cat food!

tinksy

Hi

I have two beautiful indoor !!!!! cats and I am trying to work out what to feed them. They are mixed food fed and have whiskers complete as their dry which they adore. They have PAH purely chicken for breakfast and they have been having applaws chicken for their tea. However they are going off the applaws now. They will only eat chicken food (although a chicken mix seems acceptable!) and they love the more meaty texture of the PAH stuff. Anyone know of anything similar to this, they also like variety (picky little monkeys!)


They are two and a half year old rescues who were abused by previous owners, they are to frightened to go outside (however they believe our conservatory to be outdoors......) and it has taken us a year to get them from being frightened of their own shadows to almost normal cats. This does have its disadvantages as Daniel woke us up at 6am tearing round the house playing and Jack seems to think that pitiful yowling by his food bowl will warrant us forgetting we have fed them! Jack has also just had most of his teeth out due to gingivitus and its great to have our happy cat back!

juliebunny

Hello and congrats for taking on these 2 cats!

I always try to feed my cats the best I can afford (and try to get it on special offer) - but if they aren't going out you may want to consider a special indoor variety as they won't be doing things like eating grass to help the furrballs along (although you can grow you own grass from PAH and other pet shops.) Also, you will need to make sure they don't get fat (from the owner of a housefull of fat cats all of whome do go out!!) - maybe a diet type food .

My cats eat Royal Canin but I do get a discount on that (it's pricey) - before we got that, I fed them James Wellbeloved - made by the same company but cheaper. They get on really well with both and a couple have very sensitive tummies. I also let them have tins of whiskas (supermeat if posible as they tend to lick all the gravy if I get chunks!) to make sure they are getting enough moisture. As a treat I let them have Whiskas biscuits now and again. Actually they aren't too fussy except for some reason don't like Iams. They have had Purina One and liked that too.

As a treat they get whiskas dentabits or similar - one of my cats takes a pill every day. She takes is happily because she knows she gets a treat straight after! If I forget the treat she follows me around until she gets it, clever girl!

Miaou!

rising_from_the_ashes

Hi, I've got 2 cats as well - both VERY fussy.

They used to have the PAH Purely but have gone off that.

The wee one - who is overweight - loves Iams (which I'm not keen on) and Purina One. She's not fussy about tinned but gets the odd bit of tuna.

The big one - who's VERY skinny - gets Royal Canin Indoor (even though he goes out a lot) which is quite expensive but very good (thankfully the wee one doesn't eat this lol). He loves Whiskas pouches but only the Casserole pack is the only variety pack that he eats all the pouches in!

This makes feeding very difficult as I really need to leave food down all day for the skinny one to pick at (he eats tiny amounts at once) but am trying to get weight off the other one!


I do try to get different boxes of dry food from time to time - Whiskas etc as it's really difficult if they get "stuck" on one food and the manufacturer decides to change it!

My old cat was a rescue and it took him a while to totally settle in and trust everyone. He never went out and I had him for 8 years when I moved onto a farm. His last year was spent wandering in the garden behind the house and it was lovely to see him outside in the fresh air.

vl2588

I hope this doesn't sound heartless; believe me, I adore cats and would be lost without them. However, I believe they will eat what they are given, so provided it is good healthy food IMO you should continue with the food you currently feed. Once they are hungry they will eat it. One way to encourage this is to put the food down for say half an hour and take it up and do this twice or three times a day until they get the picture. They will soon munch away

EDIT: My cat used to LOVE Whiskas dentabits until she was diagnosed with IBS and now she can't have them

rising_from_the_ashes

vl2588 wrote: »

I believe they will eat what they are given

Probably, but it's the carry on (howling, yeowling, stalking etc) that's a nightmare. My big one is part Siamese and I'm sure you know how noisy they can be!

There is also the added complication that they HATE each other so trying to feed them is bad enough in the first place - they fight if they're in the same room for too long so I'm afraid for me, it's trying to keep the peace any way I can!

vl2588

Oh dear, I do hope you find a solution! Gotta love the yowling but I suppose it does get too much eventually

rising_from_the_ashes

vl2588 wrote: »

Oh dear, I do hope you find a solution! Gotta love the yowling but I suppose it does get too much eventually

:rotfl:Oh he does have a lovely yeowl but it varies in pitch depending on whether it's a "I want a cuddle" or "I want out" or a "I don't like that" yeowl (the latter being very high pitched!) and after about 3 hours of it (getting louder all the time) I just want peace & quiet!

tinksy

oh they will eat the applaws wet they are just not fans so looking for something more similar to PAH purely.

I am happy with their dry food, they love the biscuits in the whiskers though bizarely they are not big dentibix fans! what they do love however is cat nip biscuits its hillarious watching them eat these!

savemoney

My cat tends to eat Purnina dried food now, one medium bag lasts a few weeks < do give him kitekat but he is very so funny now with it he used to love it. He does go out though

rita-rabbit

Cats only like variety if you offer them different types of food - stop it immediately & you will find life alot easier. Do not chop/change food as it encourages `fussiness'.

dizziblonde

savemoney wrote: »

My cat tends to eat Purnina dried food now, one medium bag lasts a few weeks < do give him kitekat but he is very so funny now with it he used to love it. He does go out though

My indoor only mog (not at all overweight, in fact she's always had the tendency to be on the skinnier side of the normal bracket) goes between James Wellbeloved when I manage to get to somewhere to buy it, or Purina One which she ate fine for years... she lost a bit more weight than I liked recently so she's getting that topped up with just standard supermarket pouches, and of course when I bought more of them on special... she went back to the Purina more!

I can't give her Kitekat or Go Cat or anything dried like that level of food because she just throws it up again and cat sick barefoot when you go to the loo at night isn't a fun thing to stand in.