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I feed my cats Petcurean food, but their Go! brand not their Now Fresh stuff because Go! is for all life stages and I needed to get Hugo onto a stable and unchanging diet so he wouldn't have horrible rear end problems anymore. I've had nothing but positive experiences with the food, and was assured by this thread that it's top notch stuff. For little kittens you do need to get the all life stages food OR kitten food. Edit: Go! and Now aren't on the cat food list, but they are in the premium list for dog food. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 12:45
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 06:25 |
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 Wellness Core now available in New Zealand from Animates, both cats and dawgs.
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Jul 2, 2014 07:02
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If they are able to self-regulate, you may not even need to shift away from free feeding. I've been lucky that my two are very good with their food and all we ever do is top up the food bowl when it's empty - they naturally regulate their intake and stay lean and healthy. This obviously will not work it you have blorpbeasts that eat everything put in front of them.
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Sep 4, 2014 23:28
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Hi guys, Similar to DaveSauce, we too are getting a new puppy next weekend (sheltie), who will be 9 weeks old on arrival. I need help making a judgement call about food. Today the breeder told me that the puppy's current diet is "the most expensive mince I can find at the supermarket" and a mix of Beneful and Pedigree dry food. It's a 50/50 split with half of his intake being just mince. She said she wouldn't recommend changing his food until he's an adult. I am not overly keen on the idea of changing his diet (having dealt with 3 months of diarrhoea with fussy delicate kitten Hugo) but I am even less keen for him to eat Beneful and Pedigree + "expensive mince" for that long. Do I just suck it up and feed him that until he's older, or do I use everything I learned about slow and stable diet changes with Hugo and very carefully (over 2-3 weeks) transition him onto a better food? I was looking at either Orijen puppy food or Go! Daily Defence. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 06:46
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Great, thanks for the responses. I ended up ordering a bag of Go! because I decided I couldn't face long term crap food, and I'll see if he can handle a faster transition and if so, just make the change. Once he's stable on the new food I'll start adding in some wet meals too and hopefully it'll be smooth sailing. Just fervently hoping he doesn't end up with an explosive rear end! (Though there is always I/D to fall back on for that)
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Nov 8, 2014 21:35
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Right, so I just received the complete list of food I need to buy to feed this puppy, according to the breeder: ground mince, pet milk, honey, baby rice, plain rice, mild cheese, cottage cheese, cheerios, chicken, and both Beneful and Pedigree biscuits. I also checked with the local vet who said to feed good quality puppy biscuits and that sometimes breeders have odd ideas.
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Nov 12, 2014 06:08
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Yeah that's exactly my approach here. I've got my actual dog food ready to go; but fully expect that when we pick him up Saturday the visit is going to be 90% smiling and nodding about how many thimbles of cottage cheese to add to his cheerios. I have no idea what the she thinks the health benefits of this diet are, it really sounds like a cobbled together collection of anecdata i.e "oh I heard that if you feed dogs X it's good for their coat!" because I don't think any of the breeders use the internet much...
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Nov 12, 2014 20:06
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Luminous Crude posted:After growing up with animals, I'll finally be getting my first pets as an adult soon: two little kitties from a local rescue centre. I was hoping some UK goons could recommend particular Brit food brands? Obviously I'll check protein:carb ratio, and I'll avoid Felix, Purina and Whiskers. Perhaps Butchers would be a good option? Not a UK goon but I think Applaws is meant to be okay and also Orijen is a pretty safe bet.
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Jan 12, 2015 08:02
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CarrotFlowers posted:We just adopted a new puppy and did a bunch of research on what kind of food to get. We ended up going with Acana Puppy and Junior because the ingredients seem really high quality and my brother's dog does really well on it and she's a similar breed. Our dog seems to be doing really well with it so far, but when I brought her in to the vet for her 2nd set of vaccines, the vet said we should be looking for AAFCO "tested" food for puppies, and not "formulated" because it hasn't actually been tested and proven to be beneficial for puppies. Also that it should specifically say for the "growing" stage of life, and not "all life stages". He recommended Hill's Science Diet for puppies because it's actually been tested and is for growing puppies blah blah. Not a vet or an animal food specialist, but Acana is made by the same company as Orijen and it's a bloody top quality food, not a bogus boutique brand with questionable practices. My puppy is on an all life stages food (Go!) and it just means he gets fed the suggested portions for puppies. I don't think there's really any problem unless your dog is a huge breed that might need something put together with a large breed in mind to make sure they don't screw up their joints or whatever. For what its worth my vet also gave the total all clear for all life stages food. My personal opinion on Hills Science Diet is that its fine if it's prescribed because it's been tested to treat a certain issue or condition (I/D has been a godsend), but there are far better options out there for normal food for your pets.
