Which is better, High-Quality Dry or Low-Quality Wet?

[*alleycat*]

Here is the situation. Every month I buy canned food for my 6 indoor babies. (Natural Balance, Avoderm, and Nature's Variety). I cannot afford to feed them only these brands so I supplement their canned food with dry Royal Canin 34 (Intense Hairball). So I got to thinking when reading some of your responses about wet food being best that since I cannot afford to buy 150 cans of the High-Quality canned maybe rather than the High-quality dry Royal Canin, I could buy some of the lower quality canned foods like from Wal-Mart to get them on an all wet diet. So to sum up, I would buy the high-quality canned foods plus some lower quality cans to go with it.

Is it better to feed them like I presently am (High-Quality canned with High-Quality dry)

Or

Change to High-Quality cans plus some Low-Quality cans.

If you think the 2nd option is best, could you please recommend some of the lower-quality brands to look for?


Thanks,
Tonya

 

[kittylover23]

TBH, I'd rather give low quality wet food than high quality dry food. Cats have a low thirst drive and need moisture in their food. :nod:

Fancy Feast Classics aren't that bad. If you're going to buy lower quality canned food, just remember which ingredients to watch out for. Byproducts are in almost every low quality canned food, so those aren't really avoidable when you're shopping for brand names. Just try to get something grain and corn free.

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FEEDING YOUR CAT 8-10 Long 2-12-10.pdf This is a very good resource when transitioning from dry food to wet food.

Oh and I recently read the back of a Meow Mix container, and the ingredients are as follows:

Tuna, fish broth, sardine, salmon, crab, natural and artificial flavors, soybean oil, tricalcium phosphate, guar gum, carrageenan, calcium sulphate, salt, vitamins, minerals, color, sodium nitrate.

All the fish in the first line of ingredients is a good sign. :nod: but the soybean oil and carrageenan aren't so good, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt if you weren't feeding it every day. No byproducts, so that's a plus.

Anyways, if you know what to look out for in canned foods, I'm sure you'll find a suitable food for your kitties.

 

[*alleycat*]

Thank you for your reply. It may turn out that even the cheaper cans are more expensive than the high quality dry but I will do what I can for them. They deserve the best I can afford to give them.

 

[Willowy]

Yes, even cheaper cans are usually more expensive than high-quality dry. But if feeding more moisture prevents expensive vet bills, I figure it's worth it.

I have to disagree with the previous poster (sorry!). I don't think seeing lots of fish in a cat food is a good sign. Feeding too much fish can cause a lot of issues (there's an article on that catinfo website, just poke around--you should be able to find it), so you want to keep fish flavors to a minimum. I would absolutely avoid soy ingredients of any kind, as well as any added sugar (a lot of the Meow Mix tubs have sugar). I would also avoid wheat and corn ingredients.

Fancy Feast Classics are grain-free and low-carb. But FF is also expensive, so not much of a savings over the bettter brands. If you buy the 13-ounce cans when available (I think with 6 cats you should be able to use that much!), you can cut the per-ounce cost considerably.

For full disclosure, I feed my cats mostly canned Friskies pate (the shreds have wheat gluten). Also EVO 95% meat and California Natural. So I do think a lower-quality canned food is better than a higher-quality dry!

 

[ldg]

Well, the Royal Canin 34 isn't technically a high quality food.


http://products.royalcanin.us/products/cat-food/indoor-intense-hairball-34.aspx

Ingredients: Chicken meal, corn gluten meal, brown rice, corn, chicken fat, natural chicken flavor, rice hulls, chicken, pea fiber, dried beet pulp (sugar removed), ground psyllium seeds, powdered cellulose, soya oil, dried brewers yeast, salt, sodium silico aluminate, anchovy oil (source of EPA/DHA), (then the list of supplements).

All the stuff in bold are things I wouldn't want to feed my cats, and apart from the chicken fat and chicken, none of it is species-appropriate. Of course, in a dry food, chicken meal or some kind of meal is there almost by definition.

On a dry matter basis, to calculate the carbs, I had to make an assumption about the ash content, as they don't provide it. Dry foods are typically 7% - 11% ash, I assumed 7%. But that makes the carb content about 31%. If we assume 11%, the carb content is still quite high, at 27%. The food is based on the theory that high fiber helps hairballs. Its fiber content is 8.4%. Of course, higher fiber means less of something else - and cats actually have no nutritional requirement for fiber (or carbohydrates).

