Dry Vs. Moist ...

Am I going crazy here ... Vera & Lola have spit up before certainly, but i must
say, I've never seen hairballs. Now I'm going to spend my evening worrying
about this ........

I have fed lots of wet food to the garbage disposer . (Of course they
want us to buy more!) I never have to feed dry food to that hungry
disposer. Ido tru wet from time to time -- same experience: most
goes to the disposer MLB



So do I, ML. Lots of it. When I still had Jacky, he *always* cleaned up
whatever was left, no matter what it was!! Now I find I'm throwing away a lot
of leftovers.

Sherry

Am I the only one with not-so-quite-fussy eaters? After 15-20 minutes,
there is rarely any wet food left. Most of the time it's all gone after 10
minutes. Luna eats some from each bowl, just to be sure.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote
Am I the only one with not-so-quite-fussy eaters? After 15-20 minutes,
there is rarely any wet food left. Most of the time it's all gone after 10
minutes. Luna eats some from each bowl, just to be sure.


Mine eat nearly all kinds of canned food, except the really cheap kinds
(surprisingly enough), but I try to buy them good quality food. It's a pity
that there's not more ecologically produced cat food. We only have one brand
in Finland (that I know of), but that fortunately has several flavours.

Frank eats pretty much at one sitting, but Nikki is a nibbler, so I have to
leave the food down for the day, or she would never eat anything. I will
admit that Nikki would prefer dry food if she could choose, but I don't want
to risk it, especially with an elder cat like her, so she only gets a few
pieces as a treat each night.

Right now I'm boiling some frozen saithe fish for the cats' dinner. I try to
give them either fish or meat every other day. The meat I try to give as big
chunks, because chewing on them will take care of the cats' teeth, but
sometimes I can only find minced beef that is fresh enough.

Of course, the best way to feed them would be a mouse or two every day, but
where do you go to procure a mouse? Pet stores might have frozen mice for
snakes, but I suspect that my cats are too spoiled to accept that for their
dinner. ;o)

--
Marina

Marina wrote:
Mine eat nearly all kinds of canned food, except the really cheap kinds
(surprisingly enough), but I try to buy them good quality food. It's a pity

These guys are the opposite. There are a couple of really good brands of
food made with all natural, human-grade ingredients, with lots of good stuff
in them. Of course these guys won't eat those! We've settled on Nutro Gourmet
(chiken california supreme flavor), the nutro pouches, and the new ProPlan
food (even though it's really not all natural, but the cats love it).

give them either fish or meat every other day. The meat I try to give as big
chunks, because chewing on them will take care of the cats' teeth, but
sometimes I can only find minced beef that is fresh enough.

Do you give them raw meat? I usually toss them a bit of cooked chicken when
I'm cooking, if only to keep them off the counter!

Of course, the best way to feed them would be a mouse or two every day, but
where do you go to procure a mouse? Pet stores might have frozen mice for

They do sell live mice for feeding snakes and such here, but I'm not sure
I'd be comfortable giving the cats a mouse to torture...
On the other hand, I have no trouble feeding the fish live food, I buy them
brine shrimp every week for a live snack. We also have guppies that provide
a constant stream of baby fish that the angels readily eat.
I wouldn't be able to have big fish, like Oscars, that eat live gold fish
though...

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote
Marina wrote:


give them either fish or meat every other day. The meat I try to give as
big
chunks, because chewing on them will take care of the cats' teeth, but
sometimes I can only find minced beef that is fresh enough.

Do you give them raw meat? I usually toss them a bit of cooked chicken
when
I'm cooking, if only to keep them off the counter!

I don't eat meat, so they can't have scraps off me. ;o) So, I have to buy
them their own meat. I do give it to them raw. Cooking it woul destroy the
taurine.


Of course, the best way to feed them would be a mouse or two every day,
but
where do you go to procure a mouse? Pet stores might have frozen mice for

They do sell live mice for feeding snakes and such here, but I'm not sure
I'd be comfortable giving the cats a mouse to torture...

They passed a law here recently, forbidding buying or selling live rodents
for snake food (the rodent people lobbied it through )). I don't think
they would sell them for cat food, either. Sometimes, my sister, who works
at the zoo as an animal caretaker, brings me a dead mouse or two, but the
cats aren't interested when they don't move.

