What's a good, safe, healthy food for my kittens?

Question

I am so upset with Menu Foods and am looking to find a food for my two kittens (11 months old) that I don't have to worry about. I mainly give them dry food, but like to give them a treat of wet food once or twice a week. I live in Austin, TX, and mainly go to PetSmart and Petco. What do you guys think the best options are? Maybe Natural Balance?

Answer 1

Blue is a good cat food line. Natural Balance is too. Pro-pac. Eagle Pack, Solid Gold, Chicken Soup, Felidae, Nature's Logic, By-Nature's Organic. If you go to your phone book and look for a small, owner-operated pet store you are more likely to find quality pet foods. PetSmart and Petco tend to carry the poor quality foods that are nationally advertised (that's where the money goes, not into the food) because they cater to customer requests rather than having any interest in quality.

You should use many of the better brands and not just stick with one for the kittens' lifetime. That way too statistically you lower your risk of any contamination disaster.

Answer 2

www.menufoods.com/

Here is the website with a list of all products involved.
Take your time and read carefully. IAMS wet food is on the list. Also, Iams was busted a few years back for animal abuse in their testing facilities, so I will never buy their products. Check that out at peta.com.

I stick to Purina for dry food, always have. And I agree with the other poster who says that buying premade food is always a risk no matter the brand.

I am working toward cooking from scratch for my little darlin' kitten just like I do for myself. I simmer a boneless chicken breast in a little water, no salt or spices, and shred it. Give her a little of that as a treat each day instead of the canned or packet wet food. She gobbles it right up. Yesterday I made a roast, and before putting it in the slow cooker I pulled a small piece off and cooked it like I cook the chicken. She loved it.

There are lots of recipies to be found on the internet. Just like you, your pet needs balanced nutrition. The tricky part is the vegetables. Believe it or not my kitten will eat canned corn. LOL. Good luck, hope some of this helps.

Answer 3

Nutrience by Hagen is an excellent food and is reasonable in cost. I can also recommend Royal Canin although they don't have wet foods.

I would recommend you use a raw meat diet that you put together yourself, it's healthy and it's better for their teeth if served in chunks. Raw meat alone isn't enough though so you will have to research the additives to put into it.

I feed raw meat to my cats, without anything added, only an Omega supplement and also feed Royal canin dry.

I don't know if it's available there but Advance is a good food at a low price. It's made by Whiskas, they've been around for years without any problems. The normal whiskas wet can give diarrhea though so only use the advance, it's got a lot of meat.

Answer 4

The thing is, every food, for both humans and animals, is at equal risk. It’s a chance we all take by putting something in our mouths that we didn’t grow/slaughter ourselves.

This time it was Menu Foods, but next time it will be another company. You can never be 100% safe with anything, and even if you choose a brand that has never had problems, that may be the next brand to be recalled. Even super-high-quality food in not exempt from being tainted one day. Any brand anyone gives you, unless they can see the future, is not assured to be safe. After all, this time last year, Menu Foods was a perfectly safe, perfectly respected manufacturer.

Basically, my point is to feed them whatever your kittens like best and is healthy for them. Everything is equally “dangerous” and “safe” because everything is at the same risk of contamination, so worrying about it will do you no good.

Answer 5

Avoid PetSmart! Their food is absolute CRAP.

Choose any or all of the foods from this list. These are all high quality brands - none of them are on the recall list - they contain little or no grains.

I personally feed canned Natural Balance Venison & Green Pea.

Also, I recommend skipping the dry and feeding canned. You can give a little bit of kibble as a treat though. The thing with dry food is that it can lead to obesity as it is full of carbs, and it leaves most cats dehydrated. And it doesn't clean their teeth - that's a myth.

Answer 6

I recommend Chicken Soup For The at Lovers Soul Kitten Dry and Canned. It contains no Corn, Corn Gluten or Wheat Gluten. It is a Holistic Food.

I feed it with Friskies Wet and Cooked Meats.

Meow Mix is a horrible food it feed cats. And I am sorry Science Diet is not much better! Vets recommend it b/c they are paid too.

Answer 7

Your kittens should be perfectly fine with a good quality dry food. I feed Iams and they have soft fur, bright eyes and are very active. If you want to give them a treat, try the 9-Lives treats in a pouch. They aren't "wet", but just a little moist. Make them work for it, too. They can beg, you know. A little cooked chicken is good, too.

Answer 8

a safe healthy food you can give them is iams.its good for them. they have different types. some are for bulding strong bone and some can help keep them at a healthy weight and help control furballs.iams is a dry food.if yougive them wet food then it rots there teeth when they get older and can give them bad breath.you can find iams at about any store that cares cat food.

Answer 9

Purina kitten chow is ok. it is not on the list of bad food.

Answer 10

science diet. My vet recommends it, and my pets (cat and dog) love it. It really keeps them healthy also.