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Mar 7, 2015 04:14
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My two are big fans of Ziwipeak canned food - 3 years and no troubles. Haven't heard any scare stories about it either if that helps. Edit: re expense that probably makes sense. Ziwipeak and Wellness Core are the same price here, about $3.30 a tin. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Apr 13, 2015 |
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Apr 12, 2015 12:11
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My dog is on Go! biscuits and he seems to like them just fine and we've had no quality issues. Looks like it's about $70 on that petflow website.
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Apr 14, 2015 20:58
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My dog has decided to be fussy about food and has started moping and sighing melodramatically when he gets his normal kibble. He does eventually eat it but it's over the course of several hours. He's a 10 month old Shetland Sheepdog and on Go! Daily Defence at the moment which is an all life stages food. I was going to swap him over to Go! Fit & Free (adult) at the year old mark - am I going to stunt his growth if I start swapping him over now or should I really just tell him to suck it up and deal with his current food for two more months. E: actually he's really big for a sheltie already and at 10 months maybe he's kind of hit his growth peak and is starting to taper off his food consumption since he's not burning it all on growing as big as a freakin' walrus. I'd always wondered how I was going to go from puppy consumption levels and half that to the adult levels but maybe he's doing that naturally. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 05:49
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JAF07 posted:I've recently become the owner of two 12 week old kittens that were rescued from a less than ideal situation. When I've asked the previous owner what they were feeding them, I've gotten a range of answers from "Purina" to "Blue something." It would probably be worth grabbing a bag of Hills I/D and putting them on that to even their shits out. When my kitten handled a food change incredibly badly it got to the point where he wasn't used to ANY food anymore so shat liquid no matter what he ate, and then his butt got swollen and the whole thing was weird as hell and I should have gotten him on Hills I/D much sooner. It's basically the blandest of bland foods so should stop any diarrhea, and then once they've been on that for a while you can start slowly transferring them over to whatever you want to feed them long term. Given their age I'd definitely take them to the vet and talk about I/D - I still have a nagging feeling that Hugo's early food problems have contributed to his smaller weight as an adult (4.5kg for a male ragdoll is really light)
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Jul 17, 2015 11:13
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I still swear by the Petcurean Go! dry stuff. If it's available in my podunk little country it should be pretty widely available elsewhere.
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Jul 25, 2015 02:43
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Just throwing it out there, my dog was spewing bile during the night and a little bit during the day and it turned out his food had gone bad due to poor storage in warm weather. A new bag, correctly stored, fixed the issue. Might be worth ruling that out.
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May 4, 2016 12:43
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My cat is a fat fucker. I need to slim him down. When he trots his gunt sways from side to side, and in the last year he has put on an eyewatering 1kg and now weighs a grand total of 6.6kg (14.5lbs). Easy solution would be to feed the fat bastard less, except that I have another cat who can hardly be persuaded to eat at all and has to be free fed - he doesn't eat on demand, doesn't recognise meat or wet food as food and I've yet to find any treat he will get excited over. So I have one cat that lives to eat, and another that (grudgingly) eats to live. I thought about getting a micro-chip activated food dispenser thing except that Fat Bastard is uncannily smart and I think he'd either destroy it, push it to where the dog could get to it (and guarantee its destruction as Dog is also a fellow 'live to eat' aficionado) OR, seriously, learn that it will open when Anorexic Cat goes near it and will lie in wait for him to come along before shoving him out of the way and burying his own fat face in it, while simultaneously Anorexic Cat develops yet another food avoidance complex. Anyone got any suggestions? My cat is turning into a blimp.
