Supermarket petfood? Premium petfood? Prescription diet? Raw or home-cooked?
I’ve always fed my two cats premium food of some type, escalating in quality and price over time. The more I read up on cat (and dog) nutrition, the unhappier I am with manufactured pet food, premium or not. When I first heard about raw diet for cats, I thought it was crazy cat lady territory. Then further reading, and finding out that a friend feeds raw (and her cat is glossy-coated and healthy to the point I inquired about his food) started to legitimise it in my mind.
I experimented with some home-cooked food this weekend, with the idea I would slowly transition my cats to raw. One cat won’t touch it (she’s a kibble addict though), the other one loves it so much he follows me into the kitchen and mews for more food all day long. And eats his sister’s serving too. I used some supplements (taurine, bonemeal etc) because I don’t have access to a meat grinder capable of handling bones, and the supermarket didn’t have chicken hearts.
So anyone else fed or considered feeding raw or home cooked?
The dogs get California Natural brand kibble, for the most part.
We considered raw, and they occasionally get some as a treat, but that didn’t last. Too much prep time, and damn, that stuff can get expensive. They enjoy it when they get it, though.
mmalloy and I used to feed our cats Wellness brand catfoods, though one of them has been put on a prescription food for overly fatty cats. We weren’t too sure we bought the necessity for the prescription food and were going to keep feeding them the Wellness (Wellness ain’t cheap, but the prescription food is even less so) but Sam managed to find the prescription food bag, tear it open and share it with Carrot. Now they won’t eat anything other than the super expensive stuff.
Petsmart’s Avoderm. All four pets like it and the one with urinary problems stopped pissing on things once he started eating it. Sometimes as a treat they’ll get tuna water or Trader Joe’s canned food.
2 cats, 2 goats, 10 chickens. And a wife who’s a large-animal veterinarian.
Cats: Iams, dry in the bowl all the time, canned once in the a.m.
Goats: Purina goat chow. Expired bread from a local bakery. Old Christmas trees in January. My shirt if it’s untucked and I get too close.
Chickens: Layena chicken crumbles, cracked corn, kale from the garden, and whatever bread/cereral/rice/pasta leftovers that are a tiny bit too funky for us to eat.
Our 11 year old cat gets Iams dry food and Wellness wet food. Our 17 month old dog gets Eukenuba Naturals dry food and and Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard wet food. They are both in perfect health and worth every penny.
Dog was on Hill’s Perscription (she’s got food Allergies, makes her rash up and lick/scratch a ton). We switched to Wellness Core as it’s about 50% as much, doesn’t make her rash up, and she loves it. Plus, much less of a hassle to pick up. The Wellness Core avoids most of the problems that most mass produced kibble has (it’s primary component is meat, not grain).
My cockatiel eats some processed store brand of pellets of what I guess is some kind of ground up grain and nutrients. It comes in a red-yellow-blue mix.
He hates the yellow color, and will pick all the red and blue bits out of the little trough until the only visible bits are yellow. There may be several inches of mixed red, yellow and blue bits below the top yellow layer, but he stops when it’s all yellow on top.
Stupid bird. He also refuses to eat almost anything natural. No fruit (fresh or dried), vegetables, or greenstuff at all. The one natural food he will condescend to eat is millet on the stalk, which seems to be a recreational drug as far as he is concerned.
We used to feed our two cats the Science Diet: Nature’s Best, but grabbing that from Petco started being expensive. Then my sister-in-law, who has like six cats, suggested we look for the Kirkland dry cat food at Costco, which is much more economical at like, 15 bucks for 25 pounds.
At least it lists chicken as the first ingredient!
One of our cats refuses to eat anything but cooked meat. Her preference is for the grilled Fancy Feast dinners, or scraps of whatever I’m having for dinner. The other one likes the FF, too, but mostly prefers the dry Iams Digestive Care.
Whatever brand the pet food delivery company sells. Yes, we get our dog food delivered. It’s pretty much the best idea ever. The food is at least the same quality as Canidae, which is what we were feeding, and costs less without even taking gas and time into account.
Our hamster is a picky bugger, and will only eat certain things out of each kind of hamster food that we’ve purchased. She’s currently on a bag of Supreme Hazel Hamster food.
We’ve discovered that she loves her strawberry yogurt drops, but hates banana chips. Carrots she will nom whole, broccoli she takes her time with.
Unfortunately, it’s the cat who refuses to eat the digestive car that barfs all the damn time. Seriously, ALL THE TIME. I’d love to come up with a solution to her vomiting - she’s an avid carnivore who refuses to eat anything but poultry and beef. Won’t even eat fish or seafood, unless she’s virtually starving, let alone dry food.
