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?

Our cat has whiskers pouches in the morning and Hills dry food later on. That's what she had at the Cats Protection rescue we got her from and it seemed to work fine for her so we carried on.

Mine chop and change tastes with the wind. We tried cheap and very expensive stuff, one ate anything-he's a gannit- the other ate nothing. Finally our vet friend told us that cats pretty much are fine on just dry food-no real gain from wet and dry is better for their teeth. So now they live mainly on dry food-they love Teco's meat one- and have wet twice a week. And the girl cat will eat the wet now it's down not that often.

I thought you shouldn't feed a cat all dry food as it can cause kidney problems.

What are you planning on feeding your kitten instead? If you are planning on giving them actual raw rabbit, chicken etc then you are probably not being unreasonable although you clearly have more money than sense.

If you are planning on feeding them long term on dry food, then it is hardly a natural food for a carnivore and can cause kidney problems and digestive problems. I speak from the bitter experience of having had a very poorly cat with a seriously impacted bowel after a few months on a dry prescription diet. He is now back on Felix mixed with extra water and is fine again.

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.

Actually, swill feeding ban was because of the FMD epidemic. And its not nice to feed pigs pork. They dont appreciate naice ham.

I too have had a very poorly cat from an all dry food diet. FailCat and MagnifiCat have Iams down all the time, but they are also fed twice a day with a wet food. Which just happens to be Whiskas, as that is all they will eat.

You don't 'give' a cat a diet, it tells you very firmly what it prefers to eat. And there is fuck all point in arguing with them.

Plus, it's been my experience that richer foods, and particularly kitten foods, actually cause hideous shits in kittens. The last thing you should be doing is changing it's diet just after it's arrived in a new home. I'd stick with whatever it's been fed up until now, and leave changing any dietary requirements until she's older.

Reuben cannot eat any dried food....it aggravates his bladder. He gets a cystitis thing, the vet blamed dry food entirely!

So we use pouches, whatever is on offer from tesco.

Previous cats have had a good mix of wet/dry but all supermarket stuff and bothe lived to ripe old ages (almost 20 for my best cat!)

Cat is 10 and fit as a fiddle.
Vet agrees. She won't touch wet food.
She eats a lot of mice I think.

Our cat won't eat wet food, she will lick it and leave it. So she has all dry food, supplemented by the wild things she catches and eats, lizards, birds, gophers, mice, spiders. ((shudder)) I also give her the whats left in the bottom of the cans of tuna and salmon which she seems to love.

I give my cat felixstowe or waitrose own food it's the only food he likes and iams. Glad to see waitrose is said by a vet to be good stuff

I had a two year old male cat that died because he ate only dry food and developed a crystal so big it shredded his urethra. Cats have a mix now, but as I said upthread, I've never managed to dictate a cat's diet, and currently I am forced to buy Go Cat indoor cat food (they are not indoor cats!) and two different types of individual chicken pouches. Boy cat is diabetic, so he has to eat so he has me over a barrel, whilst girl cat knocks off ornaments etc if food is not to her licking. I'm very low down the pecking order in my house.

I do not give my cat felixstowe ... Stupid new iPad as if my typos are not bad enough

Cat might make the decision for you! Mine has what ever is on offer, wet and dry. Plus what she can catch (spiders, fluff) and what she can steal ( licking the baby's face, off our plates, from the bins). X

My cats today have had James Wellbeloved biscuits, asda Tiger fish in jelly (they actually eat it instead of licking it and leaving the rest) and some real chicken

I'm still laughing at the thought of dictating anything to a cat .

I'm sitting here typing with 5kg of tom cat sleeping in my hair and purring down my hear.

*ear!

My cat is prone to cystisis so wet food (80% water+) is fab and i mix in extra water. She has tuna in spring water as well to keep her well

I think nobody has told my cats that they're cats. They basically eat whatever they're given! As I mentioned earlier, they are currently having Asda Tiger wet and dry food. However, they've been given lots of other things and know that if I put something down they can take it or leave it - that's it!

I think to be fair that it's probably to do with the fact that these are the first cats I've ever had (had them for two years now, since kittens) and they've not trained me properly yet so I treated them like dogs.

Sorry, but I think yabu. My Childhood cat lived a very healthy life and died at 17. She was fed on whiskas.
Pet shops and vets will always tell you to buy the more expensive food and bang on about it being so much better blah, blah...because they want you to buy it.
My cat gets dry food only. He's perfectly healthy. He actually won't eat expensive food anymore and prefers to slum it on Go-Cat (go figure).
I agree with your Dh. Your cat will be fine if you only give it Whiskas or Felix.

Tell husband

a) if you buy the cheap stuff you will need to buy more

b) If kitten does not have enough meat then kitten will supliment its own diet with mice/birds/slugs which may well aslobe brought as presents

Yes I'm sure some cats who are fed corn (which is the main ingredient of Whiskas dry food) live long happy lives. My grandpa smoked 2 packs per day and lived a long happy life, but I would not necessarily recommend that either. Cats are not cows, they need meat.

My cats mostly eat Whiskas, because they like that, and they have the wet food at meal times (defined by them miaowing at me and tripping me up) and then have the dry food down most of the time. They also bring home shrews/voles/mice pretty much daily and one of them eats those too.

Our cats eat raw food. Chicken mostly.We had to change our cats diets because one of them was ill and now they are both so much healthier. And they love it. Oh yes, and their poo no longer stinks the house out!

Dh chops up a couple of chickens and we bag it into daily amounts and freeze it. Some bone too as they need it. It's a bit like a horror movie at times but worth it for their health. Search raw food diet for more info.

Dry food can cause kidney probs and wet food has too much cereal in it.

My kitten turns her nose up at 'posh' catfood ,liking the cheapest of the cheap best!

YABU

The majority of a cat's diet is beyond the control of their human slaves and consists mostly of decomposing rat intestines and maggot infested headless voles with a side of reguritated house plant and quavers and wotsits if it's my cat.