Yet another cat food question.

[Philostopher]

Hey, all. I have four reasonably healthy indoor cats -- no special diets, in other words. They're all seven or younger, and the older cats are healthy, so I think it'll be a while before I'll need to feed a 'mature cat' food around here, if ever.

Right now, I'm feeding Iams weight control hairball formula, because they all shed all year around (being indoor cats), and the big girl yaks a hairball a week or more if she doesn't get hairball formula.

When we first switched them to Iams, the company was still an independent, and their food was of a really good quality. In recent months, I have to say the quality seems to be falling off -- Tink's gone from a couple of hairballs a month back to at least once a week.

So we bought a bag of Royal Canin indoor cat formula, which is a reduced calorie hairball food. All the cats seem to be willing to try it, and it's not hideously expensive. There's only one problem.

The kibble pieces are too big for Doodle, who has neck lesions (her body resorbs her teeth). She's lost all her major molars, and most of her premolars, so she can't chew kibble. The Royal Canin sticks in her throat when she tries to eat it, and I'm afraid she'll choke on it.

I still have several pounds of the Iams food, and I'm going to continue to feed it, at least to her, but ideally I'd like to get all four cats on a better quality food that they all will and can eat.

Anybody know anything about the size and shape of the kibble of some of the other premium brands? We picked the Royal Canin over the Science Diet formula that was similar and comparable in price, but I don't know what the size of the Science Diet kibble is, either. I know Nutro makes a similar food, as do several other companies.

The only one I won't try is Max Cat -- I tried that once, when it was just Doodle and Tink, and it gave Tink diarrhea. She's never had a problem with cat food in her life, she grew up on the much cheaper Purina Kitten and Cat Chow and never had a loose stool once until I put her on the Max Cat, so that one's right out.

I need a hairball food, preferably weight control or maintenance diet, that uses kibble pieces about the size and shape of a pencil eraser, which is about the size and shape of the Iams kibble. Something Doodle can get into her mouth and swallow without having to chew it.

If I can't find anything to move to, I suppose we'll consider the Royal Canin for the rest and the Iams for her, or just stick with the Iams, but that still presents a pain in the butt for us having to buy more that one food if we go to two brands, and besides that she's the one who'd probably benefit most from a better quality food. Anybody got any suggestions or advice?

[liontamer]

1. wellness

all around great cat food. I'm not sure if there is a special hairball formula though. but we have three shedding monsters who don't get hairballs so maybe it works.

[Philostopher]

2. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing that at our local chain.

We have a local/near regional chain of pet stores, we try to shop there as much as anywhere, and they do have the best variety of food when compared with the big national chains. I'll see what they have -- as long as the pieces are small and round, we might be getting somewhere!

Thanks!

[Lorien]

3. Second vote for Wellness, check

your independant health food stores, pet boutiques, or holistic vet. It usually isn't carried by chain pet stores.

the kibble size is so tiny that my giant Maine Coon has trouble eating it (it falls out of his huge mouth).

[Ann Arbor Dem]

4. Science Diet kibble is small...

I've been using it for years for my critters.

[Philostopher]

5. Great -- thanks for the info.

It's fairly easy to get -- most pet stores have it -- and we're already feeding the dog Science Diet canned dog food because the canned Iams started giving him problems; we just bought some of the canned Science Diet cat food to see if the cats would eat it, too.

I figure two out of five animals start having one problem or another eating Iams, the quality must have suffered since they became another P&G proxy. It's really a shame -- it was good stuff, a few years ago.

[Lorien]

6. As far as quality goes

Wellness and other holistic foods beat Science and Iams paws down.

Beware of non USDA meat "meals", corn products, artificial dyes and preservatives; in the long run, they can cause a whole host of health issues for most pets.

[Philostopher]

7. Well, ultimately ...

it relies pretty heavily on what the largest number of them will eat reliably (preferably, they'll all eat it). That's why I hadn't switched them all to something else already -- I'm afraid of the same kind of rebellion out of at least one of them about kibble that I got out of Tink when I tried to change the cat litter. She decided if we didn't put the litter in the box that she liked, she might as well treat the whole house as a litterbox. Fortunately, once we gave her back the old stuff, she started using the box again -- mostly -- but now any time she's stressed, she falls back on this behavior because it gets her what she wants.

