Is fresh cat food really better, or is Felix perfectly fine?

[LoisGriffinskitchen]

I have two rescue cats and have got them on KatKin fresh cat food. Tbh it’s wonderful, the cats are thriving on it, it’s simple to prepare and stores in the freezer.

However it’s £70 a box and money is tight at times.

I'm pretty certain if I speak to my lovely local vet Aggie she is likely to pull a face and say Felix As Good As it Looks is fine 😁.

Just wondering what other people’s opinions are on fresh food. Is it truly superior? Am I letting my girls down by buying a huge box of Felix and giving that at times.

Litter tray definitely smells better while on this food.

I mostly give my cat Sanabelle biscuits for sensitive skin and he loves it. I supplement it with a bit of Felix which he mainly licks the jelly off then leaves. He did love Applelaws when I succumbed but I can’t afford it. I will probably buy a 12 pack occasionally (from Zooplus where I get my biscuits) as a treat.

We do a mix, alternate days. He has an Untamed tin and Go Cat dry one day, then Sheba pouch and Royal Canin dry the next. He wouldn’t even touch Katkin when we tried that.

Felix is "cat food" in as much as McDonald's is "human food".

Yeah it's food, but it's not particularly nutritious or good for them.

My girl mainly eats Purrform raw but a few times a week I’ll give her a pouch of Whiskas as a treat. She loves both.

I raw feed my cats which I make up myself to an 80/10/10 diet (80 protein, 10 bone, 10 secreting organs) this is the combination they get if they eat prey - birds, mice etc. You can buy 80/10/10 combinations of food in shops like just for pets. Cats are more healthy on a raw diet as Felix/Whiskas etc have all the goodness cooked out of them and the needed nutrients are added back in artificially. Vets normally scare you about feeding raw because they do not have nutrition training and usually only do a brief food course as part of their training - sponsored by the big pet food manufacturers. I manage to feed them quite economically this way - It costs £43 for 34 packs of meat (80/10/10). I make a mix using 4 packs every 4 days (for 3 cats) but I add some minced turkey thigh meat and chicken liver to the mix that I knock up and then freeze in containers of 750g, I use one container a day for 3 cats. The cats tend to eat less because it takes longer to digest but they have shiny coats and less smelly poos. I have had cats all my life and these are the first 3 I have fed raw - all the others were on Felix or grain free cat food. I would never go back to feeding the shop bought stuff but recognise there is a commitment to making it up. My vet is also brilliant and she supports me with raw feeding.

I have 8 cats - 6 eat whiskers dry and 3 also get wet food - whatever is on offer - Felix or Whiskers

our 2 new kittens have sensitive tummies so are currently on premium sensitive food at £££ a bag but it’s better than them having bloody diarrhoea!

All my cats are rescue cats so Felix is better than day old chips out of the gutter they may have been living on!

Fussy little bastards won’t eat tasty shreds. It’s Felix doubly delicious fish flavour or nothing! They also (reluctantly) east Smilla from Zooplus

Cad nutrition is a surprisingly contentious topic, so you get every view from ‘meh, it’s all regulated, my cats only get supermarket stuff and all live to 20’ through to ‘anyone who doesn’t prepare their own raw food is practically a cat abuser’ (commonly expressed on certain cat forums). And then the cats have their own opinions on what to eat.
So it’s up to you and your cat to find your own place on that spectrum, at a nutritional level and price point that you can live with. We’ve gone for a pragmatic approach: DCat’s digestion goes to pot (with smelly consequences) if his food contains grain, so he gets exclusively grain-free food, which often pushes up the quality in itself. We used to give him one dry (grain-free) meal a day but he scoffed it and got fat so now he gets only wet food. Now he’s a senior his kidney levels are at the higher end of ok, so some of his wet meals are in the ‘kidney care’ range to reduce his overall phosphorus intake. we have some dry food in for the few occasions when we are out all day and wet food would go off, but it’s not regular. I wouldn’t feed Felix, but it also not the stuff of the devil.

