what cat food do you use?

[mckenzie]

We have just adopted two adult cats from the RSPCA and were told to feed them whiskas chicken wet food and James Wellbeloved dry food until they had settled in to help smooth the transition (that's what they had been having in the cattery).

They are eating the dry food but only eating small portions of the wet food first thing in the morning. I would actually rather just feed them dry food for convenience with snippets of fresh chicken and fish for treats.

What dry foods are recommended do you know? Should i stick with james Wellbeloved? Our old tom cat would eat whatever he was given and seemed to thrive on it (until the end of course when it was vet food only, bless him).

TIA

I feed Orijen and a little raw food such as minced chicken and a chicken wing - raw of course NEVER cooked, Keeps teeth and gums healthy.

The best dry food is the one on offer at Pets At Home this week. IMHO they are all pretty much the same, and there always seems to be one on half price, so I get that one whichever it is. Cats seem to think it's a good thing too.

They won't drink water I put down for them but drink plenty from the pond.

They get one pouch of something posh to share every day with a sprinkle of some seaweed stuff the vet told me to use for hteir teeth.

thanks guys. FWIW, I was told that cats won't drink water if it is near to their food.

Are you serious about raw chicken walkersmum?

btw oldenough, I suppose like us they like some variety so your way works huh?

Our pampered pair of Siamese seem to be very healthy on the Lidl dry food, Opticat (£1.99 for 750g IIRC)

... we also have a couple of ice buckets we keep full of water, as they seem to prefer to drink out of them than the water bowls beside their food.

We use Iams for our two. They went on hunger strike for 3 days when I bought Whiskas once.

Their water bowl is positioned between the 2 food bowls and there has never been any issue with them not drinking.

My two have Hills. I keep a few pouches of wet food in for a treat, but only one of them will eat it, in fact he just sucks the gravy off. The other won't touch wet food, tuna, chicken, or pretty much any little titbits you'd think a cat would like. Gravy-sucking one however, will eat anything, I caught him with his head in a tomato soup can yesterday. They both love ham, less fussy boy will sit on the kitchen floor looking half-starved whenever I do anything that just might be 'making a ham sandwich'.

Their water bowls are right next to their food bowls. They DO drink from them, but I noticed they like to drink from random things in the garden, so I keep a bowl topped up out there (not even a cat bowl, just something that happened to be out there). I had to take the plugs out of the bottom of DD's disused sand-and-water tray as they were drinking the most DISGUSTING stagnant old rainwater out of it.

YOu could try using an old mug for water:

1. easy to carry on refill
2. looks like something they shouldn't drink out of so triple cat bonus points
3. the height is ideal forthem to have a quick guzzle without having to bend so far

whichever cat food i buy, she always informs me a week later that in fact she hates that one, has always hated it, and was only ever eating it to be polite, so could i please throw away the 48 pack multibox and get something else, pronto.

We used to alternate between whiskas pouches and felix pouches, but the recipe for the w changed, and was STINKING so now we just buy the felix. Usually the meat mix menu box of 48 pouches (we have 3 cats), but if the As Good As It Looks is on offer, they like that a lot.

If you want to give your cat REAL meat then raw is always best for a number of reasons. Firstly, raw bones don't splinter when the cats try to crunch them. Secondly, because the bones aren't so brittle, they are very good for teeth cleaning.

There is an excellent company based in Lincolnshire who sell wild and farmed rabbit meat, which my cats devour in 5 seconds flat - especially minced. They supply rabbit meat that is fit for human consumption because it doesn't have the bones minced in as well, but if you just want to buy it for your pets, they mince up the bones and the offal as well. If your cats like meat normally, they will be WELL up for this, and it's delivered in polystyrene boxes with cool packs, so doesn't get too warm an go nasty.

I'll get the web address and post it. I can't recommend them highly enough - oh, and because the meat isn't actually frozen when it's dispatched, you can portion it and freeze it yourself.

www.woldsway.co.uk/index.html

I use Hills because my cat has ibs and this doesn't seem to upset his tummy the way wet food and other kinds of dry food do. JWB is also good for his tum, but he is not too keen on that.

Sorry, I was mistaken - it IS frozen, but because of how they transport it, it's STILL frozen so you can freeze it at home.

All good!!

Thank you for all these posts. Socks, our new tom cat, drank out of my water glass that i foolishly put by my feet last night. I have seen him drinking out of the dish too but just not very much and Paris, the Tortie, hasn't drunk at all as far as I know. I like the mug idea as we never drink our water from a mug so we wouldn't have to worry about cross drinking

That website address would be great Meow75 - thank you. I guess I'll keep them on the James Wellbeloved/Whiskas mix for now while they settle in and then I might change it. Socks seems to be eating just the jelly out of the whiskas pouches so I'm very keen to do away with those - waste of my money .

Don'tcallmebaby, I was pleased today that when I made DD a ham sandwich for lunch they didn't come and pester me. Our old Tom used to do that constantly and the amount of times I nearly fell over him was ridiculous. And olives we had last night, old Tom would have been into the bowl of them wherever it was placed but these two just ignored them.