Automatic Litterbox Central

What is the best dry cat food out there?

My cats prefer Nutro Natural Choice. The cashier in the pet store recommended it when one of the kitties was having digestive problems as a kitten. I've switched around since then but the cats seem to prefer it to other brands -- that and California Natural, made by the same company, I believe.

I have been using Innova Evo (now just Evo) for about a year and my 5 cats are thriving on the stuff. It is a bit more expensive but they eat less of it. It has a very high protein content (about 50%) and has no grains at all. I free feed (food is always available) and so far I have no fat cats. They range in age from 1.5 to 15 years old.

I recently switched to Innova Evo, too. I'm still in the process of mixing it in with the old food until I get rid of the old food. My cats really like the Evo food, though. I also free feed.

I've heard any Innova food is good for them.

I'm using Life's Abundance (from HealthyPetNet.com).

We were using Iams Multicat for dry food, though in the morning they have a little Hills Science Diet T/D for their teeth. They used to LOVE their "round stuff" (the T/D) in that mornings were accompanied by a lot of meowing and standing by their bowls until I fed them. My male cat won't eat wet food unless it's seafood, which we don't feed them any more, but my female cat used to eat wet food happily twice a day (gluten free Fancy Feast flavors, whatever flavors on this list, http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm, that I could find on Amazon with free shipping). This was their diet for a year and a half.

Well.. Err... now they don't really care about the T/D or wet food. They'll eat it (in the case of wet food, only occassionally), but they'd rather have their Life's Abundance. Really wish I didn't buy a whole six month's worth of wet food a month before we switched. I'll probably switch to Instinctive Choice (HealthyPetNet's wet food) once I've run out of Fancy Feast.

I spent a lot of time researching diets and foods for cats - which is why we don't feed them seafood at all any more, how I found the gluten free, 10%+ protein list, etc. The T/D was recommended by our vet to supplement their dental treatment (vet and daily brushing). I got pretty upset by the recall scare, quite a few pets in my location were sick. Our cats were fine, from the research we weren't using any wheat gluten anyway (the problem ingredient, though I remember hearing that the ingredient was mislabelled and was something else?). BUT we were still feeding them from all the same manufacturers that had issues, only a "flavor" away from problems! That's when I did my search for cat food and Life's Abundance has been the best ingredient list I've found so far.

My only complaint is that it's a bit more expensive - I feed them a little more than the recommended amount, even with the T/D and occassional wet food because they're pretty active. Since I live in HI, the shipping is horrendous, but we also visit the mainland or get visited by mainlanders enough that I think I can keep us supplied by just shipping it to the mainland (nice flat fee there...) and checking it in on one of our flights. The wet food is definitely more than what I'd normally spend (the dry food is reasonable, I think), but maybe she (and he! That would make me happy if Sabre ate wet food along with his dry food) won't turn her nose up at it cause I end up throwing away half of the food I try to give her now... when she used to eat it all before.

Sorry for the long ramble, I just wanted to share my experience and research with y'all. All in all, I have much more peace of mind about my cats' diet now.

Ok on the same lines of this post/thread. What about cheaper cat food. I just spent a month researching this stuff. After the china melemene (or whatever it is called) I don't see why a less expensive grocery store bought food (mid grade) like crap and some is great!

Your all listing high grade cat food I think. Why is a slightly lower grade food worse?

ps. I do think that many store brands are total crap. But why is a mid grade food crap? For instance, I did buy a bag of (I will not mention the name) store bpought grocery store brand food (cheap)and less than a bag later my male has crystals in his pee. Cost me almost 500 dolars at the vet ( for penis crystal rapair) and I do blame the really cheap food. But after researching the big high quality name brands and the medum brands I can't find a difference. Just what is the difference between supposetly high quality brands (like vets sell) and medium bands ( that I can buy at a grocery supermarket)?
.

ANOTHER FOR INSTANCE:
I can look at ingrediants and some medium grade brands have or seem better than high quality that vets sell or stores charge a lot more for. from what I've seen or looked up, every brand name has some total crap.( some have really good stuff some make crap, they all have crap ingrediant products!, it seems) I can't really go by brand name. Some grocery store sold brands look great. Well not actually grocery store brands rather brands that are sold in grocery stores. Not to say that some grocery store brands are total crap. I just didn't see any grocery store brands that listed their ingrediants.

