Thread: Kitten food to Grown Cat food?

We put Loki and Storvenn on adult wet food the day they arrived. Natures menu which I understand is a good brand.

Id read that it didnt matter so much, and with our two being on four different meals a day I dont believe it makes any difference to them at all.

Natures Menu is an extremely good brand. Sadly mine won't touch it for some reason. Picky missy. :D

I leave dry food out all day for the cat(s) to pick at & eat what they want. I do the same for my dog. None are obese & all eat what they need based on what they feel rather than based on what a manufacturer thinks that they might need based on their weight. I feed wet too as I don't like giving cats a solely dry diet.

I notice a lot on here are feeding Whiskas & Felix etc. - if your cat is doing well on them, then that is fine & we all do have budge limits. So you are aware, however, they are roughly 4% meat (most wet cat foods are) compared with say Hi Life which is about 60% meat. Obviously raw is best at 100% meat. ;)

I believe that in the past the kitten dry foods were higher protein and a bit higher fat than the adult foods. These days, if you read the labels, you see few differences between the kitten and adult in the better brands. We switched off of kitten dry (breeder was using Royal Canin Babycat) at about 4mos (Babycat seemed to give some of the older cats diarrhea when they got into it). Have given him some kitten wet but mainly adult.

In the US there are specific terms that are used in pet food for the meat that is used, and you can tell quality from that to some extent. E.g., chicken vs. chicken meal vs. chicken by-product meal vs. meat by-product, etc. Here are a couple of useful sites for definitions:
Cat Food Glossary - AAFCO Definitions of Cat Food Ingredients
AAFCO DEFINITIONS OF DOG FOOD INGREDIENTS

We have tried a large number of premium/boutique/natural foods over the last few years, but have not found many that the cats actually will eat consistently. Being a scientist, I am also highly skeptical about a lot of the claims being made by these companies, since I know that they are small and do not do any studies of their own. Think what you might about, say, Purina, but they actually carry out feeding trials and research. I have yet to find a single "premium" brand that does such things. Yes, they may have fancy "white papers" and healthy-sounding terminology, but little of what they do seems to have any sound scientific basis. Most also rely on the same AAFCO nutrition guidelines that all pet food manufacturers use here. We have also found inferior ingredients (e.g., meal vs. chicken) in some of the more expensive brands. Finally, the big Chinese melamine contamination scandal from a few years ago revealed that many of the premium brands do not actually do their own manufacturing (we came very close to feeding possibly contaminated Nutro pouches to our cats--actually manufactured by somebody else).

Currently, our cats eat primarily Pro Plan Selects dry and Fancy Feast wet, with various "premium" brands as we find they will eat them. Natural Balance is one of the few that they seem to like several flavors of consistently. Most they may eat one can of but then will never touch again. We have thrown away a lot of expensive cat food this way!

What "claims" are you referring to? I'm intrigued as to what the American pet market is marketing.

I usually despise PETA but they did publish a cruelty free pet food manufacturer list:
US Version
UK Version

Note that Purina & Mars are absent on both lists. I'm also guilty for buying Mars products as they bought out James Well Beloved a couple of years ago.

Originally Posted by messyhearts

What "claims" are you referring to? I'm intrigued as to what the American pet market is marketing.

Let me first say that I see no point in getting into a discussion about particular brands, as my experience is that people often have a lot invested emotionally in the particular brand they have chosen, because they want to feel they are doing the best for their pets. Probably everyone here is trying to do the best for their pets. My point is that there really isn't enough information to make well informed decisions most of the time. Furthermore, there are obvious trade-offs in most choices.

As for claims, I doubt they are much different than in Europe. The basic claim is simply that their food is healthier or more "natural" for the pet or more "biologically correct" or similar. Unfortunately, there is rarely any hard science they point to to back these claims. Now I would rather feed my cats food made from say chicken rather than chicken meal, but is the first actually going to make them healthier? Is a certain exact ratio/percentage of protein or meat really "optimal" for cats? Many of the premium companies make claims like this but provide no scientifically valid evidence for the claims. I find this very frustrating personally, as I would feed my cats something if it truly were healthier than what they are getting. The current situation is such that I have a very limited basis for making that judgment. I recently scanned the "white paper" that one of the premium companies pushes on their website. Frankly, none of the key claims in the document have any citations at all for support, and most of the citations that are provided are so incomplete as to be difficult to verify. Having a "white paper" with lots of scientific sounding claims and a few incomplete citations may impress some people, but reading it as a scientist, it is really little more than marketing BS. Maybe the claims are true, but since they cannot cite actual research to validate them there is no way to know. The food looks like it is made with high quality ingredients and all, but if my cats won't eat it, is it worth trying to train them to eat it because it will improve their health? No way to know that. Of course this is not surprising, since it hard to see who exactly would fund the expensive and long term research needed to answer many of the key questions.

