Hey guys

So! We'll start from the beginning... When I first brought Harley home, he was eating a lot of Whiskas kitten pouches. I've never been overly impressed with Whiskas, so I spent our first week slowly transitioning him over to Royal Canin kitten pouches, I'd heard good things about it, and my vet had been pushing it.

Since bringing Harley home, he's had some problems with really soft stools. Just to clarify, he's always been up to date on his worming and has had several health checks. The vet hasn't done many tests, but had the soft stools continued, I'd have insisted on some being done.

Common sense dictated I have a thorough look at what I was feeding him. At this point I'd been feeding him about 50% Royal Canin kitten pouches (the wet food), about 10% Royal Canin kitten (dry food) and about 40% raw chicken thighs and a small amount of raw chicken liver. When I looked closely at the ingredients in the Royal Canin, I was shocked. The second ingredient in his wet food was cereals. For a wet food, I thought that was horrendous! Then I came to another surprisingly ingredient "milk and milk derivatives".. Milk? It doesn't say what species the milk is from, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say it's probably cows milk. In any case, I was under the impression that once a cat's weaned, it really shouldn't be having milk in it's longterm diet.
Another questionable ingredient was "various sugars"... The only reason I can see to add sugar to an obligate carnivore's diet is to help enhance the flavour of some lackluster food. Not to mention that Royal Canin is actually owned by the Mars bar company. I don't know how significant that is, but it definitely threw up some red flags for me.

To say the least, I was unimpressed with the ingredients list, so I contacted the veterinary clinic where I take Harley. Their suggestion was that the fresh chicken and liver were probably too rich for Harley and that I should cut them out and stick to mostly the dry Royal Canin. I was unsatisfied with that advice, cats are carnivorous, the chicken is probably the healthiest thing he's eating.

I've since purchased some Wellness grain free cans of wet food. I've heard it's a good brand, if any of you have anything to say about Wellness I'd love to hear it, good or bad. I've been slowly incorporating it into his diet and reducing the Royal Canin. His stools are actually starting to look a lot better already.

At the moment Harley's eating commercial food (Royal Canin, switching to Wellness) for breakfast, and fresh raw chicken thigh and chicken liver (those are the only raw meats he'll eat at the moment) for dinner. I've done a lot of research, but there is so much conflicting advice out there, it's hard to know what to do. I just want Harley to be healthy and happy.

I guess what I want to know is, if you were in my position, what would each of you do at this point to improve on Harley's diet? I know some will suggest going fully raw, but I'm a little hesitant (though I've toyed with the idea), as I'm unsure if I'd be able to provide a fully balanced diet. I'd feel so awful if I accidentally left something out and Harley suffered for it. I'm still considering giving it a go, so feel free to offer any advice you may have.

Thanks guys

x Renae

Quasar has a totally raw diet. He is the first raw-fed cat I have ever had and is, far and away, the healthiest cat I have ever had also.
I purchase pre-made raw in the form of Nature's Variety Instinct Raw. It is balanced nutritionally and he eats it well. I am sure that this is not the only variety of pre-made raw available either.

When I was preparing to pick Quasar up, I looked at canned foods and was stunned to discover that most of them contain some form of grains. If I am going to pay top dollar for a wet food that does not contain grains, I may as well buy the raw.

If I had more than 1 cat, I would probably consider making my own raw but, for one kitty, the pre-made product is reliable and I know he is getting a balanced diet.

Cheers!

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~ Kyenta

Ok, so here are some thoughts:

1. I think it's definitely commendable that you are putting a bunch of effort into finding a good diet for your new kitten. Generally though, it's recommended to stay on the diet he was used to at the breeders for a few weeks or so, for continuity sake and to make sure not to upset his stomach.

2. As far as Royal Canin, I have a very low opinion of that brand too. Keep in mind that many vets have "partnered" with Royal Canin and Science Diet, so they have financial incentive to hawk those brands. And yea, having grains in wet food is pretty appalling imo.

3. Wellness is a good brand nutritionally, and they offer some variety which is nice. Two drawbacks though: Their food often is not the best tasting to cats, and they've had some recalls. But I would say that if your kitten is excited about eating Wellness, then I think you could do a lot worse.

As far as foods in Australia, I'm not sure. This is kind of an interesting one that I've given my cats a few times that seems pretty good:

http://www.ziwipeak.com/

I believe that's in your neck of the woods.

To the extent that I give my cats raw food, I give them this:
http://www.radfood.com/

But I don't believe they are available in Australia.

4. One other comment about your current diet: it really isn't appropriate for a major portion of their diet to be just filled haphazardly with pieces of chicken and the like. That is because you are upsetting the mix of vitamins, minerals etc., that your cat should be getting. In other words, if half his diet is a commercial balanced meal, and half is some meat, he is getting roughly half of many of the minerals and such that he should be. There are supplements that you can buy to help with that, but it's something that needs to be carefully researched and understood. It shouldn't be done haphazardly.

Also note that in the reading I've done, raw food really isn't recommended as a diet to feed kittens, because of their undeveloped immune systems.

5. The "soft stool" thing can be diet, but it can also be parasite. A pretty startling number of new kitten owners find that although their kitten is up-to-date on "worming", their kitty has come with a parasite that he had at the breeders. One tell-tale sign is if the loose stool is accompanied by a really powerfully bad smell. If that's the case, you may need to take your kitten in to see the vet to have some tests done and possibly some special medication will be required.

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The little monsters 3

As far as I have understood no more than 10% of the cats food should be unbalanced. If you can give kitty balanced raw on the side it's no problem to mix, but as long as it is unbalanced and more than 10% it could be dangerous over time.
So it's not dangerous to give a chiken wing once a week, but for example once a day is too much if it's not within a balanced diet (think it might be too much even then, but I think you understand the point :)).

This stuff actually looks quite good. I haven't seen this brand around where I live, but it looks like it's available in the AU, and it looks quite good to me:

http://www.canidae.com.au/cat-food/cani ... ew-formula

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The little monsters 3

Thank you both for your input! I've decided to go ahead with trying Harley on some of the ZiwiPeak foods. The prices make me cringe, but I want Harley to be happy and healthy, and I'm sure this will be a step in the right direction.

x Renae