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Hi! I used to post here quite a bit but my job keeps me busy and I've cut way back on the internet in general.
I feed my 4 cats (yes, I got another kitten a year after Abby died, and he's a handful. He was starving, dirty and close to death when he was rescued from underneath a car that was stopped at a light and waiting to get on the interstate entrance ramp) canned food only. But, we are going out of town for a week and will have someone coming in to feed/water/take care of the litterboxes.
Feeding canned for that week will be impossible as three out of the four cats hide under the bed when people visit, and leaving canned out would result in my new cat eating it all at once (he is very food motivated and aggressive), and the rest not getting any.
I tried my old standby (Wellness Core dry) and a new one (Blue Buffalo Freedom, grain free) and one of my cats will not eat either food. She did like the cheap Iams I got at Target, so I was thinking about mixing them. Any other suggestions on a good quality dry food that cats like to eat?
I need to find something she will eat, soon! I need to start switching them over because my trip is in 20 days.
Feeding canned for that week will be impossible as three out of the four cats hide under the bed when people visit, and leaving canned out would result in my new cat eating it all at once (he is very food motivated and aggressive), and the rest not getting any.
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This can cause severe constipation problems in cats on canned food only. Their systems take time to adjust to the unhealthier "dry" diet that also includes fillers and preservative not found in canned food. I'm not saying it will happen, but it can happen. Also, make sure there are several sources of water for the cats as if they load up on dry food with no access to water, that alone can be near catastrophic.
She can leave dry food but canned food also. Enough that they will clean up in a few hours. It doesn't spoil all that fast as some would have you believe. That is unless your place is hot, humid and not air conditioned.
I feed my cats Orijen brand cat food. I like it the best of what's available. I get the orange bag cat and kitten formula which is mostly chicken but there is some white fish in it as well. They also make a fish variety.
I do agree your pet sitter should feed them the wet they are used to. Have them open a few cans or what ever and put in a few places around the house - hopefully it will keep your hoover cat from devouring it all before anyone else gets to it. Also she can open the cans and set out the food just before she leaves so that everyone will come out.
I do agree to make the diet switches right away though - the stress of you being gone is enough to trigger tummy upset. Compounding this with diet changes as you go out of town is not the best of ideas.
Can you leave the 3 scaredy cats in one part of the house with their food and litter and the new kitty with his own in another part of the house? That way you won't have to worry about the three older cats not getting their food.
I looked at the Epigen - It's a plus the meat says organic, but it's not USDA so thats negligible "how" organic it is. It's probably 3rd party certified which means only has to be 70% organic so you're just paying a high price for a fancy word. Potato, rice, corn and wheat protein?? as top ingredient. Also lots of "extracts" like the rosemary and sage instead of using the actual product. It's also 60% meat
Compared to the Orijen that's 80%meat. the Orijen does have potato (sweet and russet - but sweet are very low on the GI index) And no corn and no grain. No extracts / Supplement vitamins and the fish is all frozen and preservative free. Not organic chicken but fresh preservative free meat is good.
I looked at the Epigen - It's a plus the meat says organic, but it's not USDA so thats negligible "how" organic it is. It's probably 3rd party certified which means only has to be 70% organic so you're just paying a high price for a fancy word. Potato, rice, corn and wheat protein?? as top ingredient. Also lots of "extracts" like the rosemary and sage instead of using the actual product. It's also 60% meat
"Potato, rice, corn and wheat protein??"
These are all starches/sugars/carbohydrates. I'd like to know how they separate the protein from the starch. It seems like they can legally claim anything they want on pet food bags and cans.
These are all starches/sugars/carbohydrates. I'd like to know how they separate the protein from the starch. It seems like they can legally claim anything they want on pet food bags and cans.
To some degree they can claim just about anything, but the analysis of protein and such has to be fairly on. From what I can learn of Dr Wysong I'd be very surprised if they took their claims lightly. But also he would not be expecting you to feed that as the only food.
I don't know why it's mentioned that it's the top ingredient. The top 3 ingredients in regular Epigen are Organic Chicken, Chicken Meal, Chicken Giblets. Since they're listed by weight the fact that chicken meal is up there means there's a pretty high concentration of chicken because just chicken means it includes a lot of water. The next ingredient down (4th) is the veg protein, consisting of one or more of the ones mentioned. This is about where you would find potato or such in another grain-free dry anyway. Something has to hold it together. It's a little higher than in some formulas because the only meat is chicken. If you look at Orijen, there's also salmon and turkey in there, which enables potato to be ingredient number 6 or whatever it is, but it doesn't change appreciably the way it's made. At some point kibble is still kibble and has to be bound together with something. There's no way to tell just how much potato/potato protein is in either of these. The protein count is higher on the Epigen, but some of that is from veg, but some of Epigen's is also from veg of course.
The Epigen 90 is a little different and is 90% meat.
Anyway, I think Orijen or Epigen would be a fine food to feed in this case. Orijen is more readily available most likely. The other dry I feed is Nature's Logic. This would not be good temporarily given how much care they ask you to give in introducing it. It's not grain free either but the care put into the ingredient sourcing and the choice of grain (millet) makes sense to me.
Dry food is always a compromise. The heat involved in its processing likely makes some of those lesser ingredients (like rosemary, etc) pointless for their supposed value. That may be why you see extract on the Wysong label because they may be spraying it on after the extrusion process.
The food we feed is the 3rd item on the second page.
I don't particularly like all the fruits and veggies, but it is a little better than most foods out there. The cats like it, keep it down, have good litter box results, and are healthy. And it's not expensive.
I don't know why it's mentioned that it's the top ingredient.
I actually said that the starches were A top ingredient not THE top ingredient - the make up the next several right after the meat (and the chicken fat)
Being that the meat is only 60% to start with and there is a combination of several starch/ grain "proteins" obviously the bulk mass is higher because you have a full 40% available for other ingredients to start with vs. the 20% in Orijen. I doubt the Wyson "extracts" they use which are liquids make up much mass.
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