Fish or meat.....does it matter?

[filardimarg-9]

Bella prefers fish to meat, she will eat chicken but really not keen on beef, I feed her Felix AGAIL, she loves the fishy ones, does this matter, should I give her the meat/beef ones, does she get different vitamins from the beef or can I just feed her the fish & chicken?
I am still thinking of raw feeding for her, but the packs you can buy are 500g much to big for one small cat, so still thinking on that.

Marg.

[Janey]

My cat prefers fish flavour foods too. She will eat some others but tends to like fish best. Whereas my sister’s cat prefers meat to fish. One of my ferals prefers anything with beef in. So I suppose it’s just like us preferring certain foods. I’ve never found there’s been a problem though

[Ruth B]

With something like Felix AGAIL it doesn't really matter which flavours they get, all of them are formulated so the cat gets everything it needs. Some of mine have prefered the fish, at the moment it seems that the meat flavours are in preference, and one of mine still seems to react a little to the fish flavours and they can make him rather loose in the litter tray, I think it might be that they seem so oily.

Raw feeding is rather more tricky as it is up to you to make sure the cat get the variety they need to make sure that all essential vitamins, minerals etc are included.

[Kay]

you'll find if you check out the ingredients that the meat flavours of Felix contain fish anyway, so I doubt it makes much difference

[PumpkinsMum]

Cats are carnivores, but I don't think the type of meat matters. My cat is definitely a chicken cat, but that's mostly because I hate fish and so I rarely if ever buy anything fishy haha. Are you partial to fish? Maybe that has something to do with it. Just a thought Either way, I think you are fine!

[alanc]

As long as it is a complete cat food (as Felix AGAIL is) you should have no problem whatever flavor you feed Bella. Miss Tilly would disagree with this and insists that I supply her with fish or chicken flavor (unless there happens to be some duck around) and the more expensive it is the better!

[filardimarg-9]

Thanks for the replies & help.

Marg.

[bobbys girl]

My little darlings love chicken and beef flavours but dislike duck and lamb and positively HATE tuna and salmon and refuse to eat it! All of this is limiting - most mixes have one or more of the things they hate.

They do all love James Wellbeloved dry food, which is a complete food so I don't worry too much.

BTW their all time favourite Sheba beef 'trays' has been discontinued - typical

[AndyMac]

My puss seems to prefer meat to fish but she has gotten so fussy the past few days I have more food in the house that she wont eat than what she will. She does seem to like Tesco Finest Tuna/Sardines tho but mostly meat flavoured wet food except chicken or duck !!

[Ruth B]

Its odd, Beef is the one I have the most problem getting mine to eat, they will occasionally. My Mum's cat is even worse, she loves the Gourmet Pates, but not the beef flavour. Unfortunately living in a small town, it is cheaper for my Mother to buy the multipack of Gourmet pate and throw the beef away than it is to buy the other flavours individually. The number of times i come back from visiting with a carrier full of tins of beef pate to give to the local charity, who fortunately are grateful for any food regardless of whether it just beef flavour.

[Lilith]

They are awkward little gits, aren't they?

Top favourite in this house is a tin of tuna as a treat - in spring water, never oil. They won't look at the oily stuff.

My youngest cat Molly adores a strip of raw beef if I'm mincing meat for a shepherd's pie. Fun for her and I expect it does her teeth good too. A while ago I tried venison for the first time and offered her a bit ... ugh, she said. I'm afraid I washed it and stuck it in with the rest of the stew. But fish from our very good local chippie ... she'd kill me for it!

Fortunately they'll all eat the usual stuff - Felix, Butchers, Purina ... with Mouse being poorly, the posh stuff like pates and Encore has crept on to the menu too. My older ones, Mousey and Emily, are ex-feral, and took to conventional wet and dried cat foods straight away when they adopted me ('We're Real cats now and we only eat Real cat food'.) They wouldn't look at delicacies like cold chicken or nice crunchy skin off a roasted chicken, or even bacon, though a little ham might meet with approval. They'd bring me presents - there was nearly always a flat rat in the gutter (due to tyres of parking cars) and once they brought me a cooked chicken joint with only a tiny bite out of it.

My old tomcat Finn (also ex-feral) would eat chicken though. Freshly grilled fillet. 'Let's share,' he'd say. 'You have the chips, I'll have the chicken!'

[Ruth B]

Chicken is a firm favourite in our house, both for me and the cats.

