Thread: Innova Evo Canned Cat Food

That's quite an upsetting video. I couldn't work out what the point of the tests were but the dogs were so lack-luster it was heart breaking, and all of them seem to have some sort of wound or sore around their back legs. It's ironic, I've been trying to find biscuits to swap the RC Kitten 36 with and have tried 4 or 5 brands, and the only two they seem to like as much as RC K36 are RC Maine Coon (which encourages runny bum syndrome) or Iams, and I'm certainly not buying THAT again.
Thanks for posting, Candes. It amazes me that these firms get away with it. I realise some stuff needs to be tested on someone or something, but whatever they're doing doesn't seem to agree with those dogs, or the kitten, and I don't feel inclined to fund them in the future.

I don't think I will watch that video... I'm too much of a coward and afraid I'll lose sleep over it.
I wonder if these horrible things are going on at all the big petfood producers...

That video is awful... how sad.

I'll lighten the mood here! I've read some reviews about Fancy Feast and a lot of people state that Fancy Feast is like feeding your cats McDonalds everyday... what are your opinions?

Originally Posted by Meredith

I'll lighten the mood here! I've read some reviews about Fancy Feast and a lot of people state that Fancy Feast is like feeding your cats McDonalds everyday... what are your opinions?

My opinion is that you can find virtually any idiotic and ill informed opinion that you could conceive of on the Interwebs, and when it comes to pet food virtually all of what you read on most websites is nothing but rubbish. How is that for lightening the mood? Of course I actually do mean every word of this!

I cannot think of any sense in which Fancy Feast could be considered equivalent to McDonalds except for its ubiquity. I guess if you are somebody that feels the need to demonstrate your supposed love for your pet by buying overpriced boutique food from overpriced boutique pet shops, then you will have to try to feel superior to other people by denigrating cheaper foods. It seems like I have already posted a good deal of factual information answering questions you have asked about Fancy Feast previously. I know lots of people that feed Fancy Feast--including MC breeders--and they are very happy with it. If you want to waste hundreds of dollars on overpriced boutique cat foods that you will probably end up throwing out because your cats won't eat them, be my guest. Already been there and done that. Learned our lesson.

Originally Posted by candes

Well, it is inexpensive for those on a limited budget. Wouldn't feed it to my babies though. Mostly due to chinese ingredients.

Uh, it is the most expensive mainstream canned cat food in the US. 9 Lives and the like are inexpensive. Fancy Feast is only inexpensive when compared to boutique brands at overpriced pet stores. If you feel the need to pay over a buck for 3 oz of 80% water then go to Petco to get your Fancy Feast, as they will oblige you. Medleys are $.80/3oz can at Walmart. We go through at least 8-10 of these per day. So inexpensive??? You must have a heck of a much better paying job than I do, Candes, cause I think that spending $7 or $8 per day for what is 80% water seems not too cheap and definitely not for those on a limited budget. (We also spend a pretty penny on dry foods.)

Purina announced during the Chinese melamine scandal that they would begin testing all wheat gluten and similar ingredients. Since Purina has the resources to do this, I am not concerned. One thing we learned during that incident was that most of the boutique canned pet foods are actually being manufactured by somebody else and so the boutique brands have no control over the source of ingredients in their high priced food. Lots of luck guaranteeing there are absolutely no Chinese-sourced ingredients in food these days.

Originally Posted by elismom

I agree with you on the Wellness food.

Wellness has two different "quality" levels: plain Wellness and Wellness Core. None of our four cats will eat the Wellness Core canned or the plain Wellness canned; thrown out $10 or so trying them several times last year again. Wellness Core dry does look to be a good quality food, so we tried it (again) 6mos ago. All four cats went and sniffed it, but then just walked away. Since I had spent $10 on a tiny bag, though, I decided to leave it out. Turns out that while none of the four will eat it as their primary dry food, three of them occasionally eat some of it for a snack. We continue to buy small amounts and leave it out. The plain Wellness dry on the other hand is nothing special ingredient/nutrition wise.

Originally Posted by candes

(Yes we buy 3 different types of dry food. One for each cat.)

