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Mac seems much better today. He wouldn't touch the fucking expensive invalid food we bought yesterday and just pushed Millie out of the way to eat her normal food. So I gave in and gave him normal food too. I might try him with a bit of NutraBio later as I might be able to disguise one of the pills that I'm still meant to give him.

Anyone want some gastrointestinal cat food?
 
What foods do your royal kitties eat. Tim is on a rotation of nine different brands of wet food (and two types of biccies) on the advice of Epona in the hope of warding off pickiness.

The latest to join the mix is Untamed, because I got a cheap trial box - and it looks so much nicer than everything else. Like a deli sandwich filler. However at roughly a quid for a tiny 75g tin it’s not going to be a frequent visitor to the pantry.

I suspect it’s also appetising because it’s the only non-kitten-specific food I’ve given him (I know, but he’ll only gave it occasionally). He also has grain free kitten food from: iams; high life; lily’s kitchen (paté); carny; webbox; blink; smila; and applaws. And biccies by feringa and Rayal Canin (boring Babycat formulation that smell of nothing, were bastard expensive and I stupidly bought 2kg of because they seemed The Best Quality).

Any other recommendations? He eats all of it, so far - though I’m not so impressed with the webbox and iams, because they look so processed (uniform brown lumps in gravy), and he seems to like the paler foods best (high life, applaws, untamed).
 
Bernard will eat most things once or twice. Enough to lull you into a sense of "If I buy more of this, he may eat it". And then he stops. The bastard.

The only things he will consistently eat, time after time are:

Dry: Almost any Royal Canin kibble. We don't even bother with other kibble at this point, it's not worth the faff and it's not like kibble is that pricey, even for the fancy stuff.

Wet: The Royal Canin "sensory" pouches. The more expensive ones, of course. Other RC stuff is favoured over other pouches, but inconsistent. He loves the Purina Gourmet "cake" tins. This is the only place where he actually prefers the cheaper stuff - the pricier PG chunks in gravy and that sort get their gravy licked off and the rest left to dry out. He cannot stand any kind of mousse. PG pouches have done well, but we prefer the tins as they're recyclable.

He's 5 now, so we have tried a lot of things and brands over the years. The above is the only stuff that he will consistently eat without fussing. As I said at the start, he'll try most things and eat just enough of it to fool you.

Side Story - I don't know which fancy brand it was (maybe Applaws?), but it promised "97% meat". "Great!", I thought. He'll probably eat that. Except that the 3% not meat was one, whole chickpea in the middle of his food. He looked at it. He looked at us. He walked off and came back with a mouse.
 
It's been quite a while since I had a cat on "regular" food, but I used to like Bozita as it was high meat content and very good value - I see they do a kitten version. My lot liked the chunks in gravy and I fed that (among other things) for a long time.
It doesn't look very "high end" but I think that is where the savings are, it's good quality in terms of ingredients but they don't pretty it up to look fancy. So that's one I recommend giving a try, I used to order it from Zooplus.

Almo Nature was another one I remember feeding, that was more expensive but I think Zooplus made their own brand version of it called Cosmo which was similar but a bit cheaper.

Just watch out for foods that are complementary ie. don't contain all the vitamins and minerals rather than complete (I think I might have covered that in an earlier post, apols if I am repeating myself!) - complementary ones are for occasional use only. I think Applaws wet is a popular one that is complementary, so view that more as an occasional treat.

They've always had Royal Canin dry as the dry part of their diet. Baby Cat, Kitten, then Fit 32, then Siamese (bigger chunks helped stop them bolting it but it isn't necessarily suitable for cats with regular jaw shape/size! Fit 32 is the regular one for adults who maintain a healthy weight without assistance, Radar was on something else when he was ill ofc), and later Early Renal (for renal insufficiency, under veterinary supervision)
 
A lot of the wet foods are meant to be eaten in addition to kibble. The kibble is usually fully balanced.

We tried Republic of Cats for a couple months, which is how we learned he liked the Purina Gourmet wet stuff (it's all de-branded PG food, but for the price and having it delivered and all it wasn't a bad deal). It's also how we learned he hates PG kibble. :( It was quite clear on the nutritional level of the kibble vs. the wet stuff - your cat could eat only wet food, but needed a truly impressive load of it to get the same nutritional level as what was in a half-cup of kibble.
 
Ashamed to say that my two eat Felix wet and Go Cat dry and have never been the slightest bit fussy about it. Still not over the novelty, I've never had unfussy cats before. Mind you, Donut would probably eat a rubber tyre if you sprayed it with meat juice.
 
