Are fancy cat foods worth the money?

[RainyDaze4]

My kitten is nearly old enough to start eating ‘Adult’ food so am thinking about which brand/type to start feeding her as there’s obviously so much choice.

I’m not interested in raw food etc. I’m talking about your normal cat food you can buy in pet shops and supermarkets but even so, I’m bombarded with all the usual Whiskas, Felix, then you’ve got Sheba, Gourmet, Lily’s Kitchen and on to the fanciest looking ones like Royal Canin, Hills, James something etc.

I’m sure there’ll be some people waxing lyrical about how rubbish Whiskas and Felix is but my kitten has thrived on these normal brands!

Does buying a fancy cat food brand make a difference or are they all the same really?

What do you feed your cat?

My late lamented old lady ate whatever was put in front of her, but then became very ill with what we reckoned was inflammatory bowel disease. She needed a lot of vet time and eventually a course of steroids. I started feeding her raw food, and then high meat content grain free food, and mostly she was ok with that. Most cheaper food is bulked out with grain, and cats are not designed to digest wheat

I just checked the Whiskas box and the ingredients states '94% meat derivatives, including 4% chunks'. Is that bad? Does the 90% of non chunk meat derivatives mean it's not real meat?

Anyway, off the back if this thread, I've just gone and ordered £35 wet food from Zooplus. His lordship better eat them! 😊

It probably isn't meat as in steak or something, but it will be bits from an animal.

My cat has Sheba fine flakes in jelly, aluminium pots of rabbit slices in gravy, and Natures Menu, which is human grade protein, smells nice and I just put a little water in. He doesn't like dry food.

His favourite food is roast chicken, so there is always a couple of roasted chicken legs in the fridge for him. He is 17, so I'm doing something right.

Mine will only eat purina one or iams, both 7+ and both chicken, that's all she's ever eaten since a kitten, except not in 7+, she's 10 now. I have had 2 other cats living with us too and they were less fussy and would eat anything, she wouldn't touch their pouches, she also won't eat any human food, you could leave a whole roast chicken out and she wouldn't even look at it!

She will try and eat the dogs raw food but that's just out of spite!

I’m late to the party but cheaper foods CAN cause health problems.
GoCat and similar brands seem to have strong links to urinary crystals in males which can cause blocked bladders which become medical emergencies.
Wet food is better for hydration levels (and diluting urine to prevent crystals) but not so great for teeth

@PuckyMup

I’m late to the party but cheaper foods CAN cause health problems. GoCat and similar brands seem to have strong links to urinary crystals in males which can cause blocked bladders which become medical emergencies. Wet food is better for hydration levels (and diluting urine to prevent crystals) but not so great for teeth

It's not just the cheaper foods that cause health problems. My friend fed her cat Sheba domes for years without realising ita commentary food. She was feeding him two tubs a day for years. You should only feed up to three tubs a week. Her cat now has diabetes and is on a special diet.

complimentary food....

Complementary.

Bought a box of Go-Cat thinking he'd take the hint but he refused to read the box.

Arthur has a combination of Felix jelly, prefers fishy variety, IAMs dry, all the uncooked off cuts from our meals, meat and fish, the odd fresh prawn if he is a good boy, plus a mouse a day. He is 5 kgs of sleek muscle 😄

another Zooplus fan here - my cat fas Cosma meat - you open the cans of chicken and its full of white breast meat with a tiny bit of jelly - she also likes the tuna, but won't touch sardines.
As a PP has said. once you've found what they like, you can order in bulk; I buy 400g tins that last two days, and its less than £5 per kg - a lot cheaper than 'posh' brands in supermarkets.
We tried another brand called Rosie's Farm recently, (also Zooplus) that she likes too.
My only brexit planning has been sorting a few months stock of cat food.

Excited about my Zooplus order tomorrow.

We have various trial packs of wet, dry and snacks for my ladyships to sample thanks to the recommendations on here.

One was sick again today - they can't seem to manage even 3 or 4 Dreamies, so hoping the new snacks will be more agreeable.

My only brexit planning has been sorting a few months stock of cat food

I've not actively planned for Brexit as we always have full cupboards anyway, but I've told my lot that if there are supply problems due to Covid, Brexit, winter or whatever, they will be eating the whole backlog of things I've bought from Zooplus that they refuse to eat despite it being good quality food that actually looks and smells quite nice.

Something else for Zooplus fans to look out for. Every so often, especially at Christmas, they do special shoebox sized gift boxes of various wet and dry food, treats and cat toys. These are generally around £10 and will probably be worth more than that, so a good opportunity to try different things - there's also a dog version.

