What do you feed your cats?

[LoonvanBoon]

We're getting a rescue cat - around a year old - & will be bringing her home next week. We're all very excited!

Was just wondering what type of diets most people feed their cats these days? We've had cats in the past & fed them a mix of wet & dry food, but our neighbours' cats just have IAMS & seem to thrive on it. Their cats always have water available, of course.

Do many of you use those types of "complete" dry foods, or do your cats have a mixture? If the latter, how many wet food meals per day do your adult cats generally have? Oh, & if your cats have a mix, do you still use the more expensive IAMs type diets or is it okay to go for cheaper biscuits (like Go-Cat)? Thanks!

I've never considered Iams to be one of the cheap and nasty dried foods. I wouldn't put it in the same bracket as Whiskas, Go Cat, supermarket own brand etc, which are the really bad ones.

My cat has eaten nothing but Gocat for 9 years and has survived.

MrsDavidBowie - I don't doubt it, just as I don't doubt that there are people who smoke 40 a day but live to be 100 without every having to see a doctor.

It has however been shown both anecdotally and scientifically ( one of the vets on here was able to quote research to prove it) that the cheap dried food is a huge risk factor in urinary crystals/blocked bladders in particular. However this risk is much greater for male cats than for females.

Our vet recommended Royal Canin oral as our cats are prone to teeth problems.

Since starting this thread I've been reading ingredients lists on cat food!

Re. the dry foods, IAMS does have a higher proportion of protein & animal derived ingredients than biscuits like Go Cat, but less than most of the feeds mentioned above.

Go Cat is only about 10% animal derivatives & stuffed full of cereal based ingredients. IAMs has about 40%. The grain-free dry feeds like applaws & Arden Grange are about 80% animal derivatives & don't contain cereals at all, so are much more nutritious.

Only a day to go before we get our cat now, & we have a cupboard stuffed with Butchers Choice, applaws & arden grange, so hoping she's going to like some of it!

She'll love it. She'll still want what your eating though.

We brought our 2yr old rescue cat home today and were given a bag of dry food by the shelter but told she ought to have a mix of dry and wet. We're not in UK so how would you go about researching what's best for her? She seems pretty healthy in all respects

I got a bit worried about the quality of cat food a couple of years ago and bought lots of different expensive and apparently healthier foods for our younger cat but she wouldn't eat them. So now she's back with Whiskas pouches in gravy (she wont eat jelly either) and Whiskas indoor complete biscuits. She doesn't have any stinky problems.

Our older cat is on prescription food. She does have stinky problems.

We used to feed hills science plan, but they weren't thriving on it. We had a recommendation for Harringtons dry and I decided to give it a try as it appeared to be a good balance between cost and quality. They have that and some wet food once a day. They've been on it a couple of years and the vet commented last year and this (when they went for boosters) that they are in excellent condition unlike many pets from multi-pet households. (we have seven cats and six of them eat it, the seventh has a special kidney diet due to kidney failure following a nasty kidney infection a few years ago.)I buy the jarringtons on subscribe and save from amazon and it's very good value.