Cat food questions - merged

gordonstights

I always wondered why my Mum's cat has very healthy teeth and gums whilst my cat (of the same age) has to have some dental work soon.

There is a difference in diet. I feed my cat well known branded cat food, wet and some dry. My Mum feeds her cat on fresh chicken, beef, lamb and Science Plan wet food for urinary tract problems. She has a tiny amount of dried food for "a bit of crunch" I am told.

Point is you could be right. Fresh stuff could be a lot better for their mouths!

simontheiceman

Nikiya wrote: »

Well, it is true I never had my head inside a lion's mouth.... but never knew they suffered from dental disease either....
Aside from that.... I am not sure you read my whole message.... As I said, I fed my cat first Oral Care, then R/D, on the vet's advice. That is all. They seem to contain some cereal but then, why are they recommended? ... and I forgot to mention, my cat does eat small birds and rodents, since she is an outdoors cat.

Yup - I did read the whole lot but didnt have the time to comment on all the points earlier. I

t is my personal belief that the pet food thing will come back to bite us all on the backside. Hills did a very god job on the profession encouraging them to promote their foods when they were a little known player in the diet market. Once they had got the vets to do their marketing for them, they deregulated the sales and you can buy the stuff anywhere - this effectively shafted the vets and gave Hills the bigger market they needed. You might look upon this as cynical but I think there may be more than a little truth. Like all vendors of foods there are incentives to sell more - this applies to big chain stores as well as vets. I think recommendation of diets is more about selling of foods than pet health. I do stock commerical pet foods but refuse to restrict myself to one company.

There is a more fundamental question - what are we feeding our pets? Virtually ALL commercial pet foods are based on cereals. As I said earlier this is not natural. That said, not all commercial pet foods are the same in quality - Hills and its friends are the better end of the market and hence why they can be recommended above others. As they are at the better end we are left with a situation where we have nothing better to offer. As I note above this will bite us all back - in the form of obesity, dental disease and gastrointestinal problems. Do I have a solution - No. Does Raw Meaty Bones offer a solution - possibly, but this is not without its problems either and I'll not go into them now.

Whatever happened to white dog faeces? There is a question to ponder and it runs to the heart of this debate...

gordonstights

simontheiceman wrote: »

Whatever happened to white dog faeces? There is a question to ponder and it runs to the heart of this debate...

Wasn't white dog pooh because of chalk used in tinned food to bulk it out?

foreign_correspondent

my dog does white poos after eating a big bone! they don't tend to come out white but after a few days it goes a bit chalky! ha, bet you all really wanted to know that :-)

gordonstights

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

my dog does white poos after eating a big bone! they don't tend to come out white but after a few days it goes a bit chalky! ha, bet you all really wanted to know that :-)

The funniest bit about that is you actually wait a few days to see it change colour :rotfl:

lowis

well, logically the following food should best best for casts...freeze-dreid mouse!

http://petextrasdirect.com/pogos100mouse.html

i have always fed my cats Hills supplemented with cooked chicken treats. they have both had dental problems all their life, both having to have most of their teeth removed despite preventative care.

i recently lost one of my cats to intestinal lymphoma and whilst caring for my cat through her condition I have questioned whether Hills Science Diet is the best food option available. I was told that the Hills Science Diet of 10 years ago is far superior to the Hills Science Diet that is being made now...once they had the market cornered they lowered their standards apparently (but are still better than most).

i adopted another cat a few weeks ago and he was being fed James Wellbeloved which seems like it might be more 'natural' than the Hills diet, but of the same quality - however, I may be wrong (Simon?), I notice that there is still a high content of rice in the JW food - cats don't naturally eat rice surely? For now my two are on 50/50 JW and Hills mixed together.

I am investigating other foods too, and have found these and tried samples of them - they all look REALLY meaty and the cats LOVE them.

http://www.mpmproducts.co.uk/applaws_cat_food.asp?in_section=applaws&page=applaws

http://www.naturesmenu.co.uk/

http://www.almodirect.co.uk/

simontheiceman

gordonstights wrote: »

Wasn't white dog pooh because of chalk used in tinned food to bulk it out?

The Raw Meaty Bones people would have you believe it was white because of the high calcium content of the natural diet and I was waiting to see if anyone would rise to this challenge. The truth is both: that a meaty diet will lead to lighter colored stools and chalk was used as a bulker in the 60s and 70s - one of the reasons why there was quite a lot of developmental orthopedic disease (DOD) at that time. DOD is declining partly due to better breeding but more probably due to better formulated diets. For all the faults (see above) Hilles have lead the way in this regard. What we appear to need is some kind of middle ground and I think this may appear in the near future.

Someone mentioned the JWB diets above - I am actually quite fond of these and dogs that are fed them seem to do quite well. I note that Joe Inglis has put his name behind a range of diets - you can google it if you like but I cant stand the bloke. These do seem to be better formulated than most and certainly have some good credentials - I dont yet know a dog or cat which is fed them.

What is interesting is what I feed my pets... My cats get Hills Hairball control (and it does work!) ad-lib and Felix As-good-as-it-gets which I think is not too bad as a pouch diet for cats (best of the current batch). The dogs get Chappie (Its stuffing ace! - apart from the fishy wind but then they have to compete with me!)

foreign_correspondent

gordonstights wrote: »

The funniest bit about that is you actually wait a few days to see it change colour :rotfl:

I dont actually wait (as in standing under the tree outside, observing!) - its just cos I am too lazy to pick it up from the garden frequently, so some of them do tend to be a bit older when I get round to going on 'dog bomb duty'!

rita-rabbit

Dried food is better for pets than wet
however home cooked food is probably even better than that - but i don't have the time or inclination!
I started out feeding my 2 wet & some dried food. The younger cat had `dandruff' & the vet suggested evening primrose oil capsules - I didn't fancy that so tried Burns dried food (stopped feeding wet food altogether) & her & skin & fur vastly improved immediately. Both cats became much more lively & lost weight too btw - I did use a measuring cup to prevent overfeeding.

However later at their annual checkup the vets noticed tartar on the older ones teeth . I was advised to apply Logic to both their teeth to improve it & it worked a treat: this year I was told both cats have great teeth & I should continue with current diet & applying Logic gel on their teeth/gums.

I think all food manufacturers try to bulk out their food with cheap `ingredients' if they can get away with it - why should pet food manufacturers not take this one step further?

trudij

simontheiceman wrote: »

Someone mentioned the JWB diets above - I am actually quite fond of these and dogs that are fed them seem to do quite well. I note that Joe Inglis has put his name behind a range of diets - you can google it if you like but I cant stand the bloke. These do seem to be better formulated than most and certainly have some good credentials - I dont yet know a dog or cat which is fed them.

Ive been feeding Percy joe and jacks ( Joe Inglis' food!) for about two weeks now - and already he is looking shinyier (is that a word??!!!) his faeces is better (hes always been a bit runny) and he absolutely ADORES it. He doesnt like the biscuits much, but he loves the meat,even more than forthglades, weve tried a couple of the recipes in the book (that people and dogs can eat) and we all liked them, so in my mind its well worth the exra money.Its not cheap, but theres such a difference in him its worth every penny.