Cat Food.

tallus

Can anybody recommend a good quality catfood? Preferably not a dried kibble type of food. Currently I am feeding both of my cats Whiskas pouches. Just wondering if there's anything better out there.

morgana

We have introduced ours to Husse http://www.husse.ie, they do pouches as well. Supposed to be much better quality than Whiskas et al, they'll eat the Husse, but as with all pouches, they seem to tire of them so we have to vary the brands (currently they get the Husse kibbles for free feeding (which are a hit), and whatever pouch is kicking about (Whiskas, Aldi, Husse, ...
Otherwise, www.zooplus.ie, has an ecellent selection of both wet and dry premium cat food.

weluvujoe

I would never ever recommend whiskas. Its a disgusting looking cat food and my cat will only eat it if shes really desperate.I am not convinced that the meat in Whiskas is actually lamb or fish like it says. We feed our cat Felix and she loves it. It doesnt have a horrible smell and looks well. Its available in pouches, of course. You wont be dissapointed!!

arybvtcw0eolkf

We've found over the year's that your best off experimenting, and just when you found the food your cat loves, its the cats nature to change their mind and go off it completely.

Some cats will break your heart trying to find the correct food for them all the time, so we try to vary our's to keep the cats interested.

We find Whisker's is as good/bad as the next food, depending on the cat's moods!.

Tabitharose

nutro do a wet food which goes down well here - it's available on zooplus I very much doubt that felix is any better than whiskas

Alun

weluvujoe wrote:

I would never ever recommend whiskas. Its a disgusting looking cat food and my cat will only eat it if shes really desperate.I am not convinced that the meat in Whiskas is actually lamb or fish like it says. We feed our cat Felix and she loves it. It doesnt have a horrible smell and looks well. Its available in pouches, of course. You wont be dissapointed!!

I don't think that what you personally as a human being think of as smelling appetising, necessarily ties in with what a cat finds appetising. I mean, cats will kill and eat mice and birds, innards and all, and I'm sure you wouldn't find that tasty either. Also I've never heard of cats in the wild preferring to 'roast' their food (Felix) or adding cooked carrots and peas or herbs (Whiskas) to their dead bird dinner for extra flavour.

As far as pouches go, our 2 cats will eat nothing but Kit-e-Kat for any length of time. Occasionally they'll get something else if the shop is out of stock of Kit-e-Kat, but they'll only stick it for a day or two. As for the Whiskas stuff with the veggies in .. well they just take one sniff and walk off in disgust!

tallus

Cheers for the input folks I appreciate it I suppose I'm lucky with the feeding thing, mine eat anything I put in front of them, tho the kitten seems to be tiring of the whiskas kitten pouches. She prefers to steal food from her bigger counterpart.

Rancid

You're pretty lucky there!
My two have clear preferences for Whiskas Supermeat, any flavour.
They definitely don't much like any brand of pouches, they lick the juicy stuff and leave the meaty bits, every time.

They do like Go-Cat Kitten dry food. Most other dry food gets left in the bowl and only sniffed at.

Anyone ever try feeding vegetarian cat food ... and if so, where did you buy it?

spank_inferno

We use husse and its fantastic
Both wet & dry food
Beats anything bought in a supermarket anyway.
They dont use perservatives as much as other providers
and the food smells fresh too

Saruman

Cats are strange indeed. My cats did not like Whiskas or Kitekat canned food.
Anyway i wanted them on dry food as its much better for them, especially their teeth.
The only one they love is Purina's Omega Tasty. They get grumpy if i give them a more expensive brand like whiskas etc. Otherwise they like the smaller packets of the expensive ones you get at the vet.

dame

tallus wrote:

Cheers for the input folks I appreciate it I suppose I'm lucky with the feeding thing, mine eat anything I put in front of them, tho the kitten seems to be tiring of the whiskas kitten pouches. She prefers to steal food from her bigger counterpart.

Our kitten prefers to steal the adult food too! Her favourite is Whiskas Ocean Menus pouches. They have real fish in them as opposed to other brands which have meat flavoured with a bit of fish. Her mother likes the kitten pouches though for some reason! We vary the food too and buy whatever brand is on offer if it looks half decent. There's only one variety we've found they won't eat, and that's a box of dried cat food made by an Irish company (can't remember their name but it was something like Erin). Our cats go wild for the little tubs of Whiskas Dentabix.