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Jun 11, 2016 13:52
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Sydin posted:Also, and I may be underestimating the flexibility of cats here, but is fatty cat significantly larger in mass than anorexic cat? If so, then maybe you could try moving furniture/boxes/whatever to make a crawlspace that anorexic cat can get into, but not fatty. Then put the free feed bowl in that space so only the smaller cat can reach it. I wish. Fatsticks (literally what I call him now after his weigh in) is long and leanly proportioned but with a big meatsack stomach of malleable flab which means he can still just kind of ooze through whatever shaped passage presents itself. I tried locking Anorexic Cat in a room but he just cried at the door and shoved his feet under it until I let him out about 20 min later. My intermediate solution (which is pretty half rear end) is to take the food bowl away for a good part of the day because I at least know the times of day Anorexic Cat will show vague interest in food, but he's still needs it out for a few hours because he won't eat a meals worth. As expected Fatsticks raged out at this development and tore a hole in the new bag of food that was delivered (I found him inside the cardboard box having oozed though a gap in the top, nesting on the bag like a broody hen/fat fucker) When I am magically made of money I may build Anorexic Cat a food box with a goddamn cat door in it. E: sadly no, Fatsticks is just as agile as ever. Just with an enormous pendulum of a tummy. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jun 17, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 15:02
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durrneez posted:I have a similar problem. I feed wet food morning and evenings and dry food in the middle of the day. For wet food, I feed the skinnier cat on a regular plate and put the fat cat's portion in Fun Feeder Mini Mat by Outward Hound. When I feed the fat cat dry food, I put it in a treat ball so he gets exercise. I feed the cats in separate rooms and it seems to work out ok! You know, that's a good idea. I have a treat ball, I'd just have to keep it away from the dog. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Today when no cat food was out I caught him scoffing down leftover super spicy Thai green curry. He's indestructible at least.
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Jun 18, 2016 16:30
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Reik posted:You could also get a steel comb for the spots they don't like being furminated on. Wide toothed for a longer haired cat, narrow toothed for a shorter haired cat. This totally works. I get a hell of a lot of hair out of my long haired cat's fluffy armpits. Also update on my stupid fatass cat and anorexic cat: they are still on meals now instead of being free fed, and to my shock and delight Hugo the Anorexic Cat is the one that bawls for food in the morning. He never fails to let us know when he wants to eat, but he still only eats little pecks at a time but whatever he's eating and not losing weight so I don't care. Decoy the Fatass has sort of sulkily accepted the new norm, but he is looking like just as much of a blimp as ever which leads me to believe he his probably pillaging food from other cats. We're trying to fix our possibly busted cat door so the microchip lock works again so we can lock him in but let Hugo still come and go, with any luck we'll get it working and see if he slims down when confined indoors completely. Not looking forward to his crazy rear end zooms 24/7 but all worth it in the name of winnowing down his ponderous pendulum of a gut.
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Aug 11, 2016 12:59
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Yeah I had a heap of trouble finding any food that Hugo would actually eat, I tried about 6 brands that he did not acknowledge as food before he finally deigned to eat Go! - the only other thing he'll reliably eat is Hills I/D. He may not eat a lot of it but he screams for a top up if he can see the bottom of his bowl so I think it's as close to him liking a food as we're ever going to get.
