Recommend a dry cat food

[Sinkingfeeling]

Following on from the cheap cat food thread below, which dry food do you think provides the best nutrition for an adult cat? We have recently adopted a Blue Cross 2.5 year old male cat, who had previously been fed on Go-Cat and Whiskas, so have carried on with that, but have a feeling it may not be the best nutritionally. We supplement with a little fresh food occasionally (chopped chicken, tuna) but are keen to avoid wet cat food because of teeth problems in our previous cat.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Arden Grange Salmon and potato is grain free and really good quality food.

[thecatneuterer]

Lone: what are your thoughts on the link between wet food and tooth problems? There doesn't seem to be a consensus between our vets.

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

We use Royal Canin for our two cats. Hills is another good brand, as is James Wellbeloved.

I wouldn't feed Go-cat at all. I mentioned in the other thread that our male cat had crystals and the vet reckons it's a direct result of eating GoCat biscuits. They're full of grains, which cats find very hard to digest.

Try for something as natural as possible - normally more expensive BUT well worth it for your cats overall health (and the smell of their poos!).

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Wet food hangs about the teeth encouraging plaque and eventually tartar. In my opinion wet food alone is not great for teeth.
I feed my cats one meal of dry food and one of wet food per day. I can confirm from last time he bit me half an hour ago the posh arrogant boy's teeth are in great shape.

[Fluffycloudland77]

What had you done this time?

Asbo will eat applaws dry, it smells nice.

[Archfarchnad]

I can also recommend Applaws dry, as it's 80% meat (Archcat prefers chicken) and completely grain free. If you get a large bag it's not even that expensive per meal. I don't think Royal Canin is grain-free, is it?

Lone, I know of a cat forum (not in the UK) where opinion is fiercely anti-dry food (quote: 'even the cheapest and worst wet food is better than the best dry food' ). The main objection seems to be that it can easily lead to dehydration which can ultimately wreck the kidneys, and even good dry food can lead to crystals in male cats. Is that all crap then? Cos I prefer to feed Archcat a mixture of commercial wet, Applaws dry and raw (meat and bones), and I'm sure he supplements it all with a fair few mice and birds eaten whole, including bones. It seems a good balanced diet to me, but on that one forum it would be seen as tantamount to cat abuse.

[Moln]

Royal Canin - fit I think it's called - it's the one I can actually get the easiest.

Can't buy Applaws dry ANYWHERE here for some reason.

[Sinkingfeeling]

Thank you all - will try out some of those recommendations and see what our lovely boy takes to.

[hiddenhome2]

We use Iams dry and they seem to do well on it. I also feed wet pouches.

[patienceisvirtuous]

We use Royal Canin

[Lonecatwithkitten]

There is no problem with good quality dry food as long as the cat has access to fresh clean water at all times. There a small amount of evidence that go- cat is linked to crystals no evidence of other dry food being a problem and anecdotally I would agree with this. There is definitely less urinary crystal disease now fewer owners fed go cat.
However, horrendous painful dental dental disease is very common in cats fed only wet food and persuading owners to do something about those teeth is very tricky.
There is no evidence that renal disease is linked to dry food in fact it's rise in the cat appearance occurred when wet food was most commonly fed and is more linked to increased life span of cats than anything else.
Of the two there is slightly more evidence that wet food may have some role in the increase in feline hyperthyroidism, but again there is no hard evidence.
The absolute best food for cars is raw meat bones, but few of us have the capacity for that. After raw meaty bones any feeding is a compromise it is about which ones you want to make. I choose one meal of high quality grain free food and one of wet food, this is in a household with one male cat with feline lower urinary tract disease.

[LittleCandle]

One of our cats developed urine infections within a few days of eating only dry food. My two old boys who are left (we had 4 cats at one point, mine and my friends and lost both of them within 8 months, sady) were fed on dry food before I got them. They really didn't care for wet food at all. Now, they get a mixture of wet and dry and I give them Harrington's dry food, which they really like. One of the cats also supplements his diet with birds and mice, which he eats and then pukes back up some time later. The other cat is far too lazy to bother hunting!

[Archfarchnad]

Thanks for the great answer, Lone. Sounds like ArchCat's diet is a good compromise, then. And actually he DOES get raw meat bones every so often: we have a shop near us that sells raw food for cats and dogs and we get a kilo of raw chicken necks and freeze them, he gets a few a week. He crunches every bit of them down (there's very little actual meat on them), so his teeth seem to be in great nick!

[Isabella156]

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[dementedpixie]

I use thrive dry and encore dry. They've also had purizon and applaws dry. They are all high meat content with no grains. They have wet food a couple of times a day too

[dementedpixie]

Royal Canin is not grain free as far as I know. It had not got a great meat content given its higher price either