What food is best?

[Profspice3]

I've never had a cat before, I've just got a kitten and am receiving conflicting advice about what to feed him. One of my friends recommended dry food as it's better for their teeth but a colleague said she had heard that dry food is linked with kidney problems and that wet is best.

I've googled and to be honest that's just confused me more. It seems some cheap dry food is sprayed with animal waste to make it appealing to cats when in reality it has little nutritional value.

I'd hate to give him something that actually isn't doing him any good. At the moment we're feeding him pouches of whiskers.....any advice?

[chockbic]

Kitten food is quite limited. We fed ours on Applaws dry and Wainwright pouches for wet food.

You need to look at the meat content really, above 40%. I think Whiskas is about 4%

[sparkysparkysparky]

Take a look at protein content - the higher the better. Cats can't really tolerate grains either so avoid.

[smable]

We have orijens dry and natures menu wet, they both have high meat content and the orijens doesn't have any cereal fillers.

[gamerchick]

I just use applaws. No stinky farts.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

High meat and protein content food. Good quality dry food is fine as long as there is access to plenty of fresh clean water.
The vast majority of people feed a mix of wet and dry.

[lljkk]

I may be totally wrong. fwiw, I go with this logic:

Dry is bad for kidneys if they don't have easy access to water.
Dry is bad for teeth if it's high in grain content (too many carbs, most dry foods are high in carbs).
Dry food is better in summer when flies may be around.

So I have lots of water around & buy Applaws because it's grain free.

High meat content is ideal. Butchers is the only supermarket brand I can find that's truly high in meat (still some grain, I think).
If you can buy online in bulk you can buy the highest meat content for a price similar to the supermarket cheap cat food. I buy Bozita from Zooplus for wet food, mostly.

That said: if all I could afford/find was El Cheapo supermarket brand then I'd do it with clean conscience.

Kittens can get upset tums from sudden food changes so take your time changing over.

[Profspice3]

Thanks, I'll have a look at the brands mentioned.

[RubbishMantra]

I free feed Applaws dry and Cosma wet. Cosma's only supplementary mind.

Animonda Carny and Smila both make good kitten foods, with a high meat content and grain free. I fed it to mine when he was a babby. Good variety of flavours too.

[PeanutButterOnly]

Anyone else tried Nature's Best? Tried to move off Whiskers etc. with our rescue boy but he doesn't like it! Was wondering note whether he'll be the same fussy eater with another better food?

[PeanutButterOnly]

Sorry, not clear..am wondering whether worth shelling out on something like Applaws if he's rejected Nature's Best. Am not very good at letting him go hungry!!

[sparkysparkysparky]

I'd give applaws a go. The higher meat/protein content may appeal more.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

When we adopted our cats someone suggested Felix, but it is very low meat content. However they go absolutely mad for it, so we compromise and they have one pouch of Felix a day each and a high meat / no cereal dry food. Either Encore from supermarkets or Canagan from the pet shop.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Mine wouldn't so much as touch Butchers by the way, I have never seen such disdain.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

And I wouldn't recommend Felix if you're starting out, I keep meaning to switch to Applaws or similar but it's easy to keep buying Felix from the supermarket when they love it so much.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

There are good dry foods out there. I fed Arden Grange Salmon and Potato grain free.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Oh yes wet food is worse for teeth than dry as it hangs around teeth.