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Aug 11, 2016 14:18
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AuntBuck posted:Did your vet try to sell you on Science Diet? If they were, it's garbage and you should think about switching vets. Okay, for serious, this is ridiculous. The reason they would have said this is that 90% of owners don't actually give a poo poo about what they feed their pet, but saying "anything is fine" sometimes results in Joe Bloggs going for bargain basement supermarket chow, or feeding their new pet nothing but cheerios and cottage cheese because the breeder said so. SOME people who actually do care will go off and look at options and select a well balanced diet, and that's totally fine - but lots don't. Hill's do enough product testing and general anal retentiveness that even if you don't like their ingredient list, they provide a complete diet that will not leave your pet deficient in anything unless something pathological is disrupting normal absorption etc. So when Joe Bloggs asks for a recommendation, the vet is going to take the path most travelled and say "sure, <Food That Is Sold In This Clinic Like Hills or Royal Canin or Whatever> is a complete diet and a good food for your pet" because they know it's a safe bet and it directs people away from rubbish supermarket chaff or weird made up breeder diets which are massively lacking in key nutrients. Not because they are Shills-To-Big-Pet-Food-Pharma. Ophidia posted:Our two cats (they're about 10 years old) were recently diagnosed with renal disease, to be exact both their creatinine was a bit too high. The vet recommended Royal Canin Renal wet and dry food. What is your opinion on that? Is that good food or is there something thats better for cats with kidney problems? I get the feeling our vet might recommend royal canin because its still "affordable", thinking that most people might be too cheap to buy high quality food. The Royal Canin renal diets have a lower total % of protein and phosphorus - kidneys are key players in protein metabolism and if they're packing in, you want to ease their workload as much as you can. It's awesome that you want the best for your pet as this is obviously why you're information gathering; but do listen to your vet when they recommend a prescription diet - it isn't about quality or affordability, it is literally that the composition and content of the food has been tested and specifically works to help alleviate the condition it's targeted at. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Jul 30, 2019 |
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Jul 30, 2019 08:28
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 06:25 |
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LoreOfSerpents posted:Have you seen recent studies on the effect of lower protein in cats with kidney disease? Last I looked into it, there were no studies on it in cats, and there was actually a big controversy among vets because the low protein renal diets were formulated decades ago based on studies done on rats and people, not cats. Nothing super recent unfortunately, the feline chronic kidney disease studies I've just had a look through are circa 2000-2006 and are mostly relating to combination low protein and phosphorus diets - not rehashing the formulation thereof, but just testing the existing diets. I only looked at spontaneously occurring cases, I think the case you're referring to was done in 1993 and ethical standards have definitely tightened since then. While I haven't exactly done a full literature reviews of the articles, they suggest the combo diets do increase the mean survival time. The low phosphate would definitely help with the hypocalcaemia, but the filtration rate is still lower than normal which means less effective protein excretion, and lower proteinuria is linked to worse outcomes. e: update post discussion with nutrition specialist vet - the evidence for low protein as a standalone factor isn't well studied; but this is because the phosphorus content comes from the meat ingredients so the commercial diets that end up being studied all have lower phosphorus and consequently lower protein. AuntBuck posted:No it is not ridiculous, and I'm tired of vets suggesting Hills and only Hills. Their prescription foods are tested and trustworthy, but there's no reason to buy any of their other products. They're overpriced garbage. I don't expect vets to be able to list off all the boutique brands available today, and I'm as annoyed about all the weird fad/bullshit food as you are. However, I've had vets lie to me and say Science Diet is the highest protein food out there, or that they've never heard of Blue Buffalo, etc. People do need to be better educated about what they feed their pets in general, and plenty of people do "give a poo poo" but just don't know anything about pet food quality. Vets could take a minute and actually educate people on what to look for in a food, but that's never the conversation. Okay, that's a more moderate stance than it sounded like the first time. It would be overkill to drop a vet if they said "Science Diet is a complete diet and good for your pet" (because they are totally adequate diet that doesn't lack anything important) but if they were saying it was the best dang thing on the planet bar nothing and anything else is awful, yeah, that's a valid reason to look sideways. There are a whole host of diets out there that are great (I don't feed my pets Science Diet), and yes I agree that if someone identified themselves as particularly interested in nutrition then the vet should give some key pointers on whats important. This approach has been increasingly taught to the newer vets coming out with qualifications today. Out of interest I looked up Blue Buffalo as it's not available here, and they look a bit dodgy with the ingredient splitting they're doing on their labels. Their Freedom adult indoor recipe has Peas (4th), Pea Protein (5th) and Pea Fibre (9th) as separate ingredients. Thats a whole lot of peas. Not necessarily a bad ingredient, no maligning of the humble pea here - but if you added all those separate percentages up then I would not be surprised if there were more peas than chicken in there. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Jul 31, 2019 04:32
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