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Natural Pet Foods

33K views 173 replies 78 participants last post by  HealingBeam 
#1 ·
I think we should make a sticky for natural pet foods. This will be a great resource for everyone. Let's list all the natural pet food websites we can find, including natural commercial foods and recipes for raw and homemade diets. The dangers of mainstream pet food additives and inferior ingredients are also welcome. Also, personal reviews and opinions of specific products would be great!

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#103 ·
I feed my 7 year old cat Felidae Platinum dry cat food, Merrick canned cat food, and Raw Advantage raw cat food (she get's this weekly, due to the cost). Daisy also eat natural treats made by Halo Purely For Pets.

As for cat litter, I use Feline Pine, because it doesn't smell or stick to the litter box.

Ever since that pet food recall scare, I have totally changed all of Daisy's foods (before she was eating Special Kitty dry food and Nutro and 9-Lives canned foods). Daisy doesn't shed as much now, she doesn't get hairballs as badly, and she's even lost some of the weight she's had packed on since she became an indoor only cat in 2002.

Jessie
(single mommy to Emma, 3 years and Angela, 2 years)
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#104 ·
I have searched but cannot find the answer to this . . .

How much Innova EVO dry cat food does a cat need?

I want to switch (we use Hills now) but $ is a factor. So, if they need less than they would for Hills, I could do it. Hills is 1/4 cup per 5 lbs. I free feed and that is exactly what my cats eat.
 
#110 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by MPJJJ View Post
Would a meal of raw ground beef, raw egg, and oatmeal mixed together with a vitamin supplement sprinkled in be healthy enough to be the sole nutrition for 8 month old kittens?
MPJJJ, I'd drop the oatmeal, but if the vitamin supplement is Feline Future, you're golden. It's a supplement powder that you mix into raw meat to form a balanced raw cat food. So easy!

http://www.felinefuture.com/cat_food/

If you choose to make your own raw pet food from scratch (we've done both), you need to get hold of a true recipe for raw cat food. Cats' nutritional needs are slightly different from dogs' -- it's easy once you get the hang of it, but it is important. Beef heart will be needed for taurine, for example. A google search for BARF CAT will get you on your way. There are some great books out there (I would recommend looking beyond Billinghurst for cats -- he's the go-to expert for dogs). For a beginner, though, the Feline Future powder + a variety of different raw meats will be foolproof.


Two great investments that will serve both your family and your pets, if you choose raw for them, are a chest freezer and a heavy-duty food processor like a Vita-Mix (which is also a killer blender, grain grinder, soup maker, and food processor -- we love ours!). Deep freezing the bones (below a certain temperature for a certain amount of time) takes care of any parasite issues with the raw meat, and a Vita-Mix or a Cuisinart is all you need to put together the "glop" (offal, veggies, and supplements) that combines with the raw meaty bones to make a balanced pet food. Since we would be using both the freezer and the blender for ourselves anyway, the only extra cost specifically for our pets was an extra Vita-Mix blender container. (Technically you probably don't need a "raw only" pitcher, especially if you have a dishwasher, but I am a nut about kitchen hygiene so we have a pet pitcher and a people pitcher.)

Good luck! It's so worth it!
 
#111 ·
Can I go OT for a second to say that the Vitamix is the most amazing appliance in the universe? I don't like the polycarb canister, though, and I contacted them to ask if they would consider steel or glass, but never heard back. OK, back to originally scheduled programming...

Our white cat has a heart murmur, and is just sort of sickly in general. Even though making our own food will be materially more work and money for me, I am hoping to try to make him a little more comfortable. Does anyone have experience with this? White cats are just a little iffy, I know. I have also heard I should add l-lysine, but I don't know where to get it.
 
#113 ·
i'm so embarrassed reading about these cats eating 1/4 cup of evo a day.

mr. grumbles is a big guy. last weigh in, he was a whopping 24.6 pounds.
but we're happy because that's 2 pounds LESS than he weighed when we adopted him 18 months ago.

he gets 3/4 cup of innova evo a day and if he can see any portion of the bottom of his bowl, he WILL NOT SHUT UP. like he's going to just shrivel up and die if there is not a bountiful buffet of endless food available to him at all times.

he's been eating evo for almost a year now and it's amazing how much his demeanor has changed. he used to be a very, very lazy fat cat who never did much but sleep and ask to be fed. it was only a few weeks after the switch that he actually seemed to transform into a real cat who loves to play and hunt bugs and stalk birds from the window.

in addition to the better food, i am always looking for different ways to make getting to his food more challenging to give him some exercise. we set up all kinds of obstacle courses for him and then change them once he's mastered them. if he weren't getting decent food, he'd never make it.
 
#115 ·
I am ready to make the switch over to raw for my cats and dog. My cats puke a lot, one has chronic urinary stones and infections, and my dog HATES kibble.

I have been reading those sites, and the only things that are stopping me are:

1. Will my cats really NOT choke on the raw bones? They are fairly old and never have eaten a raw diet. I would just die if one of my cats was killed or injured by what I feed them.

2. How do you contain the germs and mess? We have carpet and a TINY area of lanoleum in our tiny, tiny kitchen. My cats like to drag food away (my dog is the worst culprit-she even hides spots of food around the house for later!), and I am worried about contamination with the kids and a new baby on the way.
 
