I feed Innova dry and raw. The main raw that I buy can be found at: www.companionnaturalpetfood.com

I also supplement with beef chunks and I am waiting on a grinder so I can buy whole fryer chickens and grind them up. However the companion natural makes raw SO easy, just thaw & feed.

Well yesterday we bought some "Royal Canin" dry food. I don't know if anyone has feed their bengals this, as I am not sure if it is just a UK brand or a worldwide brand. It looks pretty good to me, full of all the nutrients that they need. You can actually purchase bags for it for certain breeds now, the bits of dry food have been shaped for the shape of the cats palate. So far they only do it for Siamese, Persian and Maine Coone though.

This food is what my breeder has been feeding her kittens, which is why I am going to continue using it, rather than buy something they won't like, but I have bought some smaller pouches of other brands. We do a brand her called James Beloved, which seems to be the best, as it is pure natural food, with no un healthy additives and is Hypo-allergenic . It also seems to be the more expensive. But if they like it from the sample pouch I have, then I may switch to that. I will see what they like best. The Royal Canin or James Beloved.

Hi Siobhan,

i looked up James WellBeloved cat food and checked the ingredients. Here is an overview and explanation of some of the ingredients.
i do not have the time to go thru the Royal Canin ingredients but, i think you get the picture of what
is in _most_ if not all commercial kibble and why i am opposed. Companies use our naivete and trust in
them to their advantage. Often times we see "fresh", "hypo-allergenic", "wholesome ingredients", and
a hefty price tag and believe that this is the best we can do for our animals. We also read ingredients
that would be healthy for human consumption and assume they are good or easily absorbed by our cats. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
If you are a bit squeamish about feeding raw whole prey or prey model and want to feed commercial food i would recommend Oma's Pride. If on a budget and cannot afford Oma's Pride and want to provide your kitties with the best diet possible i would work on providing prey/prey model diet.
Yahoo rawpaws and rawcat are great groups for those interested in feeding raw species appropriate diet.

Lamb and Rice

Ingredients: White rice (min 26%), Lamb meat meal (min 26%), lamb fat, prairie meal, potato protein (min 7%), lamb gravy, tomato, omega-3 oil supplement (min 0.5%), chicory extract, carrot, cranberry extract (min 0.05%), DL methionine, lysine hydrochloride, taurine, threonine, zinc methionate, yucca extract, rosemary oil.

Turkey and Rice

Ingredients: White rice (min 26%), turkey meat meal (min 26%), turkey fat, prairie meal, potato protein (min 9%), poultry gravy, tomato, omega-3 oil supplement (min 0.5%), chicory extract, carrot, cranberry extract (min 0.05%), DL methionine, lysine hydrochloride, taurine, threonine, zinc methionate, yucca extract, rosemary oil.

Duck and Rice

Ingredients: White rice (min 26%), duck meat meal (min 26%), duck fat, prairie meal, potato protein (min 9%), poultry gravy, tomato, omega-3 oil supplement (min 0.5%), chicory extract, carrot, cranberry extract (min 0.05%), DL methionine, lysine hydrochloride, taurine, threonine, zinc methionate, yucca extract, rosemary oil.

Fish and Rice

Ingredients: White Rice (min 26%), White Fish Meal (min 25%), prairie meal, Potato protein (min 9%), olive oil, fish oil, vegetable gravy, tomato, chicory extract, carrot, cranberry extract (min 0.05%), DL methionine, lysine hydrochloride, taurine, threonine, zinc methionate, yucca extract, rosemary oil.

Meat Meal-
Slaughterhouse wastes and dead animals are used to prepare meat and bone meal. Slaughterhouse wastes consist of portions of animals that are not suitable for human consumption; normally hair, hooves and blood are not included. After animals have died their carcasses can be rendered to destroy disease organisms and made also into meat and bone meal.
Yet, slaughterhouse animals rejected for human use due to high antibiotic levels also make their way into pet foods. (1)The American Journal of Cardiology has warned that children allergic to penicillin could die from accidentally eating pet food!
(2)One 1985 scientific paper examined pentobarbital levels (an anesthetic agent used in euthanasia solutions) in pet food derived from dogs and cats that had been euthanized at shelters. This practice was still relatively common in the year 2000! A dog or cat on one of the very cheapest diets may be eating pet food that contains the remains of other pet dogs and cats, and the pentobarbital levels may be significant. (*1. O'Connor JJ, Stowe CM and Robinson RR, 1985. Fate of Sodium pentobarbital in rendered products. Am J Vet Res, 46(8):1721.
2. Markus CK, Chow LH, Wycoff DM and McManus BM, 1989. Pet food-derived penicillin residue as a potential cause of hypersensitivity myocarditis and sudden death. Am J Cardiol, 63(15):1154-6.)

Rosemary - Is a stimulant of the circulatory system; to treat bad breath; stimulates the hair bulbs to new growth. It's main use in animal food is as a preservative. i read a comment concerning preservatives in an
article that really hit home to me. You should not feed your cat anything that can sit out for weeks or months without spoiling! REAL FOOD spoils!

