Pet Nutrition

Discussion in 'Pets & Critters' started by Ken Anderson, Oct 22, 2015.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Broken off from another thread, this is a discussion about pet nutrition.

    Mostly Blue Buffalo products. I used to work for them, and trust their ingredients. I feed a wide variety of canned foods though since my cats insist on diversity in wet food. When they were younger, I fed them wet food more as a treat than as a regular staple but a common problem among older cats is not getting enough hydration so I use the canned food to make sure that they get enough liquid. Plus, at 25, I'm not so concerned about spoiling them. Although I think that Blue Buffalo has some stuff to commend it (their kibble is all Blue Buffalo), the important thing is to remember that cats were made to eat meat, so you want to make sure that the primary ingredients are meat, fish, or fowl. Given the radioactive waste in the oceans these days, I am a little concerned about fish so, while I do give them some, I don't include as much fish as I used to. Another important thing is that cats don't digest corn, soy or wheat very well. They weren't made to, as evidenced by the fact that no one worries about a cat in their cornfield since it's surely not eating the corn. A fairly high percentage of cats have allergies to corn, soy or wheat, which is what brought us to Blue Buffalo, to begin with. Then there are by-products. While it is true that, in the wild, cats will certainly eat by-products along with regular foods, in the pet food industry, when you see by-products on the label, that generally mean that there is nothing there but by-products, as far as meat is concerned. So, I don't buy anything that includes by-products in the label. I also look for ingredients that are recognizably foods, or vitamins, or something else that has a legitimate purpose in a diet. I also stay away from gluten.

    Ingredient lists are listed in order, from the ingredient most used to the least, and something like eighty or ninety percent of what is in a pet food is found in the first four listed ingredients, so I don't concern myself with other things that cats don't regularly eat, such as rice, peas or carrots. Even in the wild, a small percentage of the cat's diet consists of vegetable matter, even if it's present in the digestive tract of its prey, so these things might provide nutrients that are helpful.

    While my cats will usually leave behind pieces of carrot or peas that they find in a can of cat food, I'm sure they are eating some of the smaller pieces. Interestingly, my cats will most often turn down cat foods that are 100% meat, fowl or fish. Such foods are available, and I see no reason to believe that they wouldn't be healthy for a cat, but mine don't prefer them. There are plenty of brands that provide good ingredients in a cat food, and Blue Buffalo is by no means the most expensive of them. For that matter, the Tractor Supply stores carry their own brand of premium foods (4health) that is cheaper than many junk brands, yet has perfectly good ingredients. Their 4health brand has both kibble and wet food products, and I include it in the rotation of wet foods that I offer them. My cats like the 4health wet food well enough, although if that was all that I offered them, they'd quit liking it soon enough. The 4health kibble looks perfectly good too but I have done so well with Blue Buffalo, that I am afraid to make a change there. They don't seem to want a variety of kibble types so they eat Blue Buffalo kibble all the time. As for price, while I pay more than $2 a can for Blue Buffalo, the 4health products are 49 cents at the store, a little more online.

    As for the affordability of premium versus store-brand foods, while premium foods are (with the exception of 4health) far more expensive than store brands, per pound, the actual cost will not be as high. When a cat food contains primarily corn, as is the case with store brands, as well as Science Diet, for that matter, cats have to eat more in order to obtain the nutrition they require. Some of this excess is stored as fat, while the bulk of it ends up in the litter box.

    What most people find is what I found when I switched from Science Diet to premium foods, which is that the cat will initially eat as much of the food that it was in the habit of eating but, within a month or so, they will begin eating less. Some people will mistakenly believe that this means that they don't like the premium food since they are leaving some of it behind when the truth is that they simply don't need to eat so much of it. Within a couple of months, while I was paying far more per pound for cat food, it was lasting a lot longer, and there was noticeably less of a mess in the litter box. While this usually occurs with dogs as well, dogs are more likely than cats to eat however much is offered them, while cats are not afraid to walk away from a bowl when they've had enough. Your cat may differ.

    So while the initial expense is high, there is a saving on the amount of food that they eat, as well as a reduction in the amount of kitty litter that is required. It doesn't stink quite as much, either. The cat is absorbing a larger portion of the food as nutrients than with the store brand food, which is largely not digestible by the cat.

    The big savings come in veterinary bills, and in not having to buy poisons to combat fleas. Although my older cats have had a few veterinary visits in recent years due to medical issues, particularly Lydia, remember that they are very old, for cats, yet most of their veterinary bills have been for injuries sustained during fights. Even Cutie who, at twenty-five, still thinks she can kick anyone's butt.