I am currently trying out Purina Senior Protection Formula. I am not brand loyal but this food looks good to me ATM. It is less expensive and the ingredients look good to me.

What is your opinion?

Your thoughts?

I don't know too much about this stuff, just what I've been told. From what I understand, all brand cat food that you would have heard of from mainstream advertsing is not very good because it has a high grain or carbohydrate content. While you pretty much have to have some grain content to help bind all the ingredients together in dry kibble, meat should be the primary ingredient(s) for cat food. In nature, cats eat very little, if any, non-meat food. Companies use grains and meat by-products (e.g., hooves, beaks, etc.) because it's much cheaper than using the good parts (like muscle).

As for the brands vets sell, I've been told that vets are animal doctors, not animal nutritionists. They are taught very little about animal nutrition in school. Furthermore, just like drug companies go to doctors and give them free samples to boost their sells, prescription pet food companies go around to vets and give samples and such. Also, I've heard vets make some money from selling the food from their offices. Unless your cat needs a specific prescription diet, you really shouldn't be using a prescription cat food (on the other hand, I've also heard stories of some health conditions clearing up when the cat is switched to a primarily meat-based food). Generally, the brands that vets sell are not considered high-quality (I'm thinking of Hill's Science Diet stuff, which is probably mid-grade).

As for low-vs.mid-vs.high-grade food... the bottom line is that meat costs more than grain. And muscle meat costs more than meat by-products. So, a food that has some form(s) of meat as its primary ingredient(s) will cost more than one that uses some form of grain as its primary ingredient. Also, you want the type of meat (e.g., turkey, chicken, etc.) listed in the ingredients instead of just "meat;" "meat" can mean anything, including dogs and cats that were euthenized or animals that were ill (or so I've heard). For cats, someone I trust who understands all this better than I do recommended any Innova variety. Nature's Variety, Evanger's, and Merrick are also very good. The "lower" quality cat foods also tend to have more preservatives and such in them that may not be good for cats.

All this goes for dogs, too, except dogs are omnivores and can get away with eating more veggies and grains. However, in the wild, dogs still primarily eat meat (think about wolves).

Here's a link to a vet who's been on Oprah for his recommendations with the explanations: http://www.drmarty.com/feeding.htm. I'm just guessing here, but when you say you looked at the high-quality foods and couldn't see a difference from the grocery store brands, I'd guess that you were looking at things like Eukenueba and Hill's. These are not the highest quality foods; rather, the one's I mentioned above, plus some others, are the highest. However, these brands are not well known and can be difficult to find in stores (next to impossible outside cities). As buying cat food online can be rather costly, I would buy the highest quality you can afford or get and supplement with cooked meat (raw is better, but there's always a risk of disease). Or, if you live in the country like my parents, you can let the cats "naturally supplement" their diets with wild caught birds, mice, squirrels, etc. (sort of kidding here... may be a healthier diet, but the kitties are at the risk of being prey themselves and of catching who knows what from the critters they eat).

Hope this answers your questions!

I used Iams for years. Recently when my old cat died I started looking . I was afraid of the chinese melomene scare and some few tireaded about Iams that I read. For now I have decided on a good old standby: Purine ONE Senior Protection Formula. Even though my cats are not seniors the food looks good. Good ingrediants ( real chicken), not high priced, and available almost everywhere. And I'm not too concerned about it being a senior formula since my cats tend to be overweight anyways so I'm thinking this will help with that.

About seven years ago I started looking around for the best food because Mr. Bond got the nickname of "Hurl Boy." This was after the adjustment of moving and my getting married should have calmed down, but didn't, so I started looking at the food ingredients and switched them to Iams because it had a lower grain content. This seemed to help.

Then about four years ago I ran across an article which explained any grains are not good for cats, they can't digest them, so I switched them to Innova's Evo (grain free,) which they seem to thrive on, I leave a bowl of the dry out all the time. I also started feeding more canned, which has water and lots of good proteins and fats, I wound up with the Fancy Feast non-gluten flavors and they seemed to like them the best.

This all made for great peace of mind when the horrible contaminated pet food scandal broke.