Yucca - Used for its reduction of both breath and stool odor .
A cat fed a natural raw diet as small tootsie roll shaped and very low odor stool. Oral health and
bad breath is not an issue either as the mouth maintains proper balance. Kibble feeding is
100% to blame for our animals poor oral health and high costs for vet cleanings (which i am certain
that Vets are not very sorry about).

White Rice - Well, rice is a grain. Grain should not be a part of an obligate carnivores diet. Rice is sometimes used as an anti-diarrheal ingredient (actually causes constipation) due to upset from questionable ingredients. It is also said that rice may help with dandruff and skin problems. Skin problems are not just skin problems?the skin should be viewed as a window to hidden physiologic processes and an animals health. If the food is so good why are they adding products that help with digestive upset and skin problems?

Cranberry - Prevents the spread of bacterial infections in kidneys and the urinary tract.
Acidified dry cat food leads to the formation of calcium oxalate crystals. Natural meat based raw diet
(species appropriate) maintains proper PH balance and there is no need to add anything to
acidify the urine. It is that commercial food is not balanced that they need to add _anything_ other
then meat.

carrot- why? They cannot process it and utilize the vitamins contained.

chicory extract- Used as fermentable fiber source. Always ask yourself why they need to add these things and can my cat even process this so that it is useful?
Cats _cannot_ process and utilize vegetation (which is a source of fiber) independant of prey, meaning,
that the vegetation needs to be processed by the prey's stomach first, when they consume the contents of the stomach they can then process it.

tomato - why again? What is good and easily absorbed by humans is not the case with cats.
Tomatoes are of the Solanaceae family of plants and contain a bitter, poisonous alkaloid called Glycoalkaloid Solanine, which can cause violent lower gastrointestinal symptoms.

potato (protein?)- Not so sure as to what potato protein is but ..potato (Solanum spp) is toxic to cats. (including vines, green spots, and tubers).

Regards,
shannon

I still cannot not decide on the raw diet option.

I know it seems to be quite a debateble subject.

I cannot see how you can insure that even a raw diet is healthy, what we all the rubbish that has possibly been feed to the dead animal you are feeding the bengal, let alone how it is been kept.

I know cats in the wild live purely on raw diets, but surely their immune systems is more used to the bugs and viruses that they can get, as it is all they eat. Bengals are a domestic breed of cat, so perhaps can not so easily fight off these bugs.

I have always had it drummed into me about raw meat and such things as salmonella poisining and worms etc.

It also doesn't seem to be a very popular option to feeding your cats here in England and all cats I have known have never been fed on this raw diet and have lived well past the standard age.

I sure I will get a big lecture now about raw diets after this post.

I feed my 5 month old bengal
1/4 cup of Eagle Pack kitten dry food at 7am
1/4 cup of Eagle Pack kitten dry food at 12pm
1/2 5 oz. can of either Eagle Pack, Wysong, Nutro, (change up flavors as well) wet food at 6pm
hide treats around the house before I go to bed so he can hunt for them at night (they are all gone in the morning)

_________________
"Who ever said "A bad day of fishing is always better than a good day at work." Never had their boat sink."

_________________
"Who ever said "A bad day of fishing is always better than a good day at work." Never had their boat sink."

_________________
"Who ever said "A bad day of fishing is always better than a good day at work." Never had their boat sink."

Loose stools! I've been there X 2!

We have 2 bengal kittens, now 4 months old, and for the first 2 weeks straight they both had loose stools and diarrhea. Not pleasant. I was transitioning them from the breeder 'mix' of Royal Canin and Healthwise to Wellness Kitten (all dry foods) with absolutely no luck. After 14 days and $250 in vet bills for some probiotics (acidophilus) and stool binder (essentially montmorillonite) they were no better so I pulled the Wellness kibble completly and fed them Wellness kitten canned food exclusively. Their stools were completely normal by the next day. I too, heard that Bengal stools are 'normally' soft or loose, but I really wonder if their diet makes the difference. Now that I know a normal stool is possible, I'm starting to add in a bit (less than 1/6 cup daily) of kibble to their diet. For kibble I'm using Eagle Pack Duck and Oatmeal -- I'm not crazy about the grain content but my breeder swears by it and I'll give it a try. So far, so good -- stools have not changed, but I'm still giving them mostly canned Wellness.

Good luck with feeding. I personally find the information I read on cat foods very confusing -- anyone else feel the same way?

I am sure I will roundly trounced for this but......

I leave dry food out 24/7 for my 2 bengals. They never overeat because they always have access to food, and grazing several times a day is preferable to inhaling meals twice a day.

Once a week they get a treat... wet pouch food or canned tuna (in water). They also love boiled chicken.

But for their dry food, they wont eat straight Science Diet or Authority or any of the "good" stuff.... so I mix it in with (gasp) Meow Mix, which they simply love.

They are happy, healthy and active and they share their food without fighting or one eating more/less than the other, so I leave well enough alone.