Advice needed about wet food.

[LadyNellCardross]

Hello everyone, I need your help. Our new cat has only been on dry food but the vet has recommended I switch him to wet. He has been eating Whiskas, Felix and Aldis sachets but he seems hungry. I can even hear his wee tummy rumbling in the morning! I'm looking at switching to a better quality food with a higher meat content. I would prefer to order online but it's not essential. At the same time cost is a factor and I've been shocked at the price of some of the brands. Could I please have some recommendations? Thanks so much.

Coukd you do a mix of both wet and dry? Mine eat Sheba and gourmet perle wet and AVA dry food from pets at home

In my experience, the wet food sachets in gravy (rather than jelly) have more meat in them. I buy the boxes of gravy sachets from Wilkos (not the premium ones)- these are the cheapeast price I've seen.

I would give your cat a wet food sachet mixed with dry food in the morning, and then give him dry food for the rest of the day. If this doesn't seem to be enough for him, I would increase it to two sachets.

I wouldn't personally just feed wet food- it's messy and also, dry food 'cleans' their teeth as they have to crunch it to eat it.

Also, for dry food, I get a mixture of different brands: Go Cat, Aldi, Asda, Wilkos.

We have 2 food fiends. Half a tin of asda wet food with some asda dry sprinkled on the top. Only get fed at our bedtime (their choice and never' ask 'other times for food!) Never seen a vet in over 5 years except jabs!!

Butchers classic has high meat content, and can be purchased at supermarkets.

I stock up in various foods from zooplus once a month and rotate in an attempt to stop the boredom creeping in and SmokingCat refusing to eat it. From there we normally get Grau, Mac’s, James well beloved, feringa and Catz fine foods.

Make sure you are looking at complete foods though. A lot of the complementary foods have high meat content but a more missing other vital bits.

Thanks for your replies. Yes I could do a mixture of both I suppose, although he is ignoring the dry food I've left out for him and demanding sachets. Today I bought a sample pack of Lily's Kitchen and he's refused to eat 2 out of the 4 flavours. Any other brands you could suggest? He's a fussy so and so.

I tried mine on a few high meat content foods from zooplus but they wouldn't eat them. They don't like pate style at all. They didn't like butchers as it had too much jelly. When choosing dry food avoid those with cereals as the main ingredient, you want meat to be the main constituent. AVA dry from pets at home has about 60% meat. Stuff like Go Cat has lots of cereal and little meat

Mine get a pouch each morning and night plus dry left out. They have been having a sneaky wee extra half pouch each at lunch time too. S

An average 4kg cat needs approx 200 calories per day, which isn’t an exact amount as activity levels, metabolism, etc vary from cat to cat.

I have a very fussy eater and it’s difficult to get food into her so I needed to do a bit of research into the calorie contents of some foods to make sure she was getting enough to eat.

So, if you do find something the cat likes it’s worth contacting the company to find out calorie contents which is what I did.

For example some of the Applaws complementary sachets of chicken or fish have a mere 25 calories in them and if you were going by an average two sachets per day rule they’d only be getting 50 calories, so a quarter of what they need.

As I say, this does all depend on different cats and their builds etc, but approx 200 was what research told me.

My own cat is a small build and at 4kg she would probably sustain her weight on about 150-175 cals.

Now I’m not boring on about this for the sake of it, just to point out some of the complementary wet foods have very few calories indeed, and could leave a cat hungry. Plus as someone else pointed out they don’t supply everything the cat needs.

Also,they do recommend feeding at least two separate meals per day as cats are essentially grazers and there’s some kind of health reason behind the at least two meals per day rule, although right now I can’t remember what it is.

Didn’t mean for this to sound preachy so hope it didn’t!

And along with many others mine has a wet and dry diet. She gets half a sachet of Royal Canin Sensitive in the morning and the other half in the evening (approx 100 cals per sachet). And then I leave James Wellbeloved oral health dry biscuits out all day for her to graze on.

She is such a small eater sometimes it worries me so I’m very happy if she eats most of her wet and at least a few goes at the dry throughout the day.

Mine have Animonda Carny from Zooplus, which has high meat content and isn't a pate style cat food. I introduced it gradually and they have no problems with it.

I've just discovered Naturo cat food as I was looking for a good quality pate for my extremely fussy cat. He licks the jelly or gravy off most foods, and the Gourmet pate has sugars in it.
He won't eat the salmon flavour though, but likes the chicken and turkey varieties.
I bought it in Wilkos, had to order online when they had none in last week, but they deliver to store for free.

Naturo is 50p for a 85g pot.

Thank you for all your replies. That's very interesting Otter as the vet said he thinks he'll end up quite a big cat because of the size of his shoulders. He's been underfed for a long period of time by his previous owner. So he probably needs more calories than the average cat anyway. He was having 6 sachets a day but trying to get more during the night. He has dry food left out which he ignores. Thanks for all the suggestions on brands, I'll have a look on Zooplus tonight.

Oh bless him, he’s lucky to have found you then. 6 sachets! He must be (or will be) a big boy!

It’s bloody annoying when they ignore the dry food as it’s so much cheaper and there’s less waste. I especially hate serving wet in summer.

Mine love Naturo (especially the Turkey).

My cats turned their noses up at the better food for the first few days, but now they would pick it over Whiskas every time.

Maybe top up with a few treats - dreamies, roast chicken, webbox sticks etc. ? Get a few more calories in that way. They need the complete food for the nutrients, but a few snacks in his situation won't hurt.
I hesitate to suggest lik-e-liks, they've been the ruination of my boy....

I recommend this website so much I feel like I should get paid for it but... the Happy Kitty Company is brilliant, they do some of the same stuff as Zooplus and others and will put together a bespoke sample box for you with smaller cans so you don't have as much waste if he turns his nose up at any of them. You can also buy in smaller amounts than on Zooplus so for our cat I tend to get two or three cans of different flavours in different brands so that he doesn't get bored. He hasn't started turning his nose up at any yet (touch wood!)

Gourmet is 12.5% protein & £30 for 96 pouches on Amazon.

Canagan and Thrive are not cheap but they are high meat/fish content and they are complete foods (We have had to switch to a complete wet food recently). My cat really really loves Canagan tuna + prawns, shame it's so pricey

Mine love Purizon dry from zooplus and its not dry dry if that makes sense they have 50 g a day and half a tray of Sheba fine flakes which is always on offer and grain free or either Tescos Finest or Sainsburys Taste the Difference which is very good quality and £3.50 a box. I cant deal with £1 a tiny tin for a complimentary food even though the love Encore.

I couldnt feed them once a day. In the evening they often want food at 6pm and again at midnight. I go with them really.