I'm pretty near maximum density of feline egos here, and even though they all get along fairly well, any kind of change causes stress with them. I'm always trying to 'sneak things past' them, but it doesn't always work. If I didn't have four of them, making environmental changes probably wouldn't be nearly as difficult, but I generally try to go with whatever most or all of them will accept. I really wish the Royal Canin was the right size and shape, because they all seem to like it. I guess I could just try breaking up some and keeping it separate from the rest, to give our gumby cat -- and I may try that, since we bought a whole bag anyway.

[Lorien]

12. Just mix little bits of the new food

in with the old. Give it about two weeks-that ususally works for the finicky ones.

[Desertrose]

8. I agree Wellness is the best!

My local pet store told me what is actually in Science Diet and Iams...it is ground feathers and whatever they pick up off the floor plus lots of cornmeal....not good for cats (or any living creature IMO)

Wellness is fantastic- I feed the dry and the cans. Human grade products and no artifical anything.

:cry: We lost a kitty this spring from kidney disease- she was only 8 and I had been feeding dry only and realized that cats are not big drinkers and living in the desert aggravated the fact ...plus the dry food only didn't help.

I learned the hard way that kidney disease is the #1 killer of cats!!

So maybe saving a few bucks on the cheaper brands may seem like a good idea..in the long run I spent the difference on vet bills.

Wellness is great...another is Azimura (I think thats the name- out of cans of that brand so I can't check right now)

[musette_sf]

10. Another Wellness fan here

Wellness is really excellent pet food, and our guys love it, too.

The price is well worth it, considering the problems some animals can have with commercial major-brand foods.

We were lucky with our cats for years, with Iams and major-brand foods. Then one of our boys got FUS, and eventually ended up completely blocked. $2K and lots of stress later, he is fine now. We now give him distilled water only, and high quality whole foods based cat foods. He also gets a daily dab of a vitamin supplement that makes his urine more acidic.

We really dislike the "medical" diet pet foods sold at the vet. There is so little real food in them, after all the by-products and chemicals they are full of. The food they wanted to put Junior on after his problem was so gross. After reading the label, I thought Who would put a sick animal on this crap?

Feed Wellness and other healthy foods, and be aware of the alkalinity of your water.

[Philostopher]

15. Just saw last month, in my issue of CatWatch

(it's Cornell Veterinary Resarch Hospital's monthly publication) that there's good support for varying a cat's diet and feeding less kibble, anyway. The article said feeding cats nothing but kibble may cause problems in part because of the use of grain to produce the right texture (most use either corn or white rice) -- their intestinal tracts aren't evolved to eat that much grain, the carbohydrates they're designed to digest are the ones predigested by bird craws and mouse guts, and consumed as a secondary part of the diet.

The article also said the primary reason there's so much grain in so much of the available kibble food is that bumping up the grain content makes it easier to extrude from machines. It has absolutely nothing to do with dietary requirements or improving the health of cats, it just makes it easier to make the kibble cheaply. Unfortunately, eating too many carbohydrates can cause some of the problems older cats have, and may aggravate weight problems (which can lead to diabetes). Because it's a mechanical issue, I imagine even the premium food has a lot of grain in it.

Of course, two months back, they ran a story saying they thought it might be chemicals leaching out of the liners of cat food cans that causes cats to develop thyroid problems as they get older -- you can't win for losing, unless you cook the food for them yourself, I guess. Even if I wanted to do that, I'd run into problems because I have one who won't eat people food or canned cat food, the only thing she'll eat is kibble.

Mine get a bit of canned food every day, it works out about 3/4 kibble to 1/4 canned, I guess. It seems like no matter what you do, there's always a catch.

[Lorien]

17. How do you like "Catwatch"?

I'm always interested in learning about protecting the health of my fur kids. Have you gotten much out of the publication?

BTW- what kind of dog is that on your avatar? I'm thinking of adopting a pomeranian from a couple here in town, but I'm worried about how the kitties would take to him.

