Cat Food Questions

~cleo~

the only thing to watch if you feed her homecooked food is that she gets the nutrience she needs, that are usually found in cat food, maybe talk to you vet they maybe able to advise what suppliments you would need to feed to ensure she gets these

IamJen

Badgerlady, I post on a vegetarian board that discusses this topic often. I don't have cats (I'm quite allergic), but you might get some advice from folks at the Companion Animals forum at https://www.veggieboards.com.

cheltenhamgirl

As some of you will no doubt be aware, we've just recently increased our family with two purrrfect kittens (well 9 months old). At the moment they have dry whiskas kitten food throughout the day, and half a pouch each morning and night of whiskas wet food.

I was wondering if there were any alternatives to feeding them 'normal' catfood? Some of you will probably disagree with this, but it's probably for two reasons.
1) I'm not keen on the idea that we are feeding our cats what is ssentially quite a lot of rubbish. I kind of think of it as the equivalent of only ever feeding your children on trukey twizzlers!! I'd like to feed them something that was good for them.

2) Although I'm definitely not a veggie, I always buy free range meat etc as I hate the thought of any animal suffering for me. Seems a bit hypocritical to then feed my cats the cheapest of the cheap meat that I'm sure hasn't had the best life.

So, basically I'm just after some advice. I would obviously change them gradually if it was something we were going to do, but does anybody have any opinions on whether it's better or worse for your cat? Anybody got any cheap/good alternatives? I guess we'd want to batch cook so we didn't have to worry about cooking the cat's tea everynight! I've seen somewhere on here people talking about rice and fish for their cat....is this something we could look at?

xx

tanith

To be honest I think it would be more trouble than its worth... cats flourish perfectly well on branded cat food.. and if you wanted to give them something as a treat you will have to try things out as I find cats are fussy beggars when it comes to home cooked meat and fish... sometimes mine will eat home cooked fish or chicken and other times only a tin will do.. I have fed all my cats on a mixture of tins, biscuits and scrapes and also at times have cooked them fish or chicken they have all flourished and two have lived to the ripe old age of 20+

EDIT: I meant to add that I would find it a big chore and I can't really see how its going to make any difference to your cats wellbeing... but if you have the time and inclination there's nothing wrong with your plan either..

cheltenhamgirl

tanith wrote: »

To be honest I think it would be more trouble than its worth... cats flourish perfectly well on branded cat food.. and if you wanted to give them something as a treat you will have to try things out as I find cats are fussy beggars when it comes to home cooked meat and fish... sometimes mine will eat home cooked fish or chicken and other times only a tin will do.. I have fed all my cats on a mixture of tins, biscuits and scrapes and also at times have cooked them fish or chicken they have all flourished and two have lived to the ripe old age of 20+

EDIT: I meant to add that I would find it a big chore and I can't really see how its going to make any difference to your cats wellbeing... but if you have the time and inclination there's nothing wrong with your plan either..

I thin you're probably right...it doesn't really sit right with me but I think we'll just have to stick with it....

sleepymy

Pero do organic cat food also URL text if you were interested (although I'd recommend you really know what you're doing if you decided on the latter).

shoppaholic_returns

My cats thrive on a mixture of dried food burns/royal canin/j well beloved whichever is the best deal at the time, tinned tuna in springwater, the other options are too salty/greasy, theres always a tuna on offer, and mostly ready cooked and diced GM free chicken from iceland, it looks very nice, no skin,bone or waste just chicken breast and i take it out of the freezer and put a couple of days worth in a bowl and stick it in the fridge no cooking invloved, and the product is very high quality, and i get 1kg for £3.50, WORKS OUT CHEAPER THAN SOME CAT FOOD,but i know the cats are getting quality food and theres no nasty smells as wirh cat food.

Hope all this helps pm me if you need any more info

WeirdoMagnet

I've no personal experience of cat feed, but when we got our dog, I looked into dog food and what was 'best'. You need to check the label for each individual manufacturers claims, but lots use 'meat derivatives' (ie all the stuff that can't even be made into Turkeyy Twizzlers!) rather than a specific meat. Also check the nutrient levels against that which a cat requires - not sure if it is the same with cats but with dog feed much of it is too high in protein. Lots of pet food contains colours and additives, and unneccesary fats and oils. TBH, I probably wouldn't feed any [strike]junk[/strike] pet food that you can buy in the supermarket for the above reasons and I'd be particularly wary of the big companies with swish marketing and glossy packaging!

Have a look on the Uncaged Website for details of manufacturers that use more ethical procedures. They are smaller companies that are more transparent and happy to share their nutritional information.

RACHIE77

I have been buying pouches and tins of cat food for my kitten and have been a bit strapped for cash over xmas, so I have moved to the cheap tins. The cat isn't impressed and isn't touching his food but I am reluctant to move back to his old 'twice the price' branded food just because he is fussy, so I wondered (sorry if this seems a bit stupid!) if you can cheaply feed a cat from stuff other than the tin!?

I've never had a cat before and do give him scraps of ham, beef, and chicken from the plates before washing them up, but wondered what else I can do to feed a cat cheaply? Can I make hamemade cat food or am I best to stick to the tins?

p.s. I have started to buy whole chickens but am really rubbish at using much more than the breast and any obvious white bits but do give the cat bits that look edible :rolleyes: (i am a veggie so have no idea really!)

Sassamac

the dry food mix works out much cheaper. in fact this is something I was working out today.
we fed our kittens the expensive dry recomended from the place we got them from (it was James wellbeloved) until they were a year old, then we switched to supermarket branded.
Like you we feed them the leftover dinners and find they like rice, potato, pasta and veg too, although meat obviously needs to constitute the main part of their diet.