Last week, I asked friends online, “What do you feed your dog?” Their answers are surprisingly full of valuable information!
This week, I asked instead, “What do you feed your cat?”
Here are their answers to that question and about these details:
> What do you feed your cat (for food)?
> Brand name/s, specific product you are feeding; raw or… ?
> How/why did you decide to choose this food?
> How do you feed—bowl, free feeder, timed feeder, or … ?
> How/why did you decide to eat this way?
Ann Jorgensen (Alaska) Sphynx kitty Trillium is fed raw. Sphinxes have high metabolisms and are known for their impressive and disgusting bathroom habits. Raw greatly reduces volume and odor. I use what’s called an 80/20 grind, with the BARF diet as a reference. I usually use a whole chicken leg quarter for 80% and a mix of organ meats for 20% (10% calf liver, 10% chicken gizzards and heart, and sometimes green tripe ). Organs with high nutrients should generally be kept at 10%. I add salt and in some cases additional supplements like taurine. Then I freeze in single-use containers. When I reconstitute, I add a lot of water until it’s the consistency of a thin soup. I often add a probiotic shot at this time. Trillium has access to vegetables and food like Churu.
My rescue kitty Fuzzbucket is set in his/her ways. (He’s the hermaphrodite/chimera.) He loves kibble, but is a little picky. Not interested in expensive brands, but I think he likes cat chow or Friskies (I call it McDonald’s for cats), so we settled on Purina One salmon, free fed. I just bought an auto feeder—I’ve used them before and love them. (I have a 20-year-old Persian who I have to make sure has regular access to food because of his age.) The new feeder also has Bluetooth, so I’m excited to play with it. I should add that I have cameras at home to watch the critters. Fuzzbucket is a big fan of Churu sticks fish flavors and fish flakes. Fuzzbucket has come a long way from being slated-for-euthanasia the day I adopted him/them, to loving visitors. We found out that he particularly loves men with beards.
There’s also a microchip-activated feeder, so if you have a kitten on a special diet, you can make sure they only eat their scripted diet. I’ve used them in the past with great success—the technology actually came from pig farming. Lastly, in addition to food, I always use drinking fountains and filtered water. I like the ceramic pagoda from Petsafe.
Photo by Ann Jorgensen
Don Hanson (Maine) We feed Boomer a variety of commercial frozen raw diets, rotating brands and proteins.
Gwen Jones (California) Raw food 2x day plus a small amount of canned food for medicine. The raw food comes from a local producer, Feed This, Inc. The occasional kibble is Orijen but I really try to get her all in the raw. She’s a finicky eater, so we haven’t had any success with that (yet!). He is fed twice a day, from plastic or ceramic dishes—metal causes an allergic reaction. Decided to try him on raw after good success with dogs. His coat is great, energy level is great, poops are smaller and more frequent than kibble. I know where the food is processed and it’s not a big factory with heat, so the nutrients are more bio-available to him. It’s harder to feed this way with two cats—one always steals his food!
Erin Darling Looney (Washington) A cat eats Iams Kitten food; he’s not a kitten, but this is all he wants to eat. Three cats eat Purina Protein because it fills them up and they don’t just snack on it all day. These three are quite chunky, so we try to watch what they eat. One cat eats Friskies wet food because he throws up everything and has a hard time eating solid food. Friskies tuna, salmon, or chicken are the only things that don’t make him sick. They are all fed twice a day. That’s the only schedule I’ve always used for cats, so I’m not sure why we do it, but the cats love it.
Karen Schlossberg (Massachusetts) Roo has some food sensitivities, so I have to feed him hydrolyzed protein and he gets Purina Sensitive Stomach wet food. Three quarters of a can twice a day because he maintains his weight. He also gets single-item treats. He is doing very well on this diet.
