Thread: New maine coon owner

Welcome!

Our Sidney had cat flu as a baby so we have to be quite careful what we feed him - anything dodgy and we are back to the vet with a ball of snotty yuck instead of a cat.

So, I have become a bit of a cat-food-label-hound.
Just go to a big pet food shop and read the labels. Cats are carnivores and their digestive tracts are not designed to cope with grains or cereals. Most commercial cat food is stuffed with grains and cereal cos it is cheaper than meat. Some of the major brands have ridiculously low levels of protein (which is basically the meat that cats NEED) - even the ones the vets recommend. Read and be prepared to be horrified! I have seen labels of "salmon cat food" which was only 4% fish! The rest was just filler. The packet looked fantastic, it's very confusing.

The best ones are Applaws and Orijen for dry food and Lily's Kitchen and Wainwright's for wet food. It costs about the same to feed the good stuff cos they don't need to eat as much to get the protein they need. Also, the litter tray will be less unpleasant! I will never use Royal Canin or Hills or Iams again. (Also, our last cat lived on Hills/Iams and died of complications from kidney failure - likely linked to not drinking enough whilst on only dry food. Dry food keeps better and smells less, but it just isn't as good for the cat.)

Sidney has mostly wet food, but there is always a bowl of dry available - we need to build him up cos he is a tiny little scrawny scrap of only 5.6 kg. He also has a water fountain of fresh clean filtered water and a manky garden pond full of yucky brown water for when he is thirsty.