I asked my local feed store to order me the Evo for a while, but since the scandal it's been flying off the shelves and so I did him a favor

Because they like the variety of different flavors in their bowls, we throw a litte pack or box of some other Innova flavor in, and add Pet's Alive! food supplement too:

http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp ... 1194178794

This is a good all around supplement, but I've had great luck with it on senior cats and those with allergies. Senior cats especially seem to respond to it, their fur gets soft again and they put on weight if they were getting too thin.

Of course, that's IF they will eat it.

I urge everyone to get the grain free foods. They are more expensive, but the cats do eat less of it. I also feel this way we will be paying less down the road with vet bills.

fyi - Wellness also makes a grain free cat food called Core with 50% protein like EVO. I havn't tried it yet. I was feeding my cats EVO but it didn't agree with one of them. I am now mixing Eukanuba for sensitve systems with the EVO hoping to maybe evntually phase out the Eukanuba.

we fed our cats natural balance and costco's premium. the natural balance was great, we would get the allergy version.
i just recently got our dog the new science diet's "nature's best". seems to be good stuff. they supposedly will have a cat food out soon, too.

Remember those cat food commercials when the cat is eating so voraciously that you wonder if the poor thing wasn't starved for several days before the commercial was filmed? Well, that's how my cats are behaving over the new dry food that I got for them -- Fromm Chicken A La Veg... Now, they don't behave like this over the other Fromm products (I tried another a Fromm "gold" product last time and after a day, the cats ate it but not with this enthusiasm...).

Is it good for the cats? I don't know.... looks ok... All I know is they LOVE it!

Look for ingredient at the back of the package. If it contains "chicken meal" or "chicken by-product" or "whaever meal", I will stay away from it. Google what is "chicken meal" if you don't know - basically anything that is not particular healthy, like chicken feathers, skin, bone, head, tail, feet, they blend it and mix it with fresh.

Correct me if I am wrong, I remember reading Evo label (don't remember if they are dry or wet food), they contain chicken meals too, I usually feed our 2 cats with Halo and Wellness, all their products are guaranteed to be by-product free. You pay for what you get.

If it contains "chicken meal" or "chicken by-product" or "whaever meal", I will stay away from it.

Well, after watching my cats down a few rodents, I have to say they don't exactly stay away from the "by-products", i.e., I've listened to some crunching, so they aren't spitting out the bones or carefully cutting away the muscle from less acceptable (by humans) body parts.

I have done a TON of research on the best food for my cats. Since I don't have kids, my cats really are my children and I want only the best for them. The first thing I have to say, it is definately worth paying more for a premium cat food in the long run. If you purchase a premium cat food, your cat will eat less of it, therefore it will last longer. Your cats will also be healthier and have to visit the vet less. Their coats will be shinier and they will shed less. They will poo less too and it won't smell as bad because they won't be cosuming all of the artificial ingredients and toxins. Raw is the best, but you asked about dry. Grain free is the best. I feed my seven cats Wellness, Wellness Core, and Nature's Variety. My cats like the salmon Wellness, Core turkey, and Nature's Variety both rabbit and chicken. I have a bowl of each food out at all times. My cats are not fat at all. Sometimes they will eat one faster than another. They don't eat the same thing in the wild, and feeding the same food all of the time can lead to food allergies. Also, if you are feeding a food that should happen to get recalled, it is easier to replace that food with another one if they have already been eating the one you are replacing it with. That way you don't have to switch cold turkey and make them sick. To my knowledge, Wellness has never been recalled. Nature's Variety stopped shipment once, but nothing make it to the marketplace and it wasn't for anything bad. I think that it was product label wasn't correct. Wellness puts cranberries and cranberry powder in their food to help prevent urinary tract infections. Nature's Variety puts a clay in their food that helps filter out toxins. I really want to stress that it really is cheaper to buy the premium food. You will notice a HUGE difference in your cat's health, stools, and coats. Like I said, I have done a ton of research, so if there is any question that you are thinking about, just ask. I am sure that I have some info on it. If you are thinking about trying raw, Nature's Variety makes raw, and you can also buy Sojourner's Farm mix and mix into meat you buy from the grocery store. There are many options. I don't know if you are feeding strictly dry, but it is best to feed more wet and raw than dry.