Ruu_Old

Rarely have any problems with feeding our cats but one kitten we had recently would eat nothing but Fancy Feast canned food and was very fussy when we went to switch him over to the dry stuff.
The two permanent house cats are brats when it comes to eating our food. One doesn't really bother too much anymore but the other eats anything! I was making a taco the other day and some lettuce fell on the floor and along she came to gobble it all up with some crumbles of nachos I had as well.

alexdenby6

my cats ine, might leave the veggie bits in a dry mix but it usually all goes, she'll even eat crisps and goes mad for stuff that smells or tastes lik olives, wont eat olives, just plays with them.

Schlemm

Make sure you buy something suitable for the cat's age...and also something that prevents against FUS and all that.

tallus

Cheers for the advice folks.

Demonique

We only feed dry food to our cats, it's much better for their teeth and they don't smell. We initially switched to dry food for cost purposes as its cheaper than tinned and were pleasantly surprised to find that the 'smelly cats bum' smell that followed the cats wherever they went disappeared.

So, we also switched the dog to dry food only because, frankly, he stank! He's still a bit whiffy, but nowhere near as bad as when he was on tinned food!

tallus

I still can't make a decision heh so I bought some felix sachets in Tesco's earlier, I'm thinking dried food too tho, less mess and stupid as it sounds it smells nicer, and both cats have no problem eating it.

Dudess

I firmly believe it's what they're raised on. They're only going to be fussy if you start feeding them the really fancy stuff from early on. If they don't know anything else, why would they be fussy? Especially if they're hungry!
I would never give a cat wet food from a tin/pouch. Awful processed shíte that can't be good for them, and they go so insane for it there's probably stuff in there that's addictive - I think of it in terms of being the feline equivalent of junk-food.
I'd give a cat dried food as its staple (any brand) as this is excellent for their teeth - it both cleans and strengthens them. Then I'd give them bits of leftover "human" food - meat, poultry, fish, but also some veg, potato etc (once it's well disguised!) The real stuff instead of the awful tinned/pouch crap. I used to always squeeze the juice from tins of tuna/salmon over my late cat's dried food - and did she love me for it!
To drink: milk is not supposed to be good for cats. It's dfferent for kittens, who need milk, but adult cats should only have water. The problem with tap water is that they can taste chemicals like chlorine etc far more acutely than we can, so either give them spring water if there's a bottle in the fridge (although that's probably packed with chemicals too) or regularly leave a clean dish out to be filled with rain-water. My cat used to guzzle that like it was only delicious! They might be happy enough with water that's gone through a filter jug also.
And of course, make sure there is gallons for them to drink at all times if you're feeding them dried food.
Aw... I want a kitten! Damn landlord! I'm going home to the folks in Cork tomorrow and I might just get one!

twinkle99

Hi there
Just wondering if anyone has the same problem as me. My cat Harold (whom I adore!) is a mass murderer of all living things. I've tried collars with various sized bells which he manages to shrug off after a few weeks (almost as if he's embarrassed wearing them).
I can put up with the offerings of dead birds, mice etc,
However he has now started bringing them in live to kill in front of me?? is this normal?

I brought him to the vet to make sure there were no other problems and all seems fine, his diet is good etc.

I know he's a natural born hunter but bringing them into the house to kill can't be normal or is it? I've never had a cat before he's only just over a year old so I'm not sure what to expect. And another thing we live in the country so he's now taken to stalking baby rabbits and pheasants! bigger than him so I'm just waiting to come to find a few of those running around -- HELP!

tallus

Mine has killed a lot of rabbits/rats/mice/birds. Does anyone know how cats dont catch disease from the vermin they sometimes kill ? I mean especially the rats, I'm scared of my cat transferring wiels(spelling?) disease to me.
It kind of puts me off coming into contact with him unnecessarily.
*edit*
It certainly looks like the dried food is the way to go.

