Best dry food

[Plump82]

I'm sure this has been asked a 1000 times but none seem very recent so i was wondering if anyone could recommend a good dry food.
My 2 love dry food but I really dont want to feed them only dry. My last cat suffered with crystals when she only ate biscuits and i dont want history to repeat itself. Admittedly she didnt eat great quality stuff so im going to ensure this pair get better quality.
Im planning on giving them a little canned with some added water and then top with biscuits. Boy cat does drink, ive never seen girl cat drink at all. I even got them a fountain and they just played with it! Annyway, currently doing that with Harringtons which they both seem to enjoy. Looking at the ingredients it seems ok but I'm not sure?
Help!
Thank you!

Mine eat encore dry (80% meat) and thrive dry (90% meat). Think last stuff was from zooplus but have got it from amazon before too

My overlord eats Applaws dry food. And has a tin a day of kitten treat tuna wet food. It is for a treat not nutrition. Plenty of fresh water available at all times away from the food bowl.

Crystals tends to be genetic, if your cat is prone then they are prone. I've had 2 sisters and eventually they both had crystals.

However there are dry foods for crystal prone cats and once I swapped neither of them ever had a problem again and the survivor probably prefers dry to wet.

This is the perennial problem of cats - what you want them to eat is not necessarily the same as what they want to eat.

They would be quite happy with the cat equivalent of a MaccyDs every day for the rest of their lives while you are trying to feed them organic nutritious dinners.

@annamagnani oh you're telling me about Mcdonalds equivalent! They're fickle little creatures! I wasn't aware crystals were genetic. Gilbert & Freda are only 1 so totally fit and healthy just now.
@dementedpixie those 2 have much higher meat content than I expected. Im assume grain content is low in these as well as Applelaws?

Applaws and Encore are made by the same manufacturer. Think Encore is cheaper though. They are all grain free

Ours also has Thrive dry (and wet). Yes, Thrive is grain free. He enjoys it but I think he would eat most things as he is a greedy so and so! There is a huge range of high meat content, grain free foods on Zooplus.

Harry eats James Wellbeloved. It's not as high meat quantity as some but it's the best I can get him to eat. He also eats Country Hunter pouches which are 96% meat but as they aren't senior pouches I don't know if they're the best thing for him. He thinks they are so what do I know?!

As one of the nurses at the vets said to me 'the poor little chap has to eat'. Yes, he had them wound around his little paw as well!

I have done some research on this and it's not just the meat content you need to be concerned about it's the magnesium content. It's really hard to tell from packaging what the magnesium content is.

This is an article I found about it. www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-03-29-9803290433-story.html

I've been feeding my two a mixed diet of wet and dry. I noticed Lidl's own does list the magnesium content and it matches the suggestion in the article.

I think @thecatneuterer might know a bit too.

Here's images from the Lidl food.

@SciFiScream that's interesting and something I've never heard of having to keep an eye out for so im glad i know now!

I don't agree with AnnaMagnani - well that is I don't agree with her conclusion that if the cats are going to get crystals they are going to get them. There are apparently proven links between cheap dried food and crystals in male cats, and it has something to do with the magnesium content. But you don't really need to study the magnesium content, as it handily appears to be directly proportionate to price. So avoid all cheap dry food such as Whiskas, Go Cat, Supermarket own brands, and go for something that is at least as expensive as Purina One and preferably more expensive still, and you should avoid problems.

Would you consider James Wellbeloved to be ok TCN? Harry has it alongside Country Hunter wet food.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat I give mine James Wellbeloved. However I'm no kind of expert on food. I only know that cheap dry equals bad.

Hills pet food is extremely good quality.

Hills is certainly expensive. Dont know if high price always means its the best though.

Hills IS excellent. (Vet nurse of 25 years.) High price for all the right reasons.

Mine are on Hills - the dental one. Recommended by the vets.

I wasn't impressed with Hills when we tried it for Harry. It seemed to be a low meat content with meat derivatives and very expensive. He agreed and we donated it a local rescue.

I'm sorry but a lot of the Hills dry cat foods have grains as a first ingredient. That is not the sign of a good food for cats as they are obligate carnivores

Yes I'm always reading the ingredients list. I'm not convinced that more expensive always equals better.

Plus it's good to have a range of price options to offer people who ask because lots of people will be on a tight budget and still want to feed their darling cats well.

My two eat wet food, their own self served food (hunted) and dry food. They also get a few dreamies occasionally and some treats that claim to be dental .

@dementedpixie

Hills is certainly expensive. Dont know if high price always means its the best though.

Very true. But low price always means it's crap.

Mine alternates between Encore and Lily's Kitchen, she is very good at drinking lots of water too.

Royal Canin. Used it for 20+ yrs

I looked at a website for nutritional information about James WellBeloved dry cat food and here's a screen shot. It says no grain which is ideal but the protein content is lower than the Lidl food and the ash content is higher (that's the thing that I think leads to problems).

This is the turkey and veg version.

www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/james-wellbeloved-cereal-free-complete-adult-cat-food-with-turkey

The problem I have is my furry overlord won't eat anything other than JW! I'm not going to try and change things at his age, especially as the vet told me he's in good condition for a cat of his age (I'm still preening about that one)!