Can you feed cats...tinned dog food ?

runninglea

Just tried my cat with a tin of dog food - he couldnt open it!

So no

soupdragon10

Cats can be quite finicky eaters - until they get hungry. I remember rehoming a pedigre Birman from a friend who assured that she would only eat Whiskas and nothing else.

My cats were fed a perfectly good own brand supermarket tinned food, which I offered to her mixed with some Whiskas. Day 1 she sniffed and walked away. Day 2 she licked a little and walked away, Day 3 she scoffed the lot and was fine from then on and I gradually decreased the Whiskas until she was eating the own brand food. She was considerably overweight, which is why I didn't worry when she refused food for a couple of days.

Obviously you wouldn't continue this indefinitely, but cats are designed to miss the occasional meal, cats in the wild don't eat every day and our local feral population certainly won't.

Owain_Moneysaver

ebayqueen wrote: »

I have 3 cats and we live in the countryside. They hunt for rabbits

That's quite moneysaving.

Especially if you casserole them

moggylover

morg_monster wrote: »

If you're looking for a cheap but OK quality canned supermarket food, have you tried Butcher's classic cat food? They sell it in tesco, sainsburys and waitrose, and by weight it looks like it's a little cheaper than felix cans (11 or 12p per 100g vs 14 or 15p for whiskas/felix)
We've just introduced it into our cats' diet, although they are on Smilla and Animonda carny which is really good, high meat % food, it has to be ordered online and so someone has to have a day off for delivery! We've added butchers to make the super food last longer; also the fact we can just pick it up from the supermarket is a massive bonus.
Although it just says the usual 4% nonsense on the label, I know someone who's contacted them and the meat/meat derivatives content is "approximately 50%", also it has no preservatives and importantly NO CEREALS! From what I've read, to get that level of meat in whiskas/felix you have to get the higher cost cans which are more like 30 or 40p/100g

Anyway it is a little cheaper and hopefully better for the cats (assuming you are already feeding "bog standard" whiskas/felix).
Rach x
PS if anyone is obsessively iterested in this stuff, like me, the www.petforums.co.uk forum has a great health and nutrition section where there are comprehensive A-Z lists of wet and dry food.

I've been using Classic for some time and I find it really good. The most important thing for me is that as well as having no presevatives and such like it has no SOYA in it, which has been substantially linked to the increased occurrence of hyperthyroidism in much younger cats (and also in humans as a matter of interest).

I actually started using it because some of our cats seemed to get very "loose" tummies (they are indoor cats for various reasons) and to abolutely stink the house out when they soiled the litter tray (sorry, tmi, I know:D). This appears to be the preservatives in the foods, as they seldom get loose now and the smell doesn't involve needing a gas mask to venture near to clean the tray, nor fumigation of the entire area afterwards anymore:j:j

Gloomendoom

An interesting thread. I hadn't heard of taurine before so I had to look it up...

Taurine is an essential dietary requirement for feline health, since cats cannot synthesize the compound. The absence of taurine causes a cat's retina to slowly degenerate, causing eye problems and (eventually) irreversible blindness — a condition known as central retinal degeneration (CRD), as well as hair loss and tooth decay. Decreased plasma taurine concentration has been demonstrated to be associated with feline dilated cardiomyopathy. Unlike CRD, the condition is reversible with supplementation. Taurine is now a requirement of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and any dry or wet food product labeled approved by the AAFCO should have a minimum of 0.1% taurine in dry food and 0.2% in wet food.

Source

faded_flowers

Although it just says the usual 4% nonsense on the label, I know someone who's contacted them and the meat/meat derivatives content is "approximately 50%", also it has no preservatives and importantly NO CEREALS!

Good to hear the cereals and preservatives, but why do they state 4% meat and animal derivatives on their product if it's actually 50%? That makes no sense?