Ingrid Bock (New York) I feed my 18/19-year-old almost exclusively Fancy Feast, pâté-type because a cat vet told me pâtés have the most water, and the ‘land animal’ flavor because he advised that too. Every now and then I switch it up and serve the flavors of the fish. Every now and then I give him some Greenies cat treats to crunch on. I often/usually put a little water in the dish with his Fancy Feast, because he doesn’t drink much. I regularly offer him some of what the dogs have in their top ‘stew,’ and he loves beef, chicken, and turkey. About once a month, both cats get tuna. My 5/6-year-old cat also eats Fancy Feast, but since he eats more, to change his taste, I sometimes give him Friskies, which are in large tins. And I give him a little more dry stuff (eg, Greenies treats) to crunch on, because he’s young and likes to drink water. He won’t touch the ‘people food’ I serve the dogs and the older cat likes. Both cats eat out of bowls, but the older cat prefers to eat human food from my fingers. I tried switching the cats to a higher quality wet food, but they didn’t take it and I gave up. The same cat vet told me that even the worst wet food is still better than the best kibble, so I switched to almost exclusively wet. That’s the most important message I’m trying to tell people.
Sandee Strobel Szabo (Virginia) We have two former feral cats, now 14. We are free of Wellness Complete Health Natural Grain-Free Salmon & Herring Dry Cat Food and Purina Pro Plan Adult Salmon & Rice Formula Dry Cat Food plus Friskies and 9 Lives wet food , various. They take their dry food one at a time until that bag is finished, then they get the second type of dry food. They also shared a can of one of the wet foods between the two of them. We decided to make a grain-free and grain-free food mix. We added in wet food about three years ago. We do this to make sure they stay hydrated and because it’s a little easier on their teeth.
Lili Chin (California)
> KING: Rose Paw Lickin’ Chicken
> SHIMMY: Purina Pro Plan Chicken Entree
We chose these foods after trying many brands and flavors (they are picky kitties) and luckily we found ones they liked that the other cats didn’t, so no stealing. They both eat the same Royal Canin digestive kibble.
(The printout is quite old.)
Lili Chin’s photo
In E Wolf (Vermont) Most high-end wet foods. Dry food is terrible for cats. I bought cans of Tiki Cat, Orijen, and Instinct. Cats love variety. I love pâté by far more than shredded. It’s been my dream to feed raw, but haven’t done it yet. Cats are obligate carnivores, so watch what you feed them—make sure it’s meat, organs, etc., not peas and corn.
Isabel Alvarez Arata (Texas) I feed the Weruva beef and Green Juju recipe. We chose Weruva’s canned pâté and topped it with Green Juju’s beef freeze-dried recipe pet food. I chose both brands because I like their standards and commitment to pets.
Glenda Lee (Maine) Farrah gets Blue Buffalo kibble—basically a fish protein, but I rotate her proteins. He is free to eat, but always gets a bit of home cooked dogs for dinner and a spoon full of either tuna or salmon.
Rebecca Cook (Washington) My Roscoe, with all his health issues, must be on a hypoallergenic diet, so both cats eat prescription Hills Science Diet Z/D as I find it impossible to feed them separately . They both get dry kibble to feed freely during the day. I’ve had bad luck with food aggression in a cat when they don’t free-feed, and occasional weight issues if I don’t make sure the kibble is healthy.
They share half a tin of wet pâté every night. I put it in a dish with about half a glass of water and mash it so it’s really wet. I started doing this when my older cat, Nahla, wasn’t getting enough water. They have a water fountain, but sometimes in the winter, he doesn’t like to drink much. We haven’t had super dry poop (my sign that they need more water) since I did this. Unfortunately, hypoallergenic cat treats have been out of stock for about a year, so we can’t make treats anymore, but honestly, we don’t really need them.
Jett Wyatt (Arizona) Every day, cats get a quarter-can each of Lotus or Weruva cat food. The rest of their diet is kibble; usually Pure Vita, NutriSource, Open Farm, or Farmina. They’re pretty picky, so they won’t eat anything with fish in it—although, for some reason, they’re happy to eat MY tuna! I feed them twice a day, but they leave food behind. Now they are fed once a day (same amount as before) and they finish everything.
For new cat owners, don’t be surprised if you come across many foods that your cats won’t eat, or just choose. Even the same protein—they’ll eat a canned chicken and turn their nose up at a different brand. They tend to be quite choosy. Having a dog to take care of the leftovers really helps!
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