feeding raw being too expensive. All the wet can varieties you mentioned here feeding two cats will be expensive. I have been going through the whole what to feed thing for a little while now myself with two cats.
I have been reading every site, experimenting with different foods etc.
One site I read the woman wrote for her to feed her two cats fully grounds raw it costs her about .90$ a day. Today it cost me close to 7$ to feed my two cats on wellness.
Granted raw is a bit more work than dumping food out of a can. But the health benefits for our pets. And obvious savings it can have for us from feeding supposed high quality canned food. I can not deny The benefits outweigh the inconvenience and am currently researching making the switch.
I do also want to warn you about purina brand, most people laugh at me when I say this but I don't care, I'm not taking any chances. Our cats are already suffering enough problems from not getting the right food I'm not going to risk making it any worse and I don't trust a lot of companies who just want to line their pockets.
I bought a bag of purina brand dry food once because I was trying to find a dry food that my picky eater would actually eat, just to leave some out overnight because my teenager still eats like a pig and eats half his food when he does not finish. Anyway, I bought one of the more expensive brands, healthy coat or something. I gradually changed it over the course of a week or so like they say to, but only after a few days of them eating it I noticed the poop was starting to smell worse. As soon as the food was totally changed their crap smelled so bad I almost threw up and could smell them going to the bathroom all the way across my apartment.
I had no idea what was going on, not long after I walked into the bathroom one day to find my boy in the liter box with this look on his face and the whole apartment smelled like a septic tank, he got out of the litter box with poop hanging out of hit butt. Sorry for the graphics. Finally I decided to really take a look at this bag of cat food. Saw that purina is really made my nestle, and nestle uses GMO. They were one of the companies who paid the most money to fight to keep GMO off product labels. After that I don't trust them.
It wasn't just my boy either the kitten had loose smelly still from that crap too and it cost twice as much as the other dry food in the grocery store.
It's so hard to trust any of these companies anymore, most are looking for the best way to make an easy buck. They don't really care about the health of our pets or what's best for them because if they did they wouldn't be making all this cheap unnatural crap to begin with.
That's why so many people have been making their own pet food, and honestly it really does seem like the best option the more I look into it and think about it. It can be overwhelming when you first start reading about it, but really it looks quite simple once you get everything down and your cats are actually eating it.
Your cats are only 6 months old too so it won't be that hard to make the transfer. I mean do what's best for you in your circumstances, and with what you have the means to do. But if you are going to spend the money on tiki and wellness, you cold feed raw for less than half that. And prepare food twice a month a portion it out on a free Sunday or something. Especially if you order it all already pre-ground.
Idk where you live but if you ever tested your cats out with raw and found they liked it you could order it all done for you from this site or something similar, just so you can see prices.
https://www.hare-today.com/feed.php
I found a receipe [sp] 1lb of beef ,1tbs of carrots scraped and 1 tbs. of olive oil [less if they are chubby] mix together and put it in cupcake tins and freeze .when it's time to feed defrost till room temp. and serve if they eat all give them more next feeding feed less.I would use custard cups and individually freeze.Any negative thoughts on this? sounds to good to be true.
That doesn't sound like a balanced food to me. All balanced foods have the meat, liver, and a calcium source as well as some vitamins and minerals. There are pre-mixes you can use to balance the meat alone and then some people add their supplements separately. Some people do whole prey model so they don't add any supplements. You should check out the Raw and and Homecooked subforum. It's right above this one.
I don't have much to contribute here, but I will say I decided to get a "better" dry food for my cats (7 year old, 3 year old and a 5 month old.....). I've been feeding the older ones Katz-N-Flocken for a couple years (the 3 year old wouldn't eat anything else) and since my daughter brought home the found kitten I've been making a change. I fed the kitten actual baby food (plain chicken) for a while - per the vets instructions- due to kitten being flea infested etc. So once I had that all cleared up I started giving him a good canned food. Of course the other cats were all "wow, he's getting fancy food all the time!"
I felt guilty, so I did some research and want to switch to wet food for all of the cats. In the meantime, I'm trying to get ALL cats to like the same thing.......easier said than done! Last week I decided to get Wellness dry for all of them, regular for the older cats and kitten for the, well - kitten. Everyone took to it right away! Yay! Needless to say it took me a couple days to realize all three cats had diarrhea. I clean the cat box twice a day, the kitten has never really had typical tootsie roll poop. His has been "loose" I figured because he was getting wet Blue Buffalo Wilderness chicken since I stopped the baby food.
It all was revealed to me as I was cleaning the box one morning and he jumped in, assumed the about to poop position and WOW! gurgles and other strange noises came out of him along with a flood of waste.... Poor little guy.
I've been giving everyone Katz-N-Flocken again for a couple days and no wet food, just to make everyone "normal". I have learned the error of my ways- make a gradual change of cat food!!!
I will eventually try to make the dry to wet only. I've researched like most of you, I think I know which food I'll use (I'd really like to try Felines Pride but $$$$$$.....). My cats are schedule fed, so any advice on that?
If I give each cat one of the small cans in the morning do I leave a little dry for the day or no? I imagine the kitten will go a little crazy throughout the day from being hungry, but I can think of another cat who would take advantage of any food laying around........
I felt guilty, so I did some research and want to switch to wet food for all of the cats. In the meantime, I'm trying to get ALL cats to like the same thing.......easier said than done! Last week I decided to get Wellness dry for all of them, regular for the older cats and kitten for the, well - kitten. Everyone took to it right away! Yay! Needless to say it took me a couple days to realize all three cats had diarrhea. I clean the cat box twice a day, the kitten has never really had typical tootsie roll poop. His has been "loose" I figured because he was getting wet Blue Buffalo Wilderness chicken since I stopped the baby food.
It all was revealed to me as I was cleaning the box one morning and he jumped in, assumed the about to poop position and WOW! gurgles and other strange noises came out of him along with a flood of waste.... Poor little guy.
I've been giving everyone Katz-N-Flocken again for a couple days and no wet food, just to make everyone "normal". I have learned the error of my ways- make a gradual change of cat food!!!
I will eventually try to make the dry to wet only. I've researched like most of you, I think I know which food I'll use (I'd really like to try Felines Pride but $$$$$$.....). My cats are schedule fed, so any advice on that?
If I give each cat one of the small cans in the morning do I leave a little dry for the day or no? I imagine the kitten will go a little crazy throughout the day from being hungry, but I can think of another cat who would take advantage of any food laying around........
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i would suggest if you do want to switch them completely to wet, and they are on certain times, the kitten would probably need an extra meal or two for a while until her starving all the time phase starts to slow down
I totally agree!!! LOL
