The food search goes on. Three days ago we were out of wet food and purchased Fancy Feast from the grocery store, as an experiment. Lets just say the boys went NUTS !!! This is the FIRST wet food they have absolutely attacked and totally cleaned their plates as well as the surrounding area, leaving nothing behind. They have become total terrors over the past few days while eating F.F. They literally sit in the kitchen yelling for food! If we get up, they run at us and herd us to the kitchen. This is not behavior we have seen with any food. Both have been SUPER active, it is scary. I wish I had a generator (dynamo) on the cat wheel because Uschi would be powering some lights around here. Tanj is even more active, maybe F.F. isn't good just for this reason. At the moment Tanj is literally flying around the house yelling, Uschi is playing along also. At the same time they are off the scale affectionate.
I'm not sure if we have gotten caught up in marketing or our research or personal biases, but we don't feel good about feeding them the grocery store foods. "Meat By-Products" are in the first five on the ingredients list for all the flavors. The Beef is obviously cardiac muscle, etc. "By-Products" are typically; heart, liver, brain/spinal cord, connective tissues, etc. which are tissues made up of cells that are longest lived in an animal and tend to bio-accumulate toxins. In the wild these "by-products" might be just fine, but since the source of modern meats is high density farm raised animals, with known issues with infections, etc, it is a little unnerving, for us. Additionally, as we have all seen, pet foods are not regulated/monitored as closely as we might all hope.
Tanj and Uschi just flew by yelling and chirping. So much more Energy,... EEEEKKKK!
Any insights?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
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6 comments:
Fancy Feast is usually called "kitty crack" because it is so tasty. There are so many kinds so if you can get some of the ones without all of the bi-products yeah! For me..eh, but I'm really picky. I only like my Merrick. But I've actually branched out from poultry into beef and even the surf and turf!
Kaze
Personal opinion? Grocery store food to me is like cat junk food (filled with ash and lesser quality ingredients)... Not as nutritionally beneficial, but way more fun to eat :)
Kinda like me - if given the choice, I'd rather eat McDonald's or pizza every day too, but I know having a more balanced, healthy meal is better for me. It's just also boring :p
At the same time though - the grocery store food IS approved cat food, so it's not like it's unsafe to feed it to them if you so choose.
My childhood cat lived off ONE kind of Fancy Feast (turkey in gravy) and she lived to be 12 years old (died of cancer, unrelated to food!). However, she was very, very overweight... Could be food related, could have nothing to do with it... who knows...
My previous cat wasn't overweight and I fed him vet recommeded Iams. The current kitty (Dax) is eating Eukanuba (dry food) and he's also not overweight...
according to my vet: Cats are designed to eat "by-products", especially "wild cats". The only parts left behind are the intestines. Humans have attached the negative association to "by-products", not the nutritional content. Hopefully this whole thing will make people wake up a bit about meat and how good "parts" are for animals rather than wheat, soy, rice, corn and such.....
If we fed that stuff to Thelonius and Dharma all the time, they'd be little waddling pigs. It's good to mix it up a bit. But you have to be stronger than the screaming cats to do that. ;o)
I have been following the food scare story with you - I don't think its had much airplay here in Australia. I feed my two boys a rotation of premium vet food, grocery store food, and "real" chopped up cooked chicken breast and lamb cutlets. I also buy kangaroo mince for them - that is their favourite - have you tried that? It has to be very fresh though, or its a bit yukky.
Also, I love reading about your boys - Its the last thing I do every night before I go home from work. They are beautiful and you have inspired me to teach my boys how to walk on a lead. We live in the city, so we go for a walk to the park. Everyone thinks we are crazy, but they love it.
Thanks for your news every day - and give the boys a pat from their Aussie fans Chairman Meow and Copernicus the Korat kittens.
I agree with what Tory said about grocery store food being kitty junk food. Sam, our Bengal boy (http://www.myspace.com/s_a_m_s_m_o_m), responds to Fancy Feast exactly like Tanji & Uschi do. We had him alternating between Trader Joe's salmon wet food and their kitty tuna but we switched to Tiki Cat human grade "Premium Wild Caught Seafood" from Petropics (http://petropics.com) a couple of months ago in hopes that feeding him a little better quality product would help to improve the silkiness of his coat. Tiki Cat is only available at specialty pet supply stores and on two or three occasions we discovered we were out of it after our locally owned neighborhood pet supply store closed for the day so we ran to the grocery and got some Fancy Feast. Sam likes his Tiki Cat food but he's kind of lazy about cleaning the last little bits out of his dish. (And of the nine varities there are a couple where he seems to leave a little more behind than the others.) But if we give him Fancy Feast we're guaranteed that Sam will lick his little dish shiny clean! I know that I feel the same way when I eat baked goods with hydrogenated oils as opposed to those without them. ;-)
Karen
>^..^<
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