Best cat food.

Rev

For the dry I'd go with either applaws or Orijen, simply because they're cereal free.

For the wet, there's a good few decent wet food, hilife, feline fayre, applaws, natures menu, bozita, to name a few.

Have you considered raw? I don't feed it myself, for a few reasons, but it's pretty much the best diet you can give your cat, and will probably work out cheaper.

My cats are indoor cats, they have applaws dry and a mix of hilife, feline fayre and applaws wet.

cinderellacomplex

We have 4 cats who we had been feeding Hills - we switched them to Applaws a few months ago and I have to say that they have all been doing very well.

The ten year old male had previously started to look a bit crumpled and out of shape, on applaws he returned to a healthy weight and his coat is in very good condition again now. The two younger girls had both been very slim before too and they seem much healthier on it. When they went for their annual vaccinations in December our vet was quite pleased with how they had all seemed to gravitate towards their healthy weight on the one food.

What I would say is that they need *much* less of this food than you might think, don't go over the guidelines because you think that the plate looks too small! I might try introducing it over 2 weeks as well because the protein levels are so high. Don't be discouraged if it takes a while for them to get used to it either, mine were a bit funny at first but they adore it now.

WeaselPop

I second the responses for Orijin and Bozita. We order online from Zooplus (5% cashback through quidco) every few months and you get free delivery over £29.

From my own research and the changes in our indoor bengal cats physiques, coat and energy these seem to give the cats what they need in terms of high protein and lack of carbs which they can't digest.

~Chameleon~

Does anyone know anything about the cat deaths that have been linked to feeding Orijen? Is there any truth to it?

Rev

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Does anyone know anything about the cat deaths that have been linked to feeding Orijen? Is there any truth to it?

There were a few incidents in Australia, but it wasn't actually down to the Orijen, more Australia's policy on using gamma irradiation on imported foods. Since we don't use that, there's no risk here. To my knowledge there's never been a report of a death linked to Orijen from anywhere else.

There's a big thread about it over at pet forums, have a read for all the details.

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/78242-orijen-your-thoughts.html

Apricot

I had heard about this before but Im still comfortable feeding Orijen to my cats. It was a tragic mistake as far as I understand which is no reason to boycott the company. Look at the terrible things that have happened within human food companies.

Taken from Pet It USA:

On November 20th, 2008 Champion Petfoods announced a VOLUNTARY RECALL of ORIJEN brand cat food sold in Australia.

The recall is restricted to AUSTRALIA ONLY and was issued in response to reports from the Australian veterinary community of 27cats showing neurological symptoms after consuming ORIJEN.

While there is no definitive link between ORIJEN CAT food and illness in the Australian cats, we have recalled our product from Australia as a precautionary measure.

[...]

Q: DOES THE RECALL EXTEND BEYOND AUSTRALIA?
A: No, The recall is for AUSTRALIA ONLY

Q: HOW DO YOU KNOW THE PROBLEM IS LIMITED TO AUSTRALIA?

A: WHILE ORIJEN SALES IN AUSTRALIA ACCOUNT FOR LESS THAN ¼ OF 1 PERCENT OF TOTAL SALES, AUSTRALIA ACCOUNTS FOR 100% OF CASES.

ORIJEN was sold in Australia only for a 9 month period of February through October 2008.
During this time ONLY 6 PALLETS of ORIJEN CAT food actually entered retail distribution in Australia. This equates to 200 Australian cats fed daily over the 9 month period.
Of these 200 cats, 27 are reported having the syndrome of which 4 have been unfortunately euthanized and 4 that are thankfully recovering.
During the same nine month period, shipments of ORIJEN CAT food equivalent to feed 85,000 cats were made to 49 other countries.
ZERO cases were reported outside of Australia.

Here is a link to the official statement from Orijen

Australian_Cat_Owner

princessleah_ wrote: »

I had heard about this before but Im still comfortable feeding Orijen to my cats. It was a tragic mistake as far as I understand which is no reason to boycott the company. Look at the terrible things that have happened within human food companies.

