Saturday, February 10, 2007

Adult Dry Food

Now that the boys are one year old they
have moved up to "adult" dry food. They both
prefer dry food to wet food and munch on it
throughout the day and night.

Tanj,... there is something new here !!

T, would you like a sample,...?

Mmmmm,... don't mind if I do,...

Mmmmm,...
Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.

Lip smackin' good

MORE PLEASE !!

I'll take a bowl full please.

Enough with the pictures,...
its food time.


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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, Lavs -- Sam also eats the Royal Canin dry food and he munches away at it day and night. How did you decide which formula(s) to give the boys? Did your vet or breeder recommend a particular formula to you?

When Sam first came to live with us last summer I was in a quandry as to which formula to get for him because our baby that we lost last spring (a "regular" cat) ate one of the mature cat formulas which we called her "special" food so as not to offend. ;) Since Sam came to live with us on such short notice I ran out to our neighborhood pet supply store in SE PDX and quickly consulted with the owner who is an amazing wealth of knowldge, to see if she had any recommendations. (Sam's human dad who died had just been giving him what we call kitty junk food from the grocery store.) The owner of the pet supply store didn't have any experience with Bengals so we decided to try one of the active cat formulas but Sam seemed to almost swallow whole mouthfuls of the stuff. And the bits that he did manage to chew left many little crumbs that created quite a mess on his little place mat! When I went back to the store to get the next bag of food I spoke to the owner again and told her about Sam's eating habits. She recommened trying one of the formulas that has a larger kibble to promote slower ingestion. We decided that the Siamese formula sounded like it might be a good choice because of their similar lean and muscular builds. Interestly enough, when I got home and read more about this particular formula it described Sam's method of eating to a T. (http://www.royalcanin.us/catfood/siamese.html) Royal Canin calls this steam shovel method of eating the "kibble clip". (Who knew?!) I've been a little concerned about whether the Siamese formula is providing Sam with enough nourishment but he was weighed at the vet's office a couple of weeks ago when we went in for a nail clipping and they said he had gained a pound since his last visit. (Unfortunately, our vet who we love has't had much experience with Bengals either.) If you've received any particluar recommendations about food for the boys I'd interested in knowing what you've learned.

Thanks!

Karen >^..^<

Tanj,Uschi&Vladi said...

We did get recommendations as far as diet (brands) as part of our adoption packet. Of course we also went online and researched all the different brands, comparing their contents.

Basically, you get what you pay for. The “higher quality” foods have less fillers/byproducts and thus more of the bulk of that food is nutrients that can go directly towards growth, maintenance, and play. We do our best to feed the boys a varied diet of packet wet food while giving them a stable-consistent supply of their dry food. They are not voracious eaters, often just lick up the juice from the packet food, leaving the chunks. They then come back at a later time to eat the remaining chunks. Each brother only gets (wants) a ½ packet of food in the morning and another in the evening. They don’t seem interested in any more than that. There were times during the first year when they were eating three packets each a day and we gave it to them.

At this time we are staying away from the cheaper supermarket foods as main staples, only because I know of some cats that are on the cheapest of these and their fur is coarse. I don’t know if it is the food but it might be. The boys have had one small can of the cheapest supermarket food. They loved it!

If others out there reading this have specifics, maybe they could contact Sam's Mom directly,... ? or Email me and I will compile something concise to share.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Lavs -- Thanks for the feedback. I completely agree with the "you get what you pay for" philosophy. (And interestingly enough, I discovered that our neighborhood pet supply store charges less for the Royal Canin food than Petco does.) Even though Sam had a relatively soft coat when he came to live with us I've noticed that it has improved in the 8 months that he's been eating the Royal Canin food so you could be right about this. In the one picture of Uschi sitting with the kitten and adult food bags I see that the adult food is one of the "blue label/indoor" formulas. Which one did you settle on? (Sam's Siamese food one of the "gold label/breed" formulas.) The kibble shape in your pictures makes it look as if you might be using the "light" formula?

Thanks again.

Karen >^..^<

Tanj,Uschi&Vladi said...

Karen,

We started with a mix of the kitten and the indoor food to ween them off the kitten based diet. We did this so that we didn't make a drastic change in their diet.

Their first bag of adult food is the indoor cat mix. We figured that they are mostly indoors, only outside when we take them out or they are in their kennel. There is a different ratio of fat-protein-carbs.