I'd much rather feed Friskies pates over the RC food. :nod:

Based on pricing at PetFoodDirect.com ($48.99 for a 15lb bag), and the Royal Canin feeding instructions (7/8 of a cup for a 10 pound cat), it costs $0.53 per day to feed a 10-pound cat. This compares to the Friskies pate - for $12 a case (for the 5.5 oz cans), based on the manufacturer recommended feeding amount (works out to 1.4 of the 5.5 oz cans), it costs $0.68 a day to feed.

http://www.friskies.com/Cat-Food/Wet-Cat-Food/Classic-Pate-Turkey-Giblets-Dinner

Ingredients: Meat by-products, water sufficient for processing, poultry by-products*, turkey, poultry giblets, fish, rice, artificial and natural flavors, salt, guar gum, calcium phosphate, added color, potassium chloride, carrageenan, and the list of supplements.

The carb content is 13.6%.

*this is an interesting ingredient. I can find no AAFCO definition for Poultry by-products, only poultry by-products meal. I don't think it's appropriate in this thread to get into the discussion of by-products vs. rendered ingredients ("xyz meal").

It's almost impossible to avoid carrageenan in a canned food, very few foods do not contain it. One of my cats is prone to ulcers, however, and ingredient control/quality are the main reasons I chose to make home made raw food for the kitites. But I'd take carrageenan over anything soy. :nod:

There are some that do not like by-products in the food. It isn't as high a quality protein source as meat - but mainly because you don't know what the mix of stuff is. But cats in the wild eat entire animals, and organs provide valuable nutrition, and, IMO, are a far superior ingredient than any plant-based source of protein. :dk: But almost all of the ingredients in the Friskies pates are actually species-appropriate.

Of course, most manufacturer RDAs are too high for everything. :lol3: But that difference in price, especially with six cats, can add up. :slant: But that's another reason I chose to make home made: I up the quality of their food to human grade, yet lower my cost of feeding them to the amount it would cost to feed an actual high quality kibble.

 

[just mike]

Here is the situation. Every month I buy canned food for my 6 indoor babies. (Natural Balance, Avoderm, and Nature's Variety). I cannot afford to feed them only these brands so I supplement their canned food with dry Royal Canin 34 (Intense Hairball). So I got to thinking when reading some of your responses about wet food being best that since I cannot afford to buy 150 cans of the High-Quality canned maybe rather than the High-quality dry Royal Canin, I could buy some of the lower quality canned foods like from Wal-Mart to get them on an all wet diet. So to sum up, I would buy the high-quality canned foods plus some lower quality cans to go with it.
Is it better to feed them like I presently am (High-Quality canned with High-Quality dry)
Or
Change to High-Quality cans plus some Low-Quality cans.
If you think the 2nd option is best, could you please recommend some of the lower-quality brands to look for?
Thanks,
Tonya

I'm looking at this from the standpoint of owning 4 cats and 2 dogs.  I'm of the mind set that the best quality wet food you can afford on your budget would be better than a kibble diet.  Mind you, I'm not anti-kibble.   My cats get about 15% of their diet in kibble but the rest is a wet diet of premium foods.

You might look at Nutro Max Cat.  It is a premium food and will be on the lower end of the premiums cost wise. There are other brands even less expensive than Max Cat you might explore as well. 

Edit:

Sorry, hit send too soon.  I also meant to add that you don't have to restrict yourself to one brand of wet.  You can mix them up and give them the best combination of brands both premium and lower end to fit into your budget. 

 

[emilymaywilcha]

Oh and I recently read the back of a Meow Mix container, and the ingredients are as follows:
Tuna, fish broth, sardine, salmon, crab, natural and artificial flavors, soybean oil, tricalcium phosphate, guar gum, carrageenan, calcium sulphate, salt, vitamins, minerals, color, sodium nitrate.
All the fish in the first line of ingredients is a good sign. but the soybean oil and carrageenan aren't so good, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt if you weren't feeding it every day. No byproducts, so that's a plus.
Anyways, if you know what to look out for in canned foods, I'm sure you'll find a suitable food for your kitties.

All the fish up there is NOT a good sign. Tuna and salmon are predator fish so they have a lot of mercury and should only be eaten as a treat. Fish also do not have enough taurine for cats. The meat source should be poultry or beef. However one can of tuna or salmon per week won't kill a cat.