[Philostopher]

18. Aside from the occasional conflicting information, as I mentioned ...

or at least, ambiguous recommendations sometimes clashing with other information, it's pretty good. The stuff about canned food versus dry and the suggestion about chemicals possibly leaching into the food and causing problems were from different studies, and only one of the studeis was performed at Cornell. I guess it's good that they publish any results they think are legit, but it can make choices more difficult.

They also publish a dog version, called DogWatch, that I got for a year. It's not nearly as informative, the editing is lousy (I was so caught up looking for typos and grammatical errors I didn't get as much out of the articles as I could, unlike CatWatch), and it just seemed 'dumbed-down' compared to the cat version, somehow. It's a pretty good value, and I'm not paying two bucks a month to have advertisements for every cat breeder in the U.S. take up half the magazine, like I did with Cat Fancy.

Max is at least part Pomeranian, though he's actually 22 pounds. We adopted him from a shelter in southeastern Indiana, nobody really knows much about his history. The vet who saw him most often at the clinic and I had a joke that he's a 'giant Pomeranian' -- he has absolutely no definitive characteristics of any other breed, he's just gigantic.

We found him on the Petfinders site, after a lot of research into breeds. It seems of the smaller breeds, Spitz breeds do get along reasonably well with cats -- lots of people seem to have no problem having Poms, American Eskimos and Shiba Inus, among others, in households with cats. Of the smaller breeds, people seemed to have the most trouble with terriers -- I assume because Terriers are bred to be rat or weasel hunters, and they tend to 'hunt' the cats in the household and drive them batty.

Max is the only real experience I have with dogs and cats together, but he gets along pretty well with everybody but the oldest cat, and she's the 'alpha' here -- resents any challenge to her authority. Max is somewhat possessive of me, so they occasionally have a little hissy fit with each other. Most of the time, though, it's fine.

[joanski01]

9. I have five Persians and

one domestic cat. I finally started feeding them Purina One, Special Care, Advanced Nutrition Hairball Formula. It works well.

But then the Blue Himalayan got a bladder infection and I have to feed him Hill's Prescription Diet. The vet charges me $39 for 20 pounds. Before Bush* got in office, the price was $20 for 20 pounds.

[Philostopher]

11. Wow, quite a markup.

Our vets sell us prescription Hill's ID canned when Max (our dog) gets diarrhea -- he seems to have some kind of irritable bowel syndrome brought on by stress. He gets intestinal medication and the Hill's food for a few days, that usually straightens him out.

The cans of the regular (non-scrip) food are somewhere around $1.39 at the pet store, and they sell us the prescription food for about $1.50 a can -- not much of a markup, compared to yours. That's a lot for a 20# bag of food. Not that I wouldn't be shelling it out if I had to, I would ... but I understand how frustrating it is when they get you going on something then jack the price through the roof.

If it weren't for my little dentally-impaired girl, I'd go with the Royal Canin -- I've read and heard a lot of good things about the brand, but even she wants to eat it and it's good for her, the possibility of her choking on it puts it out of the running.

We're going to look into our alternatives, and we'll likely try the brands people have suggested here -- we were already considering the Hill's hairball light, didn't know about the piece-sizes on the Wellness so we may buy small bags of both later on and see what they picky cats around here prefer. I have one who won't eat canned food at all, and won't eat kibble out of a bowl, I have to keep a table next to my computer desk and feed her off the top of it or she just doesn't eat. At all.

When everything's going well, and they're eating what you're feeding them, you don't even think about what a pain in the neck it's going to be to feed them something different. If not for Doodle's missing molars, I could have switched food without having to worry about it. That's the biggest drawback of having a house full, I guess -- balancing economy and their health, and having to take all the quirks into consideration. Fortunately, Doodle isn't the one I worry about turning her nose up at food. She seems to like everything, so she won't be the one who causes a riot over it if we try something she doesn't like as well.