A lot of the wet foods are meant to be eaten in addition to kibble. The kibble is usually fully balanced.

We tried Republic of Cats for a couple months, which is how we learned he liked the Purina Gourmet wet stuff (it's all de-branded PG food, but for the price and having it delivered and all it wasn't a bad deal). It's also how we learned he hates PG kibble. :( It was quite clear on the nutritional level of the kibble vs. the wet stuff - your cat could eat only wet food, but needed a truly impressive load of it to get the same nutritional level as what was in a half-cup of kibble.

Purina Gourmet isn't great quality food however, they need less of a good quality food.
I'm not intending to be snobby about it, my lot all like the stuff and it was the only thing Radar would eat towards the end, but it isn't a good comparison in terms of how much they need to eat, because they will tend to need a higher volume of low quality food.

The rest of the "volume" that they need of wet food vs dry food is moisture, which they need. Of course they need less dry in volume, because it has had all the moisture removed - it's not nutritionally better. They still need that moisture though, and unfortunately do not always drink enough water to make that up - cats naturally get most of their moisture from the prey they would catch.
 
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I won’t be re-buying applaws anyway, as it contains rice, which I’d somehow overlooked when ordering. Along with the “complementary” thing which you did warn me about, but I forgot to check for.

Genuinely no idea how the can charge so much for teeny 70g cans of rice-bulked food that isn’t even complete.

Will try cosmo and bozita.

Tim is mostly unimpressed by dry food. He always has some out for snacking, because he’s a slim boy, but never eats a meal’s worth which was originally my plan. He does prefer the feringa, though, and I can see that they smell more appetising.
 
Ashamed to say that my two eat Felix wet and Go Cat dry and have never been the slightest bit fussy about it. Still not over the novelty, I've never had unfussy cats before. Mind you, Donut would probably eat a rubber tyre if you sprayed it with meat juice.
He was weaned onto Asda’s Felix and Whiskas before he came to me - I’m just being a bit PFB.
 
What foods do your royal kitties eat. Tim is on a rotation of nine different brands of wet food (and two types of biccies) on the advice of Epona in the hope of warding off pickiness.

The latest to join the mix is Untamed, because I got a cheap trial box - and it looks so much nicer than everything else. Like a deli sandwich filler. However at roughly a quid for a tiny 75g tin it’s not going to be a frequent visitor to the pantry.

I suspect it’s also appetising because it’s the only non-kitten-specific food I’ve given him (I know, but he’ll only gave it occasionally). He also has grain free kitten food from: iams; high life; lily’s kitchen (paté); carny; webbox; blink; smila; and applaws. And biccies by feringa and Rayal Canin (boring Babycat formulation that smell of nothing, were bastard expensive and I stupidly bought 2kg of because they seemed The Best Quality).

Any other recommendations? He eats all of it, so far - though I’m not so impressed with the webbox and iams, because they look so processed (uniform brown lumps in gravy), and he seems to like the paler foods best (high life, applaws, untamed).
They're still on Felix or Whiskers wet kitten food and Hill's Science Plan chicken dry food (about 50/50), but are about to change to young neutered adult equivalents when this current batch finishes in about a week and a half. They really like the Hill's chicken and like most of the Felix/Whiskers packs with the exception of salmon, which Millie won't touch at all and Mac just picks at, so I've stopped buying the packs that have too much fish in them. I usually but it online from Pet Planet, mainly so I don't have to carry bags of cat litter.

Oh, and the NutroBio was a complete failure - neither of them would touch it!
 
We have been to the vet!

Tim was very charming and good, but didn’t want to get back in his carrier. He is a perfect weight, and very healthy. Vet wasn’t worried at all about his appetite going to crap last week. He’s had his first vaccination and a flea treatment. I have a worming pill to give him next week.

Vet says “grain free” is irrelevant - which struck me as odd. I’ve joined their monthly payment club, so they gave me 5kg of purine pro plan dry food, which will last us months!

C3177430-9DB3-4434-B257-4A25CED169AF.jpeg

He looks sad here so I’m taking the piss, but he was actually purring up a storm prior to falling asleep just now.
 
Just a heads-up - vets aren't feline nutritionists - they get very little training on that aspect and it is a different specialism - what they do have is a lot of visits/contact from pet food manufacturers ;)
Yeah. I mean quite apart from anything else, everything I’ve read says grain free foods give them less loose and stinky poo, so frankly, that’s a win on its own.
 
Phew, sorted a catsitter for our holiday next week - found a girl from our synagogue who'll come feed Vastra while we're away, although she's away between tomorrow and the day we leave, so I just had time to show her around and give her keys this evening.
 
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