I was trying to get one ready for roasting yesterday and Saturn was trying to climb the kitchen draws so he could hook a claw in and pull it onto the floor. I also have learnt to stand sideways while washing my hands otherwise my back would be turned and I know he would jump on the side given half a chance, I've caught him a time or two.

One summer's evening quite a few years ago, when Tiggy was a lot younger, she arrived home and was meowing constantly with a slightly odd tone to it. When I checked she had a part cooked chicken drumstick she had brought in, I think she was trying to tell me i need to finish cooking it for her, she was never one for raw food. I always wonder if it was one that someone hadn't cooked properly and thrown into the undergrowth or whether she had pinched of someone's bbq.

[filardimarg-9]

I haven't found Bella to be fussy as yet, I had a German Shepherd for just over 12 years & oh boy was she fussy, so Bella has a long way to go to catch her. I have only found the beef that Bella isn't keen on though she will eat it over time.

Someone told me to feed dry food for long furred cats as it helps for fur balls.........not sure how that would actually work..........but have any of you heard of that & do you feed it if you have long furred cats? At the moment she has Burns for adult cats that I bought from RSPCA when I got Bella is this ok to feed her, I don't think she has had a very good life before I had her, she still seems skittish, some days seems scared of my hand being close to her, other days is fine with it, but is starting to come out of the bedroom more.

It is a very long time since I had a cat, I have had dogs for over 35 years, so a lot of this is all new to me........I want to do my best for her, so sorry if anyone thinks the questions I ask are a bit stupid.

Marg.

[Kay]

Its odd, Beef is the one I have the most problem getting mine to eat, they will occasionally. My Mum's cat is even worse, she loves the Gourmet Pates, but not the beef flavour. Unfortunately living in a small town, it is cheaper for my Mother to buy the multipack of Gourmet pate and throw the beef away than it is to buy the other flavours individually. The number of times i come back from visiting with a carrier full of tins of beef pate to give to the local charity, who fortunately are grateful for any food regardless of whether it just beef flavour.

have you checked out Zooplus for Gourmet pate, Ruth? there are more separate varieties sold there than in the supermarkets, and cheaper if bought in bulk too

my two are Gourmet pate fans too, and in any case leave the lumps in stuff like Felix - and I have now started giving pate to the two strays I feed regularly, as although not cheap, and in 85gms tins rather than the 100gms pouches, without jelly or gravy I think they may be more filling

[Lilith]

No question is ever stupid!

No longhairs in this house except me lol - but I do feed Mouse the Whiskas furball treats (furball treats are simply a mild laxative) as she's liable to be constipated, as well as adding a pinch of soaked psyllium seeds to her evening meal, along with fishy-smelly green-lipped mussel powder (good for the elderly arthritic cat as it's a source of chondroitin) - you might think this sounds disgusting, and it is, but she laps it up.

A good laxative dried food is the Royal Canin Fibre Response, but this is pricey and if they get tired of it (which Mouse has) ... uh oh ...

I've also heard that it's better to feed wet food for a constipated cat (and possibly for a furball-troubled cat too?) but I reckon a mix, a little of what they fancy does them good?

And grooming of course; I'm so glad Bella is coming round a bit; my Emily (avatar cat) was wild for the first year of her life; now she goes into ecstasies over 'brushy-brushy' (oh dear, what am I saying - I hate baby-talk!)

Good luck with the lass, and any questions, please ask away

[Kay]

there's quite a few pastes on the market for hairballs and constipation - Katalax is the most well known, but there are cheaper ones around

and most cats love them

[bobbys girl]

Lilith - brushy - brushy is nothing, when Bob comes in soaking wet he heads straight for his mummy who he knows will towel him dry. We call it wipey, wipey . I have to hold him, because only having three legs it gets a bit difficult when I try to clean his feet.

As for raw food, I made steak and kidney pie tonight. The butchers cut the meat for me but some of these it is a bit big. I sorted through it and left it in a bowl while I went to get a cabbage from the garden. You guessed it, when I got back (all of two minutes) Purdy was up to her elbows in the bowl!

[filardimarg-9]

Thank you everyone for your help, I just thought you might think I was a bit daft asking, (what must seem to you all), simple questions, but to me, not knowing because of not owning a cat for so many years, might harm Bella. The shelves in the supermarket are like the chocolate isle to me, I want to buy it all to give Bella the best of everything, I have tried a few other foods but she does seem to enjoy the Felix best.
When I asked about the dry food for long furred cats it wasn't because she is constipated, it was because the man in a shop told me I should feed it to stop furballs.......what do you think?