#117 ·
I'm glad I found this.
I'll definitely be checking out the raw links. I'm seriously considering going raw because cat food in Denmark is just pathetic. My babies have been on Wellness for a long time and they were doing soooo great on it. Then I moved. Now the only thing I can find that doesn't list corn as a first or second ingredient is Royal Canin Pure Feline. I'm feeding it now but I'm not too impressed with "animal fats" and a few other things on the ingredients list. And litter! Ugh! There's nothing but clay! I'm using wood pellets marketed for rodent cages.

With regards to good foods causing stinky poo, I've had that problem with particular cats reacting to particular ingredients. Another flavor or brand would usually fix the problem without having to go back to pseudo-premiums like Iams or Science Diet. My Lidja used to clear the house with her poo if she ate anything other than lamb. I was able to gradually introduce other meats and now she can eat just about anything!

Now off to read more about raw....
 
#118 ·
I just wanted to post to update. Sophie started her raw diet, 2 days ago & she is doing great. We switched her cold turkey. I joined a raw feeding yahoo group & after reading for a couple months we decided it was time! We have started her on chicken & she loves it. We feed her outside. It is really nice to watch her eat, it just feels right, the way nature intended. She would gobble down her kibble in seconds, well now it takes her a while to eat. So far so good. She will remain on chicken only, for a couple weeks & if all goes well we will introduce a new protein. The ratio is 80% meat, 10% bone & 10% organ meat, however the organ meat can give most dogs the runs. So this shouldn't be incorporated until the raw diet has been established in a month & a half or 2 months down the road & added very, very slowly. That is the very bare bones basics, you really need to read up on this if you are planing on switching over. It isn't difficult but requires some knowledge & a support system if you have problems. Espescilly since most vet's arn't supportive. A few more helpful links:

Here's the yahoo group that I'm a member of, this is exactly the support system I'm talking aobut. Join & I bet you will be a raw feeder soon!
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/

Here's a calculator to help figure how mcuh you need to feed
http://www.raw4dogs.com/calculate.htm
 
#119 ·
That's awesome, EricaLeigh.
I've started mine on the switch too. Tycho took right to it with no problems, but Lidja is being more stubborn. So far she has eaten raw chicken when I mix it with chunks of Whiskas or put sauce from the Whiskas on top, but not by itself. (And yes, I know Whiskas is pure junk, but she just didn't think the raw chicken was food until I did something to it!) I'm going to start putting less and less other stuff with it and hopefully she was start eating the raw plain.

I was a bit scared to go raw, but it's a lot easier than I was expecting!
 
#120 ·
Awesom Alcyone. I have heard that there is nearly not much smell in raw meat compared to the commercial pet food. So some people do have to take those measures just to get thier animal to reccognise the raw meat as food! Also I'm wondering if you can get your hands on wood pellets for pellet stoves? That is what we used for liter when we had rabbits. The hardwood (untreated) pellets worked best for odor absorption. I'm so glad we switched!
 
#121 ·
http://animalfoodwarehouse.com/2007/products.html

This is the pet store I shop at.
I used to feed my pets Solid Gold, but after moving to Alaska, I couldn't afford it anymore.
I switched to Nutro's.
I'm calling the Pet store now and they say they carry Innova Evo and he's looking up the prices for me:

Dog: 28# bag - $42.99
Cat: 15# bag - $31.99

Those are the largest bags they carry.
The dog food seems quite a bit more expensive that what we have been paying.
Prices have varied at the store we shop at.
The last time, we paid $35.99 for 20# of Nutro Complete Care Adult cat food
and $35.99 for 40# large breed Nutro's natural choice large breed dog food.

I have two cats. They have two food bowls and I usually put a cup of food in each bowl once a day (when I remember or the meow to let me knowit's empty).
I don't know how much the dog eats out of one of those bowls.

My one dog eats 1 cup of food in the morning and one cup in the evening.
 
#122 ·
Nutro Ultra canned is one of the foods that was tainted with cyanuric acid, melamine, and possibly rat poison. Our Pomeranian Bubbles died from it in February. It also caused some kidney damage to our not-then-1yo Papillon, Daisy May. I will not buy any of their food again, now will I buy from any other company that was involved in that recall. Their ingredients are not high-quality, though their recipes may make it sound like that.

We have now switched our dogs completely to a raw diet. We are using a grain-free dehydrated brand now, and will probably be switching between that and a couple of grain-free frozen raw diets from now on.
 
#125 ·
Mamas,
Thank you for this thread. I have to admit that I am just now becoming much more aware of pet food dangers and the better stuff to feed my pets. Our older cat, who just recently died, ate 9Lives or something similar, basically her whole life. I have been a pet owner my entire life and feel that just now I am getting schooled on this subject. We have two new kittens and I've been feeding them Iams dry (how terrible is this??) and I've purchased a few cans of Fancy Feast (ditto?). So the deal is that cats should never really eat grain, they should eat mostly a meat-based diet, and watch the bag for all those additional things that shouldn't be in the food? Also, someone told me that fishmeal in many cat foods is actually pretty harmful to cats? Is this true?
Thanks so much. Does anyone have a suggestion for a brand of cat food I can buy at PetSmart (large chain) or grocery store that would be a healthier alternative??TIA
 
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