How to pick a good cat food?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

After planning this for over a year we're finally in the position to get a couple of kittens so now the search for them is on!

I'm researching everything like crazy but food is a total minefield, how do you choose one?? With dogs it's fairly simple as there's that all about dog food website, but unless I'm just not finding it, there's nothing like that for cats 🤔

With my cats they pick which they will choose to eat.....

Recommend zooplus to buy from. Quick delivery and good offers.

Mine will only eat cheap stuff. Any good meaty ones they just leave 😂😫

Oh but whatever you choose don't buy loads. One day it will be the best thing they've ever eaten - next they won't ever touch it again 🙄

Cats are notorious buggers for pretending to like a food loads until you bulk buy it and then they’ll never eat it again.

I would go for something you can afford, that’s mainly meat with as little fillers as possible. And something with lots of flavours 😂

I like Scrumbles, Applaws and Meowing Heads as good starters for kitten food.

So true.
With kittens you need to keep them on what they're currently eating already for a while.
I think mine had a combination of Nature's Menu, lily's kitchen and the occasional box of whiskers/ Felix..

I'd be careful to only introduce them to something you're happy paying for long term too, my cats eat applaws or seriously good bistro (fish flavours only!) and it costs about £50 a week by the time treats etc are factored in 😂

German brands on Zooplus are generally better quality than UK ones, much higher meat content. Mac's and Animonda Carny are the two we buy for our cat.

DCat has KatKin which is 100% meat. It's not the cheapest but well worth it for the odour free litter tray!

Contrary to popular advice we transitioned him onto it immediately as soon as he came home with us at 12 weeks old with no issues at all.

This week I have had five different brands of cat food in the cupboard for a cat that constantly changes what he is going to eat day by day.

Meowing Heads
Lily's Kitchen
Encore
Gourmet Gold/Pate and Cake
Another brand I can't remember off hand, bought at the local garden centre. I am going out shortly and will once again, visit several stores to try and get a mixture of foods that he will, hopefully, eat.

He is a nightmare!

Hi OP, hope you don’t mind me piggybacking on your thread with a related question.

We have been adopted by a cat who is suddenly proving fussy with food. When she turned up in our garden, looking hungry, we fed her Felix AGAIG as that was what our nearest shop sold. She would lickthe plate clean. We’ve since been reading up and would like to give her better quality food. She will eat Pets At Home Seriously Good tuna but she’s recently turned her nose up at the Sainsbury’s higher quality stuff and Blink (both chicken) 😫

What do we do? Have we introduced new food too quickly? Should we persist or should we just go back to Felix? A complication is that since we gave her a couple of the PAH fish pouches, she now turns her nose up at the Felix salmon (which she used to wolf down)!

(Photo for assistance 😊 )

The basics are that cats are obligate carnivores and don’t need an omnivorous diet - there are benefits to giving dogs some veg, but there aren’t any for cats. So food that has rice, maize etc is wasting calories as they don’t need them. Look for the highest meat content you can afford. Dry food is convenient and cats tend to love it, but ideally they should have wet or a combination. Cats don’t tend to drink enough as they rely on getting moisture from their food, so cats which only eat dry food can end up with kidney issues. And it’s a myth that dry food cleans their teeth - they normally just swallow it whole. I do feed dry, but I buy grain-free with a high meat content (Applaws or Wild Freedom on zooplus).

I feed wet once a day, and usually vary between whatever grain-free food is on offer at zooplus. Watch if it is complete or complementary - if you’re also feeding dry, it doesn’t really matter, but if you’re only feeding wet then you need to buy complete so they get enough taurine.

Another vote for Wild Freedom brand here, our cats also went mad for Perfect Fit dry food too!

This might not go down well, but it's only really on MN that I see people getting so worked up about what their cats are fed.

I run a pet-sitting business and every single one of customers (no exceptions) feeds whatever their cat will eat from the local supermarket - generally that's Felix, Whiskas, Gourmet or own-brand stuff.

I've been looking after three cats this week - all of them fed on a mixture of Felix, Gourmet Perle and Dreamies - all elderly (15-20 years of age) and in rude health.

While it's nice to get your animals on really high quality food, the vast majority of animals are not fed these high quality brands and they all seem to be perfectly happy, healthy pets. Basically - don't stress. Just feed what they'll eat. As long as it's a complete food it's likely they'll be just fine.

@pastaandpesto , how much do you feed them? I want to feed better, but need to budget for it.

Katkin works by estimating your cat's daily calorie requirements (based on age, sex, activity levels etc) and then you take out a subscription that gives you 28 daily portions at a time that are the right size for your cat.

However it is much cheaper to by maximum size (400 calories) and then make it last longer. My (lazy) cat only needs around 200 calories a day, so I try to make a pouch last two days (although sometimes he gets a bit more out of me) and then delay the next order until I've nearly run out, if that makes sense.

It's frozen so you do need a bit of freezer space.

Ah thanks. The frozen is no good, I simply don't have the room for it.

I might just bung in some cooked chicken or fish as a supplement till I find something better - my girls are a bit skinny for my liking. I don't want chonkosauruses, but they need to eat better.

If frozen is a no-go you could look at Untamed (although be aware that only the gravy versions are a complete food) which is in tins. Blink is also quite good.

Bozita, available from Zooplus, is another option. It's not as good as the pure meat options IMO but it's more like the tradional felix, whiskas etc in texture but is much higher meat content.