Also worth keeping an eye on the special offers for discounts and you can often buy a discount pass which will save you far more than what it costs if you buy from regularly.

Plus don't waste your reward points, these give you free toys, foods (sometimes excellent value as I think they sometimes use it to offload short dated things, I've had bags of food sold for £2/3 for £1 worth of points before) or you can always use them to make charitable donations.

Sorry this has turned into an advert for Zooplus, but they've really made my life easier to get a large amount of cat food delivered, hope Brexit doesn't put an end to that. One downside is that it comes in very big heavy boxes but I do tip my regular delivery guys at Christmas. they must still hate me.

I've been trying to get my cat on a raw food diet, currently they are on royal Canin.

They are being fussy about it of course cause cats but I'm in a Facebook group and those fully raw all look so healthy with nice shiny coats. And being indoors a raw food diet means they poop less and it's not so stinky.

Mine won't eat fancy expensive stuff (as I found out during lockdown when that's all I could get!!). He will only eat Whiskers pouches in jelly (meat variety, not fish!)...and not in gravy...and not the tinned version..which I'm sure is exactly the same but cheaper!! Fussy bugger 😂

I feed mine whiskas in jelly. She likes to eat little and often and wont eat any food that's left down so find jelly easier to give half of sachet a time. Whiskas do a poshier version now that's 50p more at the mo so I am getting that. She wont esr cheap biscuits either. She does likes sheeba but i find that expensive.

My cat used to have felix. I thought she was ok, shes 12yo and was getting a bit scrawny but I thought it was old age. Swapped over to Iams and it’s like she’s 5 years younger. Totally transformed. Has put on weight, more energy, coat has improved.

My cat will only eat wet food with gravy. He used to eat fish in gravy so we tried Amazon wetfood pouches. He loved it and ate for a couple of weeks. We then subscribed to a monthly delivery at which point, the bigger stopped eating. And he us also now partial to poultry. I tried Lidl wet food which he liked for a few weeks and again refused to eat. On the bright side, local Cat Protection branch is very rich in wetfood donations. 😊

Now he's onto Whiskas. He seems to love it but I'm not going to bulk buy again. Hopefully, there'll be som8inntjis Zooplus order that he likes.

My cats like lidl own brand and get cross when I buy the posh stuff 🤷‍♀️

My cat turns her nose up at Whiskas but has Felix. However I've found what works best is to vary up her food, so she isn't eating the same brand every day. Sheba and Gourmet seem to go down a treat

My fluffy baby is 16 he only likes fish in jelly flakes or chunks (but not aldi or lidl)
He doesn’t like the expensive pate type food

The vet told me that often these foods are too rich for them

He likes any biscuits I buy Harrington’s as they seem to make him less thirsty and he only has a few.

For a while I did buy complete dry food from the vet he wasn’t happy made him incredibly thirsty and turned his nose him if I soaked the biscuits first

He also has watered down milk. He was so thirsty in the summer but he wouldn’t drink water. He is 16 now so allowing him to enjoy foods he loves Milk and biscuits

Our cat has us wrapped round his finger...
Got him as a rescue, told oh yes, royal canin or James well beloved. Thought...not having that I'll ween him on to whiskas.

Dry food was alright, we settled quite quickly on Iams, which is on a subscribe and save on Amazon. Currently we're a little over stocked....

Wet food on the other hand....whiskas, felix, sheba and now gourmet. We've learnt though he likes fish more than meat, and only gravy. At least he'll just lick off the gravy if he doesn't fancy the fish, so it doesn't feel so much of a waste and he's eating something.

The Zooplus delivery arrived and I tried an Appelaws chicken in gravy and Catz Finefoods poultry in gravy and....he didn't like either. 😕 In fact, he licked the gravy off the Appelaws and vomited a few minutes later. 😪

What do I do? Do I give in and offer him Whiskas and donate the rest of the Zooplus stuff to Cat Protection?

I'm gutted. I was so hopeful that he'll like the good quality food.

Try putting a small amount of the new food in with the old stuff and introduce it gradually

Our two eat a mixture of Felix and Sheba Gourmet with Royal Canin digestive biscuits. The boy was great on Whiskas and Perina biscuits but had a bad reaction. He has tried most food including the grain free stuff. The Royal Canin digestive biscuits are brilliant because otherwise he eats too quickly. Our girl isn't keen on fresh meat but our boy is so he has that and tinned fish. I had always thought to feed your cats the best you can afford but they usually tell you what they like!