What's healthiest cat food

Thank you to all for advice on cat food, very helpful

My old Siamese female has had most of her teeth removed, and though game to try dry food, most of it comes back up . My solution at last is CARNY by a German firm called Animonda available through online supplier, Zooplus, or direct by googling. Sold in small tins, it smells like proper meat because it is very high in protein, unlike cheap supermarket brands. It is a sort of chewy, chunky, pate which seems to satisfy her need to get stuck into into something more solid than a tiny sachet full mostly of jelly and tiny shreds of meat or fish. Not cheap, but I am full of guilt for all the rubbish foods I fed cats in the past when there was no internet to look things up on. She gets through a whole tin a day and a bit more, sometimes.

We give our cats Butchers Classic. It comes in tins, which puts a lot of people off, but we have stuck to it over the years, & we believe it to be the best. It is gluten free.

From the health point of view I suspect they are much of a muchness.

That said, however, yes, cats do get fed up if expected to eat the same brand all the time, so trying somethiing else might be appreciated.

Do buy a single pouch or tin, as there are absolutely no guarentees that your dear puss will eat it.

Mine has been known to turn up his nose at perfectly good cat food and recommend me to give it to the passing poor!

If he is refusing dried food, it might be because he old teeth are not quite up to it any more.

My soon to be 14 cat is not madly interested in dried food these days, but as he still crunches pork crackling that my elderly teeth can't cope with. I gather his teeth are still fine!

This pair live in a very rural area, Fanny so they can roam far and wide. They hunt as a pair, the girl is the brains while the boy provides the brawn, then they bring home their loot between them. The boy lives out for much of the summer while the girl prefers to sleep at home. They’re happy to have their meals and a cosy bed provided in the winter though!

Purina dried cat food. She's been on this since a babe - Purina do different products for different ages - and at 15 this year, she still has a shiny coat and good teeth.

Very occasionally give her the odd treat such as chicken or salmon.

Gosh Sue, my Maine Coon isn't like that at all, thank goodness!
They do seem to have a wide range of temperaments

Jaxjacky

My friends daughter successfully breeds Maine Coon cats, they have raw food.

So do my friend’s two Maine Coons. In summer they are more or less self-sufficient, hauling home a variety of rabbits, ducks and pheasant and the occasional weasel or two.

Trendienanny you can buy Carnilove and Thrive at supermarkets

I did say that raw food diets were controversial!

Nothing from the supermarket for my two I’m afraid! Full of fillers! Totally agree with Hetty58! Nor milk or tuna, very little fish! Meat, meat , Meat, mine are very spoilt and are given a variety , not just one or two different brands, Canagan! Carnilove pheasant Quail wild boar etc etc Thrive .The proof is in the pudding ! Raw food is also very very good for them! Mine wouldn’t eat it though

My friends daughter successfully breeds Maine Coon cats, they have raw food.

My rescue cats both have kidney disease so they’re fed on either Hills Science Diet Prescription or Royal Canin Prescription kidney dry food. Neither is very keen on wet food, they mostly just lick the gravy/jelly and leave the rest.

I get our supplies from Zooplus, too. It’s considerably cheaper than from the vet and I go to Zooplus via Topcashback and earn a bit of money back too.

Thank you for the Zooplus recommendations
I'd love to widen Rosie's culinary horizons!

Another Zooplus fan here!

Have a look at "Zooplus UK" it's a pet food company on line.
They do lots of bands for all types ailments and fussy cats. Some the vet would recommend are cheaper as well. My old cat had renal issues I got all her food via this site and if you order over a certain amount free delivery.
No doubt someone on this site will comment about this information but your obviously a caring pet owner. Good luck

I fed both my cats on fresh white fish, fresh chicken (both cooked), tinned fish such as tuna (but only if I could get it in spring water,) sardines or pilchards (both in oil.)

They also had access to cat biscuits and fresh water.

You could see the difference in them from eating tinned cat food. Their eyes were brighter, their fur softer, and both lived long lives, one was 18, the other just a couple of months shy of 20.

Our pussy cat lived to be more than 20 years old. We are not sure how old he was because he arrived as an adult stray we kept for the 20 years. We fed him a lot of raw meat which he loved, chicken wings because we didn’t like them and we would throw them out otherwise, fish skin, same reason. Sometimes a little piece of cheese, lactose free long life milk. He didn’t like tinned food very much and would only eat fishy ones. Same applied to hard cat food though he was offered it. He would rather crunch up a bone or two. He loved pork, lamb end of our joints but would never eat offal. What he really, really liked was a live possum but we discouraged that! He would eat most of them but leave the offal on the front lawn. He would drink water quite often, too.

Ours just licks the jelly off the Kitten Whiskers and leaves the meat! He also has biscuits and won't eat other food we have bought. We give him chicken a couple of days a week when we have some ourselves.

I feed ours on raw food from a specialist supplier, they are carnivores, so is what they need. They also get a vitamin supplement, they don't need calcium as there are crushed bones in the mix. The food is human food quality, so perfectly safe. Unfortunately our fussy pair will only eat wood pigeon, they would rather starve than eat anything else! Raw food does have the advantage that the poos are firmer and don't smell.

But it is a very different texture, and I would not advocate changing an elderly cat over to raw food. There have been some good suggestions up thread, but your vet will probably give a few suggestions too? Good luck!

One of my cats, aged 16, has kidney disease so was recommended a special diet with reduced protein and phosphorus. When I told the vet that he didn't like any of the special foods, he recommended trying tuna. This surprised me as I would have thought fish was high in protein! I mix it with the pouches/tins of Royal Canin Renal or Concept for life, which now get eaten. I leave down Royal Canin Renal dry as well but it is rarely touched.

Purina 1. Pelletised dry food that crunches and may help clean teeth. They don't need much, and produce fewer litter-tray solids as a result. Plenty of fresh water needs to be close by.

Elderly fat ginger bruiser (soppy as can be but bullies his sister) has kidney deterioration so vet recommended special food which costs a fortune. At nearly 16 it is keeping him going.

His motto is "I am, therefore I eat!" Apparently asleep on my bed, two rooms away, I hoped he wouldn't hear me start preparing a meal. I put on loud music to mask the fridge-door sounds etc. A minute later he appeared, to supervise....

Ashcombe I thought that too!
You also have to bear in mind that cats decide themselves what they are going to eat.
Mine will not eat any type of wet food at all. Only kibble.
I was delighted when I found that she will eat those Lick e Lix squeezy tube things (but only two flavours).
They are widely available at supermarkets ?

What an interesting variety your cats enjoy, EllanVannin! I was particularly tickled by the Sunday dinner served to old Tom! Delightful!

My cats do very well on Felix varieties with veggies/ doubles etc, never the same thing. Whiskas biccies with tasty filled pockets, varieties of those too. Boxes of Sheba on occasion as well when they're on offer. Unless the cats are pedigrees or on special diets, Felix is ideal. They have the odd tin of mackerel too as they like the tomato/ oily sauce. I have 3 cats who are very healthy.

The old stray Tom is 20 years of age at the very least and loves his dinners. He has a Sunday dinner too 2 pouches mixed with bits of meat potato veg and gravy, whatever I have on a Sunday. He had plenty of bits of chicken yesterday when I stripped it mixed with 1 pouch as there was quite a lot.

What are vet bills ??