Generally I would say:
Many vets are not good at cat nutrition, and like pushing the Royal Canine and Hills ‘scientific’ dry food they sell themselves. This positions them against lots of cat ‘experts’, who prefer raw feeding.
Dry food can be a real problem for some cats. It has higher levels of phosphorus, which is bad for kidneys. It doesn’t have the water content of wet food, which is a problem for cats who don’t like drinking from a water bowl. And it’s easy for some cats to get overweight. It’s utterly despised on certain cat forums, which is quite extreme. Vets seem to love it though, citing dental health. And ‘normal’ cat owners are left in the middle going, eh, what?
If you want to feed some raw food yourself a cat can have up to 20% of their diet raw without supplemental nutrients (like taurine), as long as the rest of their diet is complete not complementary. If you go over the 20% you need to buy the supplements as a powder (or put together your own crazily complex supplements). Our cat also does his own supplementing with a range of crunchy mice from the garden.
Really important: try to get your cat used to multiple brands and flavours, and use them interchangeably, so if they go off one you’re not scrabbling to find a substitute.
If you order from Zooplus, high-quality grain-free wet food without fillers doesn’t need to be that expensive. The trick is to buy 400g cans rather than tiny single-meal sachets or trays. Always compare the kilo price. They last multiple meals - store them in the fridge with a rubber can lid.
Brands we currently use (in Germany, but also via Zooplus) are: Catz Finefood, Grau, Macs, Smilla, Bozita, Leonardo, Wild Freedom, Rosies Farm. I order once a quarter. They all hit that sweet spot of decent-ish contents without being overly expensive.

If you buy a job lot of your cat's favourite food, the cat will decide she's gone off it. Guess how I know.

400g cans? I wish! Once it’s been in the fridge, my cats not touching it!

Again thank you to everyone for the varying views.

all my cats apart from my last one lived 18+ years. All on supermarket food!

ill che k out grain free wet food:

@MidnightMeltdown , Don't put it in the fridge. Put a lid on it and put it somewhere cool.

Mine are on KatKin too. They are so shiny, and the litter tray is very inoffensive compared to previous felines. I agree it’s hella expensive though.

My cats absolutely stank on supermarket type food they are now on Untamed and it’s solved the stinky problem. Cats eat what cats want to eat, you can buy them Felix but you know they will turn their noses up at it after devouring it for a week!

My cat stinks but the vet said she didn't smell.

Mine will only eat Felix or Whiskas, possibly Tesco foily packets. She doesn’t like anything posher. She’s a very cheap date.

Felix, Whiskas, supermarket own brands etc are absolutely fine for cats. It's what most cat owners (including me) use and cats aren't dropping dead at a rate of knots. In fact it's probably more nutritious than the stuff that some parents feed their kids.

Posh catfood that mine won't eat so far includes Applaws, most offerings from Untamed, Carny and KatKin. Also dislikes fresh chicken or fish, and Dreamies. The dog is everywhere hopeful that I'll try another new brand and she'll get the leftovers.

Felix it is then. At least it's slightly less stinky than Whiskas.

I do like the better smell with Katkin. We do 50% Katkin 50% grain free dry food. I have no idea if it makes any difference to health or longevity though.

DH is a vet. We don't spend a fortune on high-end cat food for our three, but to ring the changes we do stock up on a variety of wet food pouches.

When it comes to dry food they're more fussy. It's the Purizon varieties they all like (available from Zooplus and Bitiba) and also Royal Canin Maine Coon (because they're all "Coonies").

My two won't eat fresh chicken or fish. They don't seem keen at all on "bits" of meat. I buy them the felix soup, mainly because they slurp up the soup part! And I read that wet food is helpful for hydrating them, otherwise I probably wouldn't bother. They'll eat the odd bit of meat from the soup, but generally I end up throwing it away. So for that reason I wouldn't fork out for any expensive wet food. I highly suspect I'd be wasting my money.

I think moggies are more robust than pedigree cats which I have (and they get colds and upset tummies which I never remember happening with our moggies when I was growing up). So I am very careful what I feed them.

My uncle fed his cat Go-Cat and the cat died from stomach cancer recently. Go Cat is recommended not to use. It’s obviously not a sure thing that the food caused an untimely death for the cat but I’d personally rather be sure I didn’t do anything to contribute to my cats getting ill or dying young.

Well all I can say is that my cat has always had grain free food which is good quality. She’s nearly 9 and sleeps 24/7. Has virtually lost interest in going outside. I’m worried about her.
My sisters cat is older and fed on own brand tinned cat food. She’s lively and energetic and a good weight. My cat is still too heavy despite very draconian portions. So I’m not sure my cat wouldn’t have been better on tinned own brand food.

FWIW, I think good quality dry food is better than poor quality wet food.

Most cat food available in supermarkets have a shockingly low protein content, and cats are supposed to eat mostly protein. No judgement if that's what people feed their cats (it's affordable and convenient). But if you have the budget and inclination I do think it's worth considering better quality options.

We've always given our cats Orijen dry food (I just keep the bowl topped up) and one tray of Lily's Kitchen wet food each day. I buy online from PetPlanet or Zooplus. It costs more than bog standard stuff but it's more nutritious - higher protein content - so cats eat less of it. And mine have always been in good health with lovely soft shiny coats.

My puss puss likes poultry Whiskas so that is what she gets, but I balance it with IAMs biscuits.