    In the long run, I think it's cheaper to feed premium foods. Over the life of the pet, you'll be paying more but only because the life of the pet will be longer.

    After posting this, I will be moving it to another thread, since this one is about Roundup.
     
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  2. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    Thanks, @Ken Anderson I'm going to look into that 4Health and see if I can find it around here. If not, maybe I can get it online, although then there's shipping to contend with. The small feed type store near me probably doesn't carry that, but I'll see, just in case.
     
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  3. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    You can find it here, as they do have online shopping but if you have a Tractor Supply Company store nearby, it's usually cheaper in the store.
     
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  4. Bobby Gnomy

    Bobby Gnomy Veteran Member
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    I don't have cats now, but I do have two dogs. When I had my two poodles I fed them Blue Buffalo and they thrived on it. Now I feed it to my two Chihuahuas, and in my opinion the brand is one of the best on the market. Yes, it is a bit pricey, but certainly worth it. I get mine delivered from Chewy.com and it arrives very quickly.
     
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  5. Jenn Windey

    Jenn Windey Supreme Member
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    I wil have to look into that feed line, I am actually very particular what I feed all of my pets. I had a Springer Spaniel that was named Fred and I am certain that the food that I was feeding him killed not only him but my cat Smokey as well. This was back some years ago and I had received this pet food from a company called Diamond I think, and it turned out, as I found out much later, that the product had an issue with something in one of the ingredients that was killing pets a crossed the country. Something with the one of the ingredients being something other then what they said it was? i was absolutely heart broken, my dog went from healthy to dead in days it was terrible.

    When I got our dog that we have now, I also got a veterinarian book (made years ago) that gave directions on making your own dog food. My dog eats very well, a good varied diet and she is quite healthy. Occasionally I will give her canned food and I spend hours reading the labels because I want to be sure what she is eating. There are so many pet foods that are suppose to be good that I am never really sure which one will be the right one. Even the top names like Iams seem to get recalled.
     
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  6. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Most of the pet food companies have had a recall at one point or another, but many of them are voluntary recalls, after the company itself found that there was an unintentional problem with one of its products. Both Iams and Science Diet have somehow managed to gain a good reputation among pet owners yet, if you look at the ingredients in their products, you can see that you can do a lot better than that for the price. They have been forced to do better over the past couple of years, as pet owners have become more conscious of ingredients, but still you can do better than either these brands for the price, or even lower. Science Diet has a good reputation because so many veterinary offices sell it, and because they spend a great deal of money funding veterinary schools, scholarships. and published material, and the veterinarians get a tempting markup for offering it for sale at veterinary offices. Knowing that this is viewed as a recommendation by so many people, the company supplies it to veterinary offices and animal hospitals at a lower wholesale price than offered to pet stores.
     
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  7. Jenn Windey

    Jenn Windey Supreme Member
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    When I got the veterinarian book it was because I wondered what people fed their dogs before there was canned dog food. I also wanted to know how they treated certain ailments. A natural diet for a pet is not hard to do, it is really not all that expensive either, it boils more down to the amount of time it would take to prepare the food. This is where I fall short because I do not always have the luxury of a lot of additional time.

    For the turtle and the rabbit I am forced to take the time to get them more organic type food stuffs, in that respect the dog lucks out and as strange as it seems she often will beg for some of the vegetable matter. I had always thought dogs were carnivorous, but mine, she like a salad, no doubt to keep that girlish figure. She seems to love carrots and oranges, the later of which seems odd to me. I don't think wild dogs found many oranges.
     
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  8. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Oh, I think that feeding natural food probably serves a far healthier diet than you'd get from commercial foods, but it takes a lot more work and, particularly in the case of a cat, much of it is disgusting. When I was in class learning to work for Blue Buffalo, one of the veterinarians teaching the cat portion pointed out that the natural foods for a cat included freshly killed rodents and birds, which is not what most pet owners want to watch their little darlings eat, nor would a pet food that advertised dead rodents as an ingredient become a big seller.
     
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  9. Corie Henson

    Corie Henson Veteran Member
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    The veterans in taking care of dogs advised us to give our pets carrots once in a while. When we tried boiled carrots, our pets wouldn't eat. And even with the dog food, they seem to have no appetite, taking them more than 15 minutes of cajoling and convincing before they finish the dog food. That was then but now we are feeding our 3 dogs with cooked food that we buy from the market. One vet said it may be better because there were "recalls" by dog food makers about salmonella. At least, cooked food is safe and also delicious for our dogs.

