to refuse to feed my new kitten whiskas or felix etc

[Anotherusefulname]

Because a 4% meat content can't possibly be enough for a carnivore?

DH thinks I am being hugely unreasonable as the higher meat content food is more expensive. I just want to make sure I give my kitten the healthiest food I can, I wouldn't give my kids crap to eat so why would I give it to my cat, she's still part of the family.

DH thinks she is just a cat and plenty of cats survive perfectly well on whiskas including my mums so I shouldn't be fussy.

AIBU?

Yanbu. Diet is as vital in animals as it is in people. What extra he spends on a decent food now he will make back at the lack of vets fees. Diet is used to manage diabetes and kidney and liver function etc so buy a good food now and u reduce the chances if long term medication needed in future :)

When you take out the 80 percent water ( the companies own figures!) actually it is 20percent meat. Make sure you always compare dry matter percentages. So often wet food is actually higher in meat than dry food when figures are corrected for dry matter. This not comparing like with like is common marketing ploy of a lot of the more expensive pet foods.
As a vet I feed waitrose essential cat food, my cats are blood donors so they get their year blood tests and all the essential numbers are excellent on this food.

My 3 wont eat Felix or Whiskas! They wont even eat that Gourmet stuff.

YANBU, of course you should be fussy and feed your kitten suitable food, not grains.

Meh, it comes down to personal choice, I always thinks it like picking between tesco value and tesco finest. I would have thought felix etc to be middle of the road.

The fact that there are thousands of kittens and cats thriving on supermarket cat food tells me its not all that bad.

YANBU, even 20% isn't enough, but IIRC, around 4% is the meat content of dry Whiskas etc, it's certainly the meat content of cheap dry dog foods.

We feed Applaws dried food, which is 80% meat I think and then supplement with Applaws tins, as they are very high meat/fish content too.

YANBU, fed in appropriate quantities, high quality dry cat food is no pricier than whiskas pouches etc.

Titty The cheap Tesco stuff in jelly is all mines will eat! I have even offered them cans of tuna, salmon etc and they wont take it.

YANBU - don't waste your money on whiskas...

we tried with the general supermarket brands. These got left. with looks that let us know they considered it poison. It's not, but they wouldn't touch it.
I currently use the pets at home dry food and they have had not had any health problems so far and they are 9 now.

They love it and it works out really cheaply.

Mine are on the Senior stuff, so a bit pricier. A 4kg bag will last 2 cats for a month/bit longer depending on them conning the one of us who hasn't fed them to give a second supper, so £20 or thereabouts for a month for 2 cats works out about £2.50 a week per cat. Which is just over 30p per day.

Occasionally we buy them some pouches as well, but they are mainly dry fed. Keeps the litter tray from being horrific as well.

In my experience, you can hope to feed a cat on something, but the cat has the last say.

I have two who are both now eating different foods because of their fussiness. However, they will eat the other's food out of the other's dish, but not their own.

Oh, and it has to be chicken flavoured, although one will steal salmon, lettuce, beans and cheese.

YANBU - I used to feed mine raw or Natures Menu and such like ones at Pets at Home which for the life of me I cannot remember right now. Or you can get quite big packets of frozen fish - Pollock at Lidl which works out quite cheaply too. Mine love this.

Felix, Whiskas etc are full of water. The higher the meat content the better, if I could afford it would feed mine raw all the time tbh, getting used to a freezer full of rabbit and baby chicks was a little strange at first but we soon got used to it and when I bred cats the kittens loved it, I still buy mines mince, I don't give them Lidl raw chicken as they turn their noses up, hence not buying it for me either.

Thanks everyone, I knew I wasn't being unreasonable. Thanks for the fish tip about the frozen fish, it reminded me of my nana's cat, she refused cat tinned cat food and lived to 21 on a handful of go cat and fresh cod and chicken everyday.

To many fish in that post sorry.

The tins I have have the composition as:

Meat and meat derivatives, cereals, minerals

So there is more meat than anything else, other than maybe water.

What are you going to feed them instead?

Cat food is 'complete' in that it contains taurine, which is vital for their hearts.

If you feed anything else eg cooked meat, be sure to supplement with taurine, as cooking destroys any naturally occuring.

I was planning on a good complete dry food and then applaws or hi-life wet.
She is currently on iams both dry and wet, that is what the breeder was feeding her.

Google and see if you have a Trophy pet food franchise near you.

All the food has a high meat content and is made with meat graded for human consumption, they have a wide range to suit different needs it is very well priced, made in Britian and one of the few pet food companys to be approved by BUAV (no animal testing ) They also deliver free of charge and will give you free samples. I dont have cats but my dogs are doing fab on their food.

Has anyone used Oscar cat food? What's your opinion of it? (well not the taste of course lol) A lady phoned me up selling this and i'd been thinking about changing to dry food (previously on Felix) so bought a bag and my cats love it. I've just ordered another 2 bags (£10 a bag but should last 2 weeks each-i spent £10 on felix every week so a saving) Apparently it has cranberry in it to keep their kidneys healthy as cats dont tend to drink enough, and it has tiny air bubbles in it to help them chew. However there is not many reviews online so wondering if anyone else has experience of it?

I know I'm outdated but there was a time when we used to feed pets on left over, inedible-to-humans bits of food. For instance, during the War some years ago, all we had to feed the pets was what we didn't eat ourselves. I remember my father carving beef that had a blanket of fat at least an inch wide around it. I could not eat the fat and that sort of thing, in the end, went to pets. Any left over cooked vegetables that could not be used again went to the pets mixed in with the meat. My mother boiled potato peel to mix with it.

Pet food manufacturers have made an absolute fortune with their tinned foods. People today do not realise that there are other ways of feeding pets (well, cats and dogs).

Dogs would poo in public places. There were fewer dogs then and less knowledge about their disease potential so less fuss was made of it but, when looking at the poo, one saw that it was sometimes white. We were told by the pet food manufacturers that this was because there were insufficient mutrients in the pet food. Hence the commercialisation of such. MY DH and I saw such white poo in Eastern Europe during the 1990s.

Pigs were fed what we called swill which was just anyone's left over food (from restaurants, schools and other places where lots of people were fed. Oh dear! We mustn't feed them rubbish food (EU?). So we have tasteless pork and other meat.

Rant on. Rant on. Rant on............... Sorry.

Yanbu - trust me, our dogs were on the standard shop bought food and we thought we were doing what was best for them. We have since changed and our dogs are so much healthier - they are never unwell & their weight is perfect etc.

A way to convince your DH might be that it could save you money on vet bills in the end.

We feed ours Orijen dry food, its 80% meat and no grain. We feed out dogs the doggy version and it did wonders for reducing flatulence etc. Worth the money just for that!

My cat only has dry food.

My two cats have Asda's Tiger canned wet food once in the morning and have access to Tiger dry food at all times. They are the picture of health and are very svelt and sleek I'll have you know!

I will confess that they're also rather partial to the odd (daily) wild bird, mouse, vole...