comongethappy

Hi Tallus,

I recommend husse - they are a brilliant low feed rate food high in essential vitamins and minerals. They have two different flavours for cats in dry - Fish and Chicken. The recommended feed dose per day is between 50 - 100 grams (average cat gets 80 grams a day). The wet food is excellent too - my hubby said it smells so good, if he didn't know better, he would eat it! We get the husse 4 sorter pouches. The feed rate on these is 50 grams per kilo every day. Husse don't use chemical perveratives, so the foods don't have quite as long experation dates. They deilver to your house or work as well with orders of €25 or more. See website www.husse.ie

Royal Canin is also a pretty good brand, but I don't think it's quite as good as husse, and it has a higher feed rate, so you end up paying more. My cat has a very sensitive stomach and she only had diahorreha for a couple days when switching and then was fine. She liked the food a lot. For wet food, I recommend Marks and Spencers as well. They don't use any chemical preservatives, food smells great, and cats go mad for it!

I tried Whiskers when I got my cat (for a week), and the diahorreha never stopped. She'd only eat enough to get by. I've heard some people say if it's been left out for a day the food will develop maggots. (I've been told by a few people that some commerical pet food brands will purchase meat that's going off, and load it will preservatives to keep it "fresh") I'd advise to avoid these at all cost.

You're best bet is, whatever food you end up buying, try to make sure it's free from artifical flavourings and preservatives. It means that they'd have to use fresh meats to make sure the product stays fresh.

Good luck!

tallus

Once again a big thank you for the advice to everyone. I might try that Husse food, more than one person has recommended it on here.
Thanks
*edit*
mailed them to set up a delivery.

looksee

We have a cat that is now 19, his fur is lovely and he is in good health generally. He gets fed on the cheapest that he will accept. We are up to Whiskas at the moment, but he's been on that for years so hopefully won't turn awkward.

A tip I read somewhere about cats drinking, it seems to work. Put the water bowl away from the food bowl, preferably out of line of sight (we have the waterbowl in the angle of a press out of sight of the food bowl which is about 2 metres away.) He still often goes out to drink from puddles (not difficult this year) but he will now drink from the bowl in its different position.

tallus

comongethappy wrote:

Hi Tallus,

I recommend husse - they are a brilliant low feed rate food high in essential vitamins and minerals. They have two different flavours for cats in dry - Fish and Chicken. The recommended feed dose per day is between 50 - 100 grams (average cat gets 80 grams a day). The wet food is excellent too - my hubby said it smells so good, if he didn't know better, he would eat it! We get the husse 4 sorter pouches. The feed rate on these is 50 grams per kilo every day. Husse don't use chemical perveratives, so the foods don't have quite as long experation dates. They deilver to your house or work as well with orders of €25 or more. See website www.husse.ie

Royal Canin is also a pretty good brand, but I don't think it's quite as good as husse, and it has a higher feed rate, so you end up paying more. My cat has a very sensitive stomach and she only had diahorreha for a couple days when switching and then was fine. She liked the food a lot. For wet food, I recommend Marks and Spencers as well. They don't use any chemical preservatives, food smells great, and cats go mad for it!

I tried Whiskers when I got my cat (for a week), and the diahorreha never stopped. She'd only eat enough to get by. I've heard some people say if it's been left out for a day the food will develop maggots. (I've been told by a few people that some commerical pet food brands will purchase meat that's going off, and load it will preservatives to keep it "fresh") I'd advise to avoid these at all cost.

You're best bet is, whatever food you end up buying, try to make sure it's free from artifical flavourings and preservatives. It means that they'd have to use fresh meats to make sure the product stays fresh.

Good luck!

Had a visit from the Husse Representative this morning and got some samples and bought a 3kg bag of the dried food. The rep was lovely to deal with and knew her stuff.
She took the time to go through the dietary needs of the cats and gave some good feeding/care tips. The cats loved the sample too
I have a feeling I will be buying more of this food.

comongethappy

Deadly tallus- I'm glad you're cats seem to be happy with the food! The reps are really helpful - we don't have one in wicklow anymore (gave up the business after a messy divorce), but anytime I rang the husse number they've always been quite helpful. Also, on their website, you can ask a question to the husse vet for free - just in case you're not sure about something with your cat.

tallus

That's excellent comongethappy thanks for the heads up