We also are buying three different dry foods. Hadn't really intended to do this, but when I bought a bag of the Blue Wilderness just to try, Zephyr immediately completely switched to it. Two of the other three occasionally eat some of it (along with the occasional Wellness Core snack), but primarily eat Pro Plan Selects chicken. The fourth cat eats only Pro Plan Selects. What we don't do for these guys. Most people I know buy cheap bags of dry at Walmart, put it down and that is that; the cat eventually has to eat it or starve. We used to also have Pro Plan Selects salmon, but at some point the then two cats decided they much preferred the chicken. Probably need to try the salmon again so that I can be buying four different types of dry.

Originally Posted by elismom

My fella likes the Core and it's cat and kitten so we've settled on that for dry as he had no use at all for the Wellness dry kitten. He wouldn't even look at the canned Core but does like the Wellness canned kitten. You're absolutely right that there isn't much that I wouldn't do for him at this point! I just feel so guilty that it took us SO long to figure out what was wrong with him when we first got him, nearly 2 months and $1000 worth of vet bills before we got the bacteria diagnosed and treated properly, that I've tried nearly every food on the market in an effort to find something that he will chow down on and get caught up on his growth. He's a particularly fussy eater which I'm not at all accustomed to (suffice it to say that the barn cats where I board my horse are VERY well fed with his rejects and follow me around like the Pied Piper!). Anyway I'm just wondering if the amount that he's eating is sufficient in relation to what other MC kittens eat.

Can you remind me what bacterial infection he had, and did you ever determine how he likely got it?

They can catch up very rapidly. Our boy Zephyr had to have emergency surgery for intussusception at 16 weeks, and ate almost nothing for two weeks. Dropped about half a pound of weight. Within two weeks after he was back to eating "normally" his weight was back on its original track, and he is now a very big boy (20 lbs at 18mos). I say eating "normally" because it was hardly normal--he ate like a pig--would have done any dog proud. He was eating canned food probably a dozen times a day; we fed him whenever he came and begged.

Remember that the canned foods are mainly water (typically 70-80%) so they do not provide that much food value compared to dry. On the other hand, you do need to be certain they get enough water in them when eating dry, so if they eat mainly dry try to monitor their water intake (easiest by monitoring their water output ). The Wellness Core is very high protein, so they don't need as much of it as some other foods.

Here is something I posted in the weight chart thread:

I was just looking at the Zephyr info I posted, and it is interesting that there are two gaps of six weeks. Between 18 and 24 weeks he gained 2.5lbs, so .42lbs/week, while between 24 and 30 weeks (7mos) he gained 3.1lbs, so .52lbs/week. I think that is quite amazing, for a 10lbs cat to be adding half a pound a week! This appears to be his period of peak weight gain in terms of absolute weight. On the other hand, in the five weeks from 11 to 16 weeks, his weight increased by 63%, which seems rather astounding.

So your guy probably should be in a high growth period.

13 oz cans of cat food?? I am curious how you feed this to your cats without wasting much of it? We have trouble using up the 5-7 oz cans, typically throwing some away from each can. Our four often do not all want the same thing, none will eat the same flavor repeatedly during a day, and two of them will only rarely eat food that has been refrigerated (no matter how you warm it back up). Things were different when they were kittens, but now they can be a very fussy bunch. And of course since it isn't Fancy Feast, I can pretty safely predict that most of them wouldn't even touch the food; they would sniff it, make a sour face, and stalk off.

Originally Posted by elismom

I don't care if he's the biggest cat in the world, just the healthiest!!

That is a great attitude ... and most of us, I suspect, share.

Walter has not yet reached six months and I've been feeding him the same thing as the breeder: Wellness canned kitten food and Royal Canin dry kitten food. I'm still undecided about when to switch him to adult cat food and what food(s) to use. I'm strongly leaning to both dry and canned, but even that might change. (The only thing I won't do is prepare raw meat — I won't touch raw meat.)

I'd like to read more about what people feed their cats (especially MCs) and why, as well as what is in the various products.