    Boiled chicken wings, fried drumstick, fried fish filet, boiled fish filet, broiled fish, roasted pork, boiled pork belly, boiled beef. That is the usual menu of our dogs - no seasoning, no spices. Just plain meat or fish.
     
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  10. Bobby Gnomy

    Bobby Gnomy Veteran Member
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    Try raw carrot pieces. My dogs love them, and they are nutritionally good for eyes. Because my dogs are small, under 10 pounds, I cut up about a 1/2 inch size, and chop it into their treat for the day -- which is a little bit of their Blue Buffalo Lamb and Oatmeal for Puppies dog chow. I was giving them a small amount of sugar snap peas as a treat, but stopped doing that because it gave them loose stools.

    I know many people have dogs that won't eat dog chow from the pet food company brands. Trial and error gets expensive and is frustrating. I know I've been fortunate because any dog I had ate whatever I offered. I can just imagine how hard it is to have a pet that refuses to eat. My pets always inhaled what I gave them and it was gone in a New York minute.

    Speaking about dogs that eat too fast, a trick I learned about is to put a tennis ball in the middle of the bowl as an obstruction, so they have to work their way around the food. Another thing that works well, is to spread the food along the floor, so the dog has to "hunt" for the food, as it's not all in one place.
     
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  11. Corie Henson

    Corie Henson Veteran Member
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    @Toby Lee Spiegel, our dogs seem to be smarter than us, hahaahaaa. Our male pug named Pipoy is hyperactive that he eats like a broom - sweeping the food inside his mouth. It appears that Pipoy is not chewing his food. On the contrary, our female pekingese named Barbie is so dainty that she takes time to eat especially during breakfast. She would be waiting to be hand-fed.

    As with extra-ordinary food like carrots, no way. We had already tried boiled carrot and squash but they would only take a bite or two. So what we do now is to mix the squash with the food. But the squash only and not the carrot.
     
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  12. Bobby Gnomy

    Bobby Gnomy Veteran Member
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    That's funny about Pipoy sweeping his food into his mouth. We need a video of that! Coco eats his food so fast he's grabbing pieces out of the bowl before I place it on the floor, and the Chico takes his time. I tried the tennis ball trick with Coco the inhaler, but he was smarter than that and the ball literally did no good whatsoever to cut down on his inhaling! I know he doesn't chew the food, because he eats so fast.

    Coco is very polite though. After he's finished eating he goes over Chico and watches him eat, not interfering, and after Chico walks away, he'll start licking the bowl. I place a few drops of Dermaquin Plus Omega-3 Fish Oil Supplement in the bottom of their bowl, before adding the kibble in their morning feed.

    Regarding carrots, if the pieces are raw they love crunching them.
     
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  13. Lara Moss

    Lara Moss Supreme Member
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    Tip toe...tippy tippy toe…just delivering some little leftover treats from our halloween party night for you animal lovers. Enjoy.

    Just in case you're wondering,they're cupcakes decorated with a Nutter Butter cookie, vanilla wafer, M&M, and frosting.

    images-16.jpeg
     
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  14. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    @Toby Lee Spiegel I've never heard of Chewy.com before, I'll have to see how their prices are, and see what brands/products they stock.

    I'm definitely looking to try something else with regard to pet food. I spent quite a while comparing ingredients at the store the other day, and wasn't happy with anything I saw, even the more expensive brands.

    I used to buy the Friskie's canned food in the Senior variety, but that doesn't seem to be available anymore. It was supposed to be lower in ash, and my cats seemed to tolerate it better than the regular type. Since I'm switching anyway, maybe I can find something that's better overall, but price is a major consideration on my budget.
     
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  15. Bobby Gnomy

    Bobby Gnomy Veteran Member
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    Because I don't drive, I have to depend on shipping for my dog food. I buy a 15 pound bag of kibble, and it lasts for about eight weeks with the small dogs. I tried other companies for delivery, but their shipping prices were too high. From what I found, Chewy.com has the cheapest prices. Plus they ship right away, and it doesn't take forever to arrive. If you need help, their customer service is very good. You can talk to someone 24/7 at: 1-800-67-CHEWY

    I haven't had cats for a long time, so I'm not familiar with cat food, but I know Blue Buffalo also sells canned and dry food for felines. As Ken said "In the long run, I think it's cheaper to feed premium foods".
     
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