Could I get some feeding advice from the professional cat lovers here?

So here's the thing, I've been proudly buying my cat Science Diet. It's what all the vets and pet store owners told me was what was best for him. We started out feeding him Kitten and then briefly Cat Chow, but he was having digestion issues, so we switched to Science Diet Sensitive Stomach brand, as recommended by the vet. His tummy is fine now, so on with my question.

Recently I was in a book store in the pet section when I had a conversation with this lady who said she never feeds her pets those brands because they're terrible for them. I explained his digestive issues, and she said the vet only recommended that to me because he probably gets kickbacks for it. So we started looking into holistic brands. They aren't terribly more expensive, only a little more inconvenient to get to. Do you think that Science Diet is a good brand? Is it worth switching him again? Which type of food do you feed your cats?

cause that's what the picky little thing will eat.

The really good brands are brands like Wellness, Felidae, Nutro, Chicken Soup, Paul Newman's, etc. Good luck.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080826141629AAud5ij

Apparently, it's not all that good. It's "full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, (and) filler grains."

Better brands are listed.

This one explains how to read cat food labels and compare brands
http://cats.about.com/od/catfoodandnutrition/Cat_Food_and_Nutrition.htm

This site takes a little more work to understand but it compares protein values for a wide range of foods:
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/canfood.html

...don't hesitate to ask her.

As for us, we feed our furkids Natural Balance. It's human grade, and they love it. They really will not eat anything else.

Science Diet has a lot of grain fillers. Cats are obligate carnivores; their food should be made of good-quality meat, not corn.

Just a high price for basically the same thing as other brand name brands.

Your kitty having stomach problems with Purina Cat Chow is not a surprise either. That is a common complaint with Cat Chow. Switch to Purina One and those tummy upsets go away.

died about 6 years ago). The vet told me when I first got them at two weeks old (orphans) to feed them good food to keep them healthy once they got off of kitty formula. Food like Iams or Science Diet (his words). I was broke but spent the extra money on these foods because I thought they'd really make a difference. Several years later one of them was diagnosed with diabetes. The vet told me that Science Diet has a special diabetes formula. So though it's even more expensive and I have to go to the vet to get it, I start buying it. My kitty got 2 insulin shots a day for several years. He did pretty well, but ultimately had a lot of other health issues and he died at 10 years old. :(

A year or so later, my other cat (always a more robust and healthier cat than his brother) starts showing signs of diabetes. So I bring him into the vet right away and get him started on a new insulin treatment that was intense but meant that he only had to have shots for a few months. My vet (new to the practice) says that he's a specialist in feline diabetes and has done tons of research. He comes right out and tells me that Science Diet diabetic formula is crap and, in fact, cats should not be eating dry food at all. Cats are carnivores, not omnivores like dogs or humans. The amount of filler and carbohydrates necessary to make dry cat food are, in his opinion, a big reason why feline diabetes is running rampant. They just don't need grains and other carbs. They need meat. Unless the dry food is essentially jerky, it's got a lot of things that aren't meant to be a big part of a cat's diet. Even a lot of wet foods have rice, vegetables, and other carbs. You have to look for ones that are mostly meat, or make your own.

There are some options out there, you just have to do some research. I was getting my cat a frozen food called Country Pet that wasn't outrageously expensive, but Whole Foods stopped carrying it and I have to order it in bulk. But my freezer is tiny and can't fit 16 rolls of the stuff. Too bad because he really liked it. Here's a link:

http://www.canz.com/countrypet/catfood.html

By the way, my cat is 16 now and doing great, and his new diet has a lot to do with that.

Lastly, I seem to remember when all that news broke about pet foods being poisoned that Science Diet and a bunch of cheaper brands were all made in the same place, which makes me even more wary of their "superiority".

http://www.sitstay.com/dog/supplies/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&categoryId=36928&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=36927&top_category=

I haven't checked it out too thoroughly but thought I'd pass it along.

we have one diabetic and one with a sensitive tummy this brand works for both of them. Remember that if you change the cats food do it slowly. If your feeding dry food mix a little of the new food into the old, then increase amount of new food slowly over about a month. Another thing that helps my cat with her digestive issues (diarrhea, probably from a food alergy) is Slippery Elm. I give her 10 drops every morning.

Good luck

It's a prescription diet, and the kitties go nuts for it. I just opened a can of the wet version this morning, and am now their BFF.

I'm going to switch her off the Science Diet as soon as the bag runs out.

Right now I'm thinking of going to a nutura brand. Probably Innova, Evo, or California Natural. I'll probably pick up a few samples and see which suits my kitty the best.

Thanks so much for all the advice.

totally against giving it to my cats but I have one cat who had a bladder problem and she eventually had to have surgery to remove bladder stones. The vet kept advising me to put her on Science Diet but I had, like you, been told that it was not good for cats and that they only recommended it because they get a kickback. I searched and researched and tried all sorts of food, all very expensive, holistic, "better" kinds of food. She got worse and worse. On the day I found blood on the floor beside the litter box I put her (and the others also because they eat together) on Science Diet C/D and all symptoms ceased and she has been fine since. So their vet laughs when I say that I was finally beat down on the issue. Sometimes it is necessary. I hate that they use by-products and maybe someday a company like the makers of Evo will start making something comparable to C/D but until then I will give it to my cats.

and I supplement with whatever meat I'm eating. They get chicken, tuna and sardines during the week.

Plus the occasional bite of apple and peach, because doggone it, whatever I'm eating is just so damn interesting, they MUST have some!

:crazy:

As for my house. I've decided to stop feeding my kitties store-bought food. Today, I mixed raw eggs with turnip greens and the little mowsers gobbled it up.

Fancy Feast with no wheat gluten or corn products either in them at all or way, way low on the list. It takes some label reading but you can make that process easier by eliminating anything that says "Such and such in Gravy" right off the bat.

My older one is diabetic and needed to have something higher in protein without that stuff. She does much better now. It's harder to find a dry food with similar attributes that isn't incredible expensive, tho.