Overwhelmed by cat food choices!

fairy_lights

Hi all,
I have a 14 week old male kitten, I've had him for about 6 weeks now and have so far been feeding him on Whiskas wet food kitten pouches, and dry food (can't remember off the top of my head which brand it is, Iams possibly).
But after reading up on cat food and nutrition it seems that this isn't good food at all, I looked at the ingredients on one of the Whiskas pouches and was quite shocked that it only contained 4% meat :eek: which could explain why he's been doing some pretty horrendous kitty farts...not nice when he's curled up on my lap!

I understand there are much better quality cat foods out there but I haven't got a clue what to look for or where to begin. I've been looking on Zooplus but there is so much choice and I don't know how to tell which cat foods are the "good" ones. Is there a minimum meat content I should be aiming for? Is it really necessary to buy the special kitten foods, or will adult cat foods be ok?
Also the vet mentioned that after he is neutered we may need to feed him special 'neutered cat' food, as otherwise he will have problems with his weight. I'm not sure how true this is and I suspect she was just trying to persuade us to buy in to the brand of food the clinic sells, but I don't want to risk stocking up on cat food now if we will have to change kitties diet anyway after he has the snip.

At the moment he is not at all fussy and will eat anything we put in front of him, but I'm keen to get him settled on a better diet before he develops brand preferences, so any help is much appreciated!

bloss0m

I buy my cat Gourmet Perle box of 12 costs around £4 to £4.50. Trouble with cats is they often fussy just found this food he loves and keeps down the other stuff like Whiskas, Iams, Purina, Felix he often brings up

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/shelves/Cat_Food_in_Tesco.html

Gold_Dust_2

http://www.naturalinstinct.com/categories/cat-food/

It's only now, as my old boys get sick, that I find out what's good for them. I wish I'd fed this stuff from the start! It'll take care of your gas problem easily, and give you a pleasant litterbox. I believe the raw stuff is ok for kittens.

If you don't want to try these, here are a few tips: get the highest meat/protein content that you can and avoid gravy and any kind of vegetable additives (rice, wheat, corn, soy, starches, vegetable protein extracts etc.). Cats are obligate carnivores, which means that they need meat and not vegetables.

Coopdivi

I feed my cat raw turkey and raw white fish which, naturally, both have a 100% meat content. I supplement these with Ultima turkey and rice dry biscuits which the cat seems to like.

I buy turkey breast steaks from Lidl for £3. There's three fillets to a pack and each fillet gives me three portions so about 33p per meal.

The fish is Sainsbury's Basics fish fillets (pollock) and costs £1.68 for normally six pieces so 28p per meal.

The biscuits I get from Wilkinson. A 750g pack is usually £3.75 but is currently on offer for £2 and it lasts about three weeks.

bluebeary

feline fayre is available in asda and morrisons around 60% meat content in their pouches and they now have a new range of dry biscuits


the purely range from pets at home is also good and not too expensive, often on offer too


always go for a complete food, i also like purina one and at a push, kitekat is bareable also

fairy_lights

Thanks for the replies everyone!
I've had a look at the Natural Instinct website, the food sounds excellent but could potentially work out a bit expensive. How many meals would you normally get out of one of the 500g packs?

I think I will buy a canned food with a reasonably high meat content, and then suppliment it with raw fish or chicken several times a week and see how we get on, possibly moving to a raw diet later on if he gets on with it.
God, I never knew cat food could be so complicated!

Gold_Dust_2

Sounds like a plan!

I get about 4 days worth of meals from a single tub per cat, but my cats are fat adults. This guide is taken from the website:

Adult cats should be fed between 2-3% of the ideal body weight per day. Kittens require 5-6% until the age of maturity.

So it depends upon the weight of your kitten. If your kitten is 2kg they'd need 100-120g per day, so you're looking at 4-5 days per tub too, more days if it weighs less. You get two tubs per pack, so that's potentially £4.50 for ten days worth of food. My cats were eating at least double that on normal wet food, and would need at least 3-5 pouches per day, plus they pestered me a lot sooner on the wet than they did with the raw. It definitely worked out cheaper for me.

Hope that helps!

fairy_lights wrote: »

God, I never knew cat food could be so complicated!

For 14 years, neither did I!

Angelicdevil

fairy_lights wrote: »

Thanks for the replies everyone!
I've had a look at the Natural Instinct website, the food sounds excellent but could potentially work out a bit expensive. How many meals would you normally get out of one of the 500g packs?

I think I will buy a canned food with a reasonably high meat content, and then suppliment it with raw fish or chicken several times a week and see how we get on, possibly moving to a raw diet later on if he gets on with it.
God, I never knew cat food could be so complicated!

I've got my two kittens (4 & 5 months old) on Natural Instinct. They get 100g each a day of the NI, split into breakfast and dinner. So 500g lasts 2.5 days.

I buy 6kg worth at around £34 inc shipping and that lasts me around 6 weeks (I've found most of the tubs have more that 500g in - or my scales are up the creek!).

I also put down 50g of Eden dry food every day as well.

gettingready

Classic - cheap but decent, available in most normal supermarkets, pack of 6 tins under £3.00

My lot turned their noses on Animonda and few others that we supposingly good for them but they always love Classic. They do fish or meat variety, my lot is after the meat one.

Try perhaps?

Addiscomber

fairy_lights wrote: »

God, I never knew cat food could be so complicated!

I'll join the club, if I may?

I have been somewhat shocked to find that what the rescue organisation told to feed our 7 month old kitten turns out to be not so good for her. I'd rather pay a bit more for better food week by week and hope to prevent vet's bills later on.

balletshoes

gettingready wrote: »

Classic - cheap but decent, available in most normal supermarkets, pack of 6 tins under £3.00

My lot turned their noses on Animonda and few others that we supposingly good for them but they always love Classic. They do fish or meat variety, my lot is after the meat one.

Try perhaps?

i've just bought this for the first time - got the meat variety and kit loves it - theres less jelly and more meat in this compared to felix, kitekat and whiskas.