Going to ignore the Fancy Feast ingredients up above, yikes.
I’m ready to do wet food with mine as well (we’re already limited ingredient grain free in this house), but then what DO you do for a cats teeth besides yearly dentals? Mine does miserably under anesthesia but as a cream tabby, he’s already got gingivitis starting at 5. Do you brush your cats teeth, how often? ANYTHING out there that is proven to aid in dental care?
I would think, by the fact the OP is even asking this question, or by the fact she’s NOT feeding Cat Chow, that she (he?) doesn’t believe this. At all.
Cats are obligate carnivores. Cats have a piss poor thirst instinct. A cat fed Cat Chow will likely develop kidney disease, diabetes or other issues due to being fed a diet that NOT APPROPRIATE for their species and die an early death.
Would you feed your horse beef jerky because it was more convenient for you? No?
I think you’re posting this just to be inflammatory. If that’s the case, perhaps you should bow out. If that’s not the case, why don’t you do some reading? www.catinfo.org
My meows have fabulous mouths on wet–I really think it’s the carbs in the dry food that causes issues, but I don’t really have anything to back that up, other than my own observations 
You can always feed bones to the kitties if you’re worried, though. Chicken wings! Chunks of muscle meat will also clean the teeth far better than dry food ever would.
[QUOTE=Trakehner;6093143]
Get her a bag of Purina cat chow.
Just keep it simple and don’t worry about spending a fortune on “All Natural, Organic etc.” crap being sold.[/QUOTE]
Purina Cat Chow = diarrhea for this particular cat. BTDT, it made for a very unpleasant few weeks for everyone. You are quite right; she won’t starve to death on her current kibble, even if she finds it less than appetizing at times, and she’s not yet had any sort of health issues related to dehydration. But she does have a heart murmur and what the vet thinks is scar tissue in her upper respiratory tract, and she’s almost always got mild wheezing.
And the “‘All Natural, Organic etc.’ crap being sold” made a huge difference for my hound mix, whose food allergies (lamb and chicken were the two we managed to isolate through food trials) manifest as severe ear infections. A high-quality, limited-ingredient diet sans corn, byproducts and other extraneous ingredients works for him and keeps us out of the vet’s office. Considering we spent almost $3,000 trying to get a four-month-long ear infection to resolve, $30/month for a food that doesn’t render his ears a stinking, oozing, itchy mess is economical for us and, I’d imagine, preferable for him, as he is not overly fond of the vet’s office.
There are worse things to “waste” one’s money on. 
[QUOTE=Simkie;6093157]
I would think, by the fact the OP is even asking this question, or by the fact she’s NOT feeding Cat Chow, that she (he?) doesn’t believe this. A cat fed Cat Chow will likely develop kidney disease, diabetes or other issues due to being fed a diet that NOT APPROPRIATE for their species and die an early death. Would you feed your horse beef jerky because it was more convenient for you? No?[/QUOTE]
Man…you drink the Kool-Aid from the expensive feed companies? Is Parelli your god too! Where did you get the idea that Cat Chow is not a diet appropriate for cats and that it’ll kill them young? Cats thrive on the stuff, mine always have.
Feeding a horse jerky? WTF are you thinking using that for an argument? Cat Chow is for cats…it’s cat food, made for cats etc…amazing logic leap.
There’s more than one way to feed your cat and train a horse.
I suppose you eat a steady diet of Snickers and Coke? If not, why? After all, it’s made for people. There are people who eat like that their whole lives and die at an old age.
You can always feed bones to the kitties if you’re worried, though. Chicken wings! Chunks of muscle meat will also clean the teeth far better than dry food ever would.
-x-
I will try that…he’s going under for his first cleaning this year but he’s had a few surgeries in the past and tanked every single time so I am EXTREMELY hesitant. However, his teeth really are bad enough that its a severe health issue; I wouldn’t risk it if it wasn’t. I’d just love to prevent doing it from here on out as much as possible.
Purina Cat Chow is as much a complete diet for a cat as peanut butter and jelly is for a human. I personally am MUCH quicker to feed quality food to my pets than I am to myself. They dont HAVE a choice in what they eat; its my job to provide them with the building blocks they need. When they grow thumbs and start asking for Kibbles and Bits they can have it, until then I’m going to diligently feed them quality food
OMG, looks like someone has officially won the “Ignorant Redneck Post of the Year” award!
Bits of highly processed, dried up, dehydrated filler is what’s best for your obligate carnivores, yes… sure. Of course.
The rolleyes icon is simply not good enough. There is no face-palm or head-desk icon, unfortunately.
Carry on.
Will he let you scale his teeth while he’s awake? I admit, I’ve never tried on a cat, but my dogs have always let me handle their mouths. Haven’t had to do a dental or scale since we switched to ultra-premiums, but I’d knock the crap off of my dog’s teeth when I was a teenager.
If he’s just got a genetic tendency toward a crappy mouth, it might be worth teaching him to be restrained for a drugless scaling? For me, anyway, it would be much less of a pain in the ass to restrain (with help?) every 6 months to a year and scrap than to brush several times a week.
[QUOTE=Simkie;6092093]
Man, where are you shopping?! I feed my four BG and it’s $1 per day per cat.[/QUOTE]
The only store in my area that carries Before Grain is Petco, and it’s around $1.50 for a 5.5-oz can. Since most BG varieties only have 135-150 calories and all of may cats are big, with an ideal weight of 10 lbs or more, in order to meet minimum caloric needs, I would have to feed at least 4 cans a day between mt three…probably more because my diabetic needs weight and gets closer to 400 calories a day. That’s simply too expensive when I’ve been unemployed for six months and have $50 for groceries in a good week, for me and the cats and dog. Not everyone can afford premium foods. 24 cans of FF is $12 at Target, and I also use PetSmart’s store brand which again, not premium by any means, but nutritionally complete and grain free and $.78 for a 13 oz can. You do the best you can with what you have.
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