On the other hand, I have no trouble feeding the fish live food, I buy
them
brine shrimp every week for a live snack. We also have guppies that
provide
a constant stream of baby fish that the angels readily eat.
I wouldn't be able to have big fish, like Oscars, that eat live gold fish
though...

Hmm, you've given me an idea. Live fish... ;o)

--
Marina

Am I the only one with not-so-quite-fussy eaters? After 15-20 minutes,
there is rarely any wet food left. Most of the time it's all gone after 10
minutes. Luna eats some from each bowl, just to be sure.


You're lucky--what's your secret??
Bootsie is a tiny thing. Yet she is the pickiest eater you ever saw. We've
bought everything on the cat food shelves, and most of what's on the people
food shelves. She actually ate a whole piece of leftover baked Maui Maui.
(sp?). DH says we should buy it for her now. I say at $10 a pound, I think
maybe not.

Sherry

Whats a girl to do?

Dunno reely, but this boy's experience is wildly different from most.

Bandit (rescue moggie) and Pericles (pedigree Maine Coon) have been
tried out over the last 4 to 5 years on a wide variety of canned and
dry foods, from budget to super-premium vet-only, introduced carefully
as recommended. Broadly speaking their reactions, invariably common to
both as evidenced by the litter trays, we

Budget Canned: Wouldn't eat any! Bl**dy typical!!

Whiskas & Felix(purina) Canned: Enjoyed as long as I widely varied
varieties, chunks preferred, normal stool.

All/any Dry: Violent diarrhoea within 18 hours of exceeding 10%
additive to canned. 4 varieties of Hill's was the worst. Wheat, Corn,
Rice (all the things un-natural to cats) totally rejected! And yes, I
did persevere in the hope that they'd settle but they deteriorated
further as/when I reached 100% kibble.
Return to canned had things normalised within 36 hours.

Snowball my new kitten thrived on Whiskas and Felix kitten pouches,
but when I tried him on James Wellbeloved Kitten Duck & White Rice
kibble, hypoallergenic and arguably the best available in the UK, he
had soft & bloody stools within 12 hours. Ditto with some Burns
Chicken & Brown Rice Adult kibble he nicked from the bigger boys a
couple of weeks previously.

I haven't yet felt the need to try the super-premium cans (Hill's,
Yarrah Organic) on them but I expect to shortly.

In the meantime, and having read quite some literature on the subject,
I'm avoiding dry food like the plague, even though the awkward little
beggars adore it!

At least I won't have obesity problems (?) .............

Anyone else had similar kibble troubles?

Best to all

G

Hi, Sherry
If it's the Hawaiin-sounding fish you're talking about, it's spelled
"Mahi-Mahi." :-)

Sherry wrote:
She actually ate a whole piece of leftover baked Maui Maui.
(sp?). DH says we should buy it for her now. I say at $10 a pound, I think
maybe not.

Sherry

"Cheryl Perkins" wrote in message
...
snipped
Mine will eat any dry food, and most (but not all) canned food. They do
tend to nibble at intervals rather than inhale the lot at one go, and that
tends to make the canned food unappealing after a short time. The problem
is Mandy is what the vet calls a chronic vomiter, and one thing that sets
her off is canned cat food, even though she loves it. Or perhaps because
she loves it and eats it too fast. I don't know. But there's a definite
relationship between what she eats and the vomiting.

Oddly enough, although they both love Fancy Feast, they turned up their
noses at a couple of the very expensive 'scientific' canned cat food I
tried, although in one case, they happily eat the dry food put out by the
same company.

Betsy also has a great fondness for many human foods, although Mandy is a
bit more picky, and eats fewer types of it. But neither of them are really
fincky eaters in the sense that they only eat Brand X, Tuna Flavour.

Cheryl
Our Smokey gets Sheba all the time. It seems to be the only thing that he
can keep down consistently (except the Shrimp flavor - he won't touch it).
We went through lots of different kinds, including Fancy Feast, until we
found Sheba. Mistletoe (Missy), on the other hand, wants nothing to do with
moist food, she wants her NutroMax! She put on enough weight that we
switched her to senior even though she's only 3. She doesn't like it as
well as the regular adult, but then again she doesn't eat as much of it, so
it's kind of a diet thing (Oh, no, precious, Pop would never call you
overweight).
However, they both seem to munch on each other's food on occasion.
Sam