Thanks for replies on this thread, we stuck with Royal Canin as she was on this already and it always seemed to be on special at the pet stores, so making it cheap enough to stick with.

After reading the replies and without listening to just one view- as there are many differing views on the thread, we took a trip to the pet shop and chose for ourselves what seemed to be best-
we came out with a bag of applaws, as it was 80% meat- apparently, and a few tins of applaws, which we feed them occasionally as well,
happy cats- they both love it!

This is really interesting reading.
As I live in a remote town, we don't really have a lot of choice and we know the one pet store here are very expensive.
I'm thinking I might stick with the whiskas biscuits, but feed raw meat so that the cats get the required real meat in their diet.

I think it's very much a personal choice, allowing for budgets and whats available.

Originally Posted by NCarver

Let me first say that I see no point in getting into a discussion about particular brands, as my experience is that people often have a lot invested emotionally in the particular brand they have chosen, because they want to feel they are doing the best for their pets. Probably everyone here is trying to do the best for their pets. My point is that there really isn't enough information to make well informed decisions most of the time. Furthermore, there are obvious trade-offs in most choices.

As for claims, I doubt they are much different than in Europe. The basic claim is simply that their food is healthier or more "natural" for the pet or more "biologically correct" or similar. Unfortunately, there is rarely any hard science they point to to back these claims. Now I would rather feed my cats food made from say chicken rather than chicken meal, but is the first actually going to make them healthier? Is a certain exact ratio/percentage of protein or meat really "optimal" for cats? Many of the premium companies make claims like this but provide no scientifically valid evidence for the claims. I find this very frustrating personally, as I would feed my cats something if it truly were healthier than what they are getting. The current situation is such that I have a very limited basis for making that judgment. I recently scanned the "white paper" that one of the premium companies pushes on their website. Frankly, none of the key claims in the document have any citations at all for support, and most of the citations that are provided are so incomplete as to be difficult to verify. Having a "white paper" with lots of scientific sounding claims and a few incomplete citations may impress some people, but reading it as a scientist, it is really little more than marketing BS. Maybe the claims are true, but since they cannot cite actual research to validate them there is no way to know. The food looks like it is made with high quality ingredients and all, but if my cats won't eat it, is it worth trying to train them to eat it because it will improve their health? No way to know that. Of course this is not surprising, since it hard to see who exactly would fund the expensive and long term research needed to answer many of the key questions.

I don't really remember any similar claims aside from a current campaign from Iams at the moment so it might just be an American thing or something the brands I tend to avoid anyway use.

I know I look at ingredients over the brand logo when cat food shopping. There's no proof that fresh chicken is better that poultry meal, you're quite right, but it does show a certain standard that they use to create the food. I'd rather a list of ingredients that didn't sound like chemical compounds & additives but a list of natural resources as I would do the same for myself. I also find that it is usually the words after the kind of meat they use that helps too. Some are FULL of grains which aren't required for a cats or dogs diet & are filler to make up that 75% of dry food that isn't chicken/lamb etc.. I would say that a ratio of meat to non-meat is optimal. They are carnivores not herbivores with a 75% grain diet.

There were a couple of brands of cat food my cats wouldn't even sniff but if I had a child with the same ethos about vegetables on the table in front of them I would do the same thing - call their bluff as they will eat what I think is good for them or nothing at all.

& of course we are all on budgets & limitations etc. such as I cannot feed raw as I cannot get deliveries of raw meats for my cats & dog as I work full time in an office I cannot accept deliveries.

I'm happy to hear that someone ventured out & is trying Applaws. A very popular food in my house. Especially the fish one!

You feel quite strongly about the food don't you messyhearts lol
Is it something you have researched for your cats or are you a professional?

We used to feed them wet applaws anyway- just cut it out as it was getting expensive
Never saw the dry applaws anywhere- seeing as they only do one variety it gets hidden on teh shelves

Anyway if anyone is interested, applaws is on special in Pets at Home til March £9.99 for 2kg instead of £14.99