Marg.

[alanc]

Marg
I have not found dry food to be any use in stopping furballs in Tilly (nor in Badger, and he ate very little other than dry food). I use Lax a past and Whiskas hairball treats and a lot of grooming on Tilly. Usually works, but not always.
As others have said, ask us any cat care question you like, we will try and help if we know the answer. Far better to ask than get it wrong. At one time, we were all in the same situation. When I acquired my first cat Sally, I was totally ignorant of cat care = I learnt a lot by asking lots of daft questions of the local mad cat lady.

[Ruth B]

i have to admit that we tried hairball control dried food and found it no better than normal dried food. In the end they get offered both and eat what they choose. The best hairball control is regular grooming, doesn't matter if they are long or short haired, they all molt and anything that comes out on the brush is something they aren't ingesting.

As for stupid questions, i was always told it is better to think you might look stupid for a moment, than to appear ignorant all your life. Ideas also change and just because something was always done a specific way when you were younger doesn't mean that is was right and that we don't know better now. When I start to learn horse riding when I was in my teens, one thing my instructor made clear was that after a few lessons you start to think you know it all, then after a few more you realise how little you know and that is when you really start learning and accept that you will never stop learning either. Times change and ideas change and it is always worth asking questions.

[Lilith]

Ah sorry Marg, that was me, bringing up the subject of constipation (urrgh that sounds slightly disgusting!) because so many products aimed at furball problems are mildly laxative in order to aid the furball to pass through the cat, and so they help the constipated cat too. In fact, as Kay says there are many products designed with both furball and constipation in mind - along with the Katalax there's a tuna-flavoured one by Tomlyns; Mousey licks that off my fingers.

Many shorthaired cats suffer from furballs too; once I sat down on a ginger 'sausage' in Emily's favourite chair

Errm edit I mean, it came out of the front end of the Emily and must have taken her by surprise because otherwise she'd have got down from the chair and left it carefully on the newest rug ...

Lol Bobbys girl, she would, wouldn't she? The minute your back's turned ...

Marg you must think we're all totally crazy ... well, all the best people are

[don1976]

We've only had our Minnie for a month or so, adopted from a local shleter. I'm told at the shelter she used to eat whatever she was given/whatever was donated. When we got her, we started her on felix AGAIL, and she would hardly touch it. We went through a number of different types of food until we landed at the Gourmet pates.
Chicken & Tuna seem to be her favourite flavours, but she's even to happy to eat other 'peculiar' flavours like lamb & spinach or trout & tomato.

We tried a few dried foods and the only one she seemed to like was Perfect fit Salmon flavour. Perfect fit also to 'trial' sizes so we since got her some turkey flavour and chicken flavour and she's happy to eat these as well.

The first couple of days of ownership she got us quite stressed with her lack of eating (in hindsight, probably anxiety, just settling in), but now we're over the moon that we've got a good few things that she's happy to eat.

Treat-wise, she'll eat anything meat based. Ham, chicken, fish. She's quite partial to a lump of the chicken stock jelly after chilling the stock after a roast chicken.

I think her favourite though is hamster at least that's what you'd think, the way she stares at the hamster cage, stalking the poor little fella.

[booktigger]

She's got you sussed, preferring gourmet pates!

[filardimarg-9]

Lilith......I don't think you are all mad, in fact I love this forum, so nice to have a friendly place to ask questions, oh & with some humour.

I think I have found a lovely little cat, she will eat 99% of food I give her, she is gentle, likes to be groomed.........I would just like her to come down stairs & not live in the bedroom.......I did have a couple of days of sulking after I took her back RSPCA, so I suppose I will get the same treatment next week when she goes back there for her teeth, she started running away when I walked towards her, but she got over it.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Marg.

[Rubirabbit]

Dimitri has tried Bozita chicken, duck, minced beef and tuna flavours with Thrive biscuits and didn't seem to prefer one over the other. He is currently munching his way through Purizon biscuits, Thrive and Cosma Nature wet foods ( both are multi packs of different flavours ). He's not a fussy eater, quite the opposite, although he's not overly keen on Miaowing Heads wet food. I bought a multi pack and have to mix it with other foods to get him to eat it.

I have noticed that he still has bad breath even though he's recently had a dental, which included a scale and polish and two teeth removed. I thought it must be down to the high meat content of the above mentioned foods.