I'll probably never stop being ticked off about P&G buying Iams out. Five or six years ago, Iams was a locally owned company and the food was premium quality. Iams also had the Eukanuba label -- which also is now a P&G label -- so I'm guessing Euk is also dropping in quality. It's really sad -- Iams was a good company, and they still do a lot of the things I thought made them one -- they give a lot of money and food to animal shelters and spay/neuter programs, and sponsor a lot of animal charity stuff, which is why I was trying to stick with them as long as I could. I told myself if the quality fell off, though, I'd bail out and find something else for my cats -- I could balance good and bad corporate practices until the cows came home, as long as there was no degradation in the quality of the product. Once I saw that happen, no amount of spay/neuter or charitable donations could be enough to keep me feeding it here.

[Longhorn]

13. Iams also advertises on Sinclair stations

and their response to my email was pretty stubborn about it. No apologies, no changes.

[Philostopher]

14. I did see that.

I'd been contemplating the migration away from them for a while before that, but it's more grist for the mill, I guess.

[demnan]

16. Have you considered

bringing them some oat grass in the form of a pot at some point? Cats really do crave outdoor greens and will chew them and puke on your nice clean carpet. Which I hate, but I can't ignore the fact that both my cats have this weird purging ritual.

[sleepyhead]

19. Switch to canned food.

The latest research shows that canned food is much better for cats. They are carnivores (evidence: sharp shearing teeth to tear meat and very short intestinal tracts - no need for long intestines to ferment veggies), and cannot digest carbohydrates very well. Dry food is about 40% carbs and thus not as digestible for them. We are seeing much more obesity, allergies, and type 2 diabetes in cats these days due to dry food diets; most of these cats lose weight and feel much better after a change to canned food. (I have noticed this in my own cats - my big boy used to weigh 23 lb and was a major couch potato but after a switch to canned food he is a svelte 17 lb - big bones! - and very active.) I used to feed Iams until the Sinclair thing - now I use Science Diet (no flames please), but any high-quality canned diet is fine. Triumph, Royal Canin, and Old Mother Hubbard are widely available. If your kitties have sensitive systems, try a hypoallergenic food. Make the change gradually. By the way, I have spoken to several internists about the canned food in pop-top cans (there is only one article in the reviewed literature about it), and all of them say that there is not a scientifically sound reason to avoid it (i.e. no proven connection to hyperthyroidism). Good luck!

[Rhiannon12866]

20. Is the kitty with the hairball problem long-haired?

If so, she could benefit from Laxatone, which prevents hairballs. When I adopted a long-haired cat, my vet sent me home with a tube of it on my very first visit. It can be put on kitty's nose or paws, for her to lick off, or in food. According to my vet, it kind of slides the hair out of the cat, preventing hairballs. I also used it for my short-haired cat, though she only had the occasional problem. This would save you from having to get different foods and you could determine how much of it each cat needs and how often. It can also serve as a laxative, if needed, in a higher or more frequent dose. There are instructions on the box, for both hairball prevention or use as a laxative, but each cat is different. It also comes in caramel and tuna flavors. Each of my cats preferred a different flavor. You can get it from your vet, but I've also seen it in pet stores, over-the-counter.

http://www.bullwrinkle.com/index.html?ShoppingPages/laxatone-cat-hairball-remedy.htm~indexmain

I agree with you that the better quality diet that you feed your pets, the better off you are. My vet has said that this is the most important thing that you can do for your pet (I have both cats and dogs), since it is the most important factor in determining health and longevity. Good luck with this!

As for the kitty with the tooth problems, my cat, who I rescued from outside, also had dental problems and had to have many of her teeth removed. I always fed her canned food, since it was easier for her, but also left out dry food and tartar control treats, if she wanted them.:-)

[geekgrrl]

21. Wellness is great- Iams does some terrible experiments on dogs & cats

Its pretty terrible- they do starvation experiments. I have gotten all of my friends to stop using Iams.

We feed our cats Wellness dry food- they make a lite food but not any hairball diet. We have 8 cats, though, and they NEVER/RARELY cough up hairballs. They all eat the same lite dry food.

The kibbles are exactly the size of a pencil eraser.

Wellness also has no biproducts (which I don't eat and don't want my cats to eat either)- and lots of good ingredients. Its a little more expensive but we believe that it cuts down on vet bills.