A good dry catfood

[Stripyhoglets]

Just got a rehomed pusscat - aged 3 - currently on supermarket biscuits but wondering if we should move onto anything else for long term health reasons. Happy to stick with biscuits rather than wet food as better for their teeth I understand. Any recommendations for dry catfood from you knowledgeable lot - it's our first cat. Thankyou

Mine is on James Wellbeloved Hairball as he is a long haired.

Whatever you choose, make sure it is labelled as a complete food if you are intending to make it their main diet.

Feeding cats has a lot of different opinions!
Our vets (prior to take over) always said ideally a mix of wet and dry with a high meat content and to feed the best quality you can afford.
Wet food in jelly or gravy is what causes a lot of dental issues and saggy tummies. Our lad has Thrive wet which isn't the cheapest but you could always have half a tin over two days alongside dry. He also likes Blink but I am trying to avoid pouches. We give ours Thrive dry too. AATU is supposed to be good. Lily's Kitchen is a mid price dry food grain free and reasonable meat content. There are all sorts of foods available.
Zooplus is a good website. Vets often stock single tins/pouches/small bags so you can try before you buy larger amounts.
When you swap foods do it gradually to avoid any tummy issues.
And the rules are we need a photo of puss

Puss is currently hiding and quite frankly currently thinks that we are clearly cat nappers but am sure they will settle in soon - thankyou for your advice - we will definitely make any changes slowly.

You want something with a high protein/meat content. One of mine practically lives on James Wellbeloved adult turkey, and is a bit partial to Meowing Heads too. She's really fussy with wet food but I still offer it to her. No ill effects from a dry food diet, I think because the better brands aren't full of fillers and have added herbs/veg specifically for bladder and kidney health.

mine love jameswellbeloved turkey best of all. Theyre quite fussy

Mine eats Encore. It's grain free, 80% meat, 20% veg. Little bugger refuses to eat wet food. I live in fear of Morrisons discontinuing it!

Mine only likes Arden grange. He’s tried so many brands.

Dry food is not better for their teeth, that's a myth.

Is your cat male or female?
Male cats especially are much better off eating mostly wet food to maintain urinary tract health - as cats don't drink enough, getting moisture from food is important.

Encore or thrive dry

Male - yes I did think long term that dry food only could be an issue. I think I'll try change his dry food First then add some wet food - he's not eaten anything yet so think he needs a while to settle down.

My boy will only drink running water. We managed to wean him off the tap with a cat fountain. It plugs into the wall and has a pump to keep the water circulating. He drinks from it daily now whereas he would ignore water in a bowl. I got mine from Amazon for about £30. It comes apart and I can put all of the bits in the dishwasher for a good clean (apart from the pump and the electrical cable, obv).

Thank you for all the advice - I've definately got more ideas now and looking at the ingredients can see how much difference there is between foods! The one he's on now has only 4% meat! I'm definately going to move to some that's good for urinary tract as well for the longer term.

My rescue cat eats Wainwrights dry food. I mixed it with the Purina she was on initially and she switched no problem. She's VERY fussy about wet food - we've wasted so much cat food on things she won't touch. The one she will reliably eat all varieties is Applaws. It comes in small tins which suit her small appetite and she loves it. It's not a complete food though so she only has 1 tin per day and then the dry complete food the rest of the time. Her favoured drinking receptacle is the bird bath though so she's not all that fussy!!

My girl won't eat wet food of any kind. (Except tuna)
She is on Tesco's dry food. She is very content. However, I am on a budget.

bumping to knock all the cat pee threads off the front page.

Cheap dried food is directly linked to urinary crystals and blocked bladders in male cats. If you want to feed dry (and it's not necessary at all) then make sure it's a good one - James Wellbeloved, Arden Grange, Applaws, Lily's Kitchen etc.

Another vote for James Wellbeloved.

Does James Wellbeloved not have a lot of rice in it that cats dont need?
Encore is 80% meat (think applaws is by the same manufacturer)
Thrive is 90% meat

dementedpixie - yes it does. It's true it's not needed, but it's still good enough quality to not be harmful and it's not as expensive as Encore etc. So it's certainly infinitely better than Whiskas, Go Cat, Own brand etc and less of a major hike in price.

Encore, Lily's kitchen, crave, thrive, wild freedom, applaws

Encore is cheaper than applaws - think I pay £5.80 for 800g.
Thrive is currently £9.99 for 1.5kg from Amazon

There is a website you can compare the quality on... petfoodexpert.co.uk/

You can filter by price per day, quality of nutrition, wet/dry (including type of dry), allergies, plus extra stuff, so you can tailor the list. It’s enlightening. I’m considering adding in Acana Wild Prairie in with his James Wellbeloved hairball. It gets fabulous grades and comes out at 52p a day using their system (it’ll cost me more as my cat is bigger but that’s fine).

Thrive doesn’t do particularly well on quality of protein and other ingredients in comparison and works out at 60p pet day on their calculator.

First is the screenshot of Thrive. Second is screenshot of Wild Prairie.

You can click on the i icons on the site to see what each category rating actually means.

PetPlanet are doing big bags (5.4kg) of the Acana Wild Prairie for £35.99 (free p&p over £39).

@EntirelyAnonymised You can take the pump apart as well. It's a little tricky but we thought ours was broke but just needed a good clean out. There is a little indent on the side you push this in and it pops open.

You need to clean out the little impeller

James Wellbeloved Turkey here too, she's fussy but always eats her biscuits