In yesterday's post, I showed Dolce playing with a tent we got when we purchased some Iams cat food. I had heard that Iams does some rather bad testing on animals and we had stopped buying Iams for several years. Actually the real reason we stopped buying had nothing to do with the testing. (that was just a secondary reason. we didn't even know about it at the time.) Although Magoo loved the taste of the Lamb and Rice from Iams, You could not stand to be in the same house after one of his L&R poops. The stench would make your eyes water.
We started to switch to Hill Prescriptives from our vet when we got Smudge. He had given up eating as a kitten and we credit the A/D variety for saving his life. We just started feeding him, Magoo and Alyssa the Hills Prescriptive variety. We switched to the Science Diet, because we were informed that it was just as good as the prescriptives and also half the cost.
Now when Bella arrived on the scene, we had a challenge of what to feed three cats that were spaced out over six years. Bella was still a kitten and so she need full nutrition food, but Magoo was getting older and starting to pack on the pounds. Does this sound familiar Scooby, Shaggy and Scout's Mom? We now blend three varieties, Oral Care (for their teeth), Senior hairball and Light Hairball. The vet told us at Magoo's last visit that the amount of calories in a handfull of kibble was the equivalent of several mouses, and no cat need to eat several mouses per day.
I will post a picture of Magoo to show that the light and senior have made no difference in his weight. That and the fact that he loves the Kitten food. The good thing is that Dolce likes the adult food so we know we will have very little problem transitioning her to the adult food.
Science diet has a bad rep too, if you check out some of the cat chat groups. I switched my guys to Wellness and Innova a while ago and then went all Innova Evo, which has no grain but is all human grade ingredients. Same for the Wellness, you can snack on it yourself and it doesn't taste bad at all. My naturopathic vet recommended it.
ReplyDeleteFor wet, I give Wellness and Brendan is just crazy about the dishes made by Merrick with names like Thanksgiving Day Dinner, California Roll and New England Boil. I serve them mixed with warm water which he loves. After I changed his diet from the regular Iams two years ago his fur got incredibly soft and healthy and at sixteen, he looks great. Silas gets Wellness Lite for his nighttime munchies and that has helped him slim down.
Silas is still mooning over Dolce after seeing her at Magoo's party. Too shy to even say hello though. Hope he gets over it. She's a major cutenip.
You better believe I know what you mean!! I feed Scout on the counter now. No way Shaggy can get up the for the yummy kitten food. Scooby does, but only sometimes to snack on it. Shaggy has adjusted to his prescription obesity stuff, Don't know if I see a difference yet.
ReplyDeleteThat Iams stuff is another urban legend. Every animal welfare group in the US and several in Canada have given them their stamp of approval. But my cats don't like it.
The more I hear about wellness the more I want to try it. sss's mom
I hardly get any dry food now because my mum is trying me on a protein-and-less-carbs weightloss diet, but what I do get is a mixture of Hills R/D prescription diet and a bit of Hairball because it does genuinely seem to cut down a lot on hairballs. I'd like to try Wellness but I don't think they sell it here in the UK, I have never seen it for sale anyway.
ReplyDeleteWe've got another problem with Ms. Bonnie... barfing from hairballs and/or sensitive stomach. If she eats too fast, waits too long between meals, or the wrong food, she hawks up something the vet calls a hairball and I call undigested food with no visible hair in it. Even some treats will do it. Some hairball remedy foods her barf more. Whiskas dry was fine, but I felt guilty about the nutrition. So we found that Nutro Natural Choice Adult dry was ok. Then came Victor. At 8 months, our vet suggested he could start eating adult food as soon as he was out of quarantine. I tried putting kitten food in his bowl and adult food in Bonnie's, but Bonnie ate V's food (and barfed hard) just before her stress-induced starvation at t-giving (V posted about it). I decided the best way to give Victor some extra nutrition was to cut back on the dry food and give them some canned food each night. Iams canned seems to meet with their approval and (usually) stay down. I've also switched to Wellness dry as an experiment, and again, they like it and it's staying down. I tried giving Victor a bigger share of the canned food, but they both eat from either bowl and we don't let them on the counter. Bonnie's been gaining weight recently because she's less active while sulking about Victor, so we may have to find her an edible senior lite. I swear, this is more stressful than feeding my kid! School lunch? Go for it. Even if they do consider ketchup a serving of vegetables.
ReplyDeleteI too have cat feeding problems. The most recent was that I decided that some Hairball food would be a good idea for Arty (who likes dry food).
ReplyDeleteHowever he refused it, and Velvet who is very shorthaired and never sheds any hair loved it (despite never eating dry food before).
I despair sometimes!
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