Taken from Pet It USA:


Here is a (deleted, due new user prohibition) to the official statement from Orijen

Hello all,
Just wanting to update the statistics here:
It was around 100 cats in Australia that were adversely affected by eating the gamma irradiated Orijen.
Of those 100, approx 30 have been euthanised or died spontaneously.
Of the remainder, the younger cats have recovered well on the whole though to varying degrees, some apparently completely and others to 90-99%.
The older cats have not fared so well and about 15 are still paralysed or ataxic and some are incontinent.

People on forums are often quick to point the finger at the Australian Quarantine Services and state that it was a mandated treatment, the manufacturer had no choice, not their fault etc etc. This is not so. It is optional. The other option is moist heat treatment (often not suitable especially for kibble) or simply don't import it, walk away.

I lived through this (am still living through it as my cat is one of the older ones still paralysed in her back legs at present) and am fully conversant with all the facts and did obtain access to correspondence and import documents released under the Freedom of Information Act here. The importer signed off on the irradiation treatment after consulting with the manufacturer and obtaining their go-ahead. Given the manufacturer's claim to be producing a holistic, biologically appropriate product, this is surprising, since blasting a product with electrons produced during radioactive decay is hardly natural or biologically appropriate. This has always been a highly controversial process with polarised viewpoints on its safety and a wealth of published studies evidencing adverse effects on foodstuffs and on laboratory animals fed irradiated diets. The manufacturer apparently did not consider any of this. In fact they took just five working days to agree to the process, hardly time to thoroughly research and consider its appropriateness for their product, as advised in writing by the Australian Quarantine Services. Moreover, they denied fore-knowledge of the irradiation process.

Australian Quarantine banned irradiation of cat food in June 2009 following heavy lobbying by cat owners, veterinarians and the RSPCA who produced published studies in support of the fact that irradiated diets cause a distinct neurological disease in cats, the aetiology of which is as yet still unknown, but is similar to multiple sclerosis in that the nerves are stripped of their myelin sheaths.

The manufacturer paid some compensation to owners of affected animals though for some of us it has gone nowhere near to covering costs of rehabilitation and maintenance of life quality for our cats. They withdrew themselves immediately from the Australian Market and put their pathetic offer on the table, effectively virtually quarantining themselves from litigation under Australian jurisdiction. I know; I tried.

I continue to hold the Australian Quarantine Service to account by investigating the circumstances around the adoption of this process with them, demanding written answers and having questions asked in the Senate so that their answers are formally recorded in the Australian Hansard. The whole episode is a disgrace and it is not the first time it has happened here.

I also continue to monitor the isolated reports of sickness, neurological effects (seizures mostly) in dogs and cats fed this diet (non-irradiated) that pop up on pet forums in various parts of the world, effects which may or may not be associated with the diet but there are some mighty strong coincidences out there.

Thank you for reading.

~Chameleon~

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this and putting your view across. I'm so sorry to hear your poor cat was a victim of this awful incident. I had no idea about any of this until somebody mentioned it to me in passing this weekend.

Apricot

Australian_Cat_Owner wrote: »

I also continue to monitor the isolated reports of sickness, neurological effects (seizures mostly) in dogs and cats fed this diet (non-irradiated) that pop up on pet forums in various parts of the world, effects which may or may not be associated with the diet but there are some mighty strong coincidences out there.

Awfully sorry to hear about your cat. Could you point us in the direction of some of these other isolated incidents? From what I have read already of the Australia incident I am still happy to feed Orijen but I would be interested to read other documented cases.

Thanks for sharing your story with us.

Fire_Fox

Tesco Luxury complete (50% meat) appears to have permanently reduced in price from over £4 a box of twelve pouches to under £3 a box - pretty much the same price per kilo as Bozita (90% meat), not as good value as lower meat content but great for those who want convenience.