Product range | NutriCat

Noticed Tesco have started selling this food, just wondered how good it is?

Just looked at the Chicken Indoor food ingredients, what is chicken meal?

Ingredients
Composition: Chicken (28%), Chicken Meat Meal (24%), Maize, Oatfeed, Rice, Maize Gluten Meal, Cellulose, Sugar Beet Pulp, Turkey Meal, Digest, Linseed, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Rosemary, L-carnitine (0.01%).

__________________

Chicken meat meal is basically dried ground chicken, in dry food it will give a better guide to the percentage of meat contained than fresh chicken whose percentage will be stated in its natural form (i.e probably 6 or 7 times greater than it's DMA).

As for is it any good? Well I haven't had a detailed look at the analysis, the ingredients are slightly better than your usual supermarket brands but that's not saying much and it still potentially contains a lot of cereals and carbs. I also suspect without checking that it works out no cheaper than the far superior dry foods such as Orijen, Applaws, Acana, Taste of the Wild.

Hi,

We just bought the kitten food for our 15 week year old.

She was on Purina Kitten food but this was slightly more expensive and looked a bit more premium so we thought we would try it.

I dont think she is a fan though.... not sure why but she is defintiely eating less often almost as if she is waiting until she is starving before she will eat.

Can you recommend any reasonably priced good quality food for kittens?

Thanks

Vicky

Hi Vicky and welcome to the forums

Many members here will recommend you try and feed wet over dry as it is far superior in terms of nutrition.

Check out this guide as it is brilliant and will give you all the information you need

A-Z of wet food for cats

In terms of good wet foods readily available to buy in the UK I would recommend Hi-life or Natures menu which you can buy at P@H. There is no need to buy the kitten version of these high quality foods, the adult version is practically identical in composition, just a bit cheaper There are high meat content and much better than things like Whiskers or Felix which contain VERY little actual meat.

If you shop online, check out zoo plus and I would recommend Grau or Animoda Carny. They do free shipping on orders over £20 (I think its £20) and with the online prices it works out the same as feeding them cheap foods from over here, so well worth doing!!

If you are still interested in feeding dry foods, then check out the dry feeding guide. Applaws I believe is a good dry food, as it is grain free I am not so experienced with dry food as my kitten refuses to eat the stuff.

Good luck!

x

Hi

Thanks for your help!!

We did used to feed her wet food albeit felix kitten which I know is not very good quality but we naively just followed the food that was given to her at cats protection.

I was happy to move to a higher quality wet food but have been given advice by vets and other owners that wet food can be really bad for their teeth? Is this true?

This was why we are only feeding her dry food but would like to ensure we are feeding a good quality.

Thanks for your A-Z lists, I am still struggling to know what to look out for, is higher meat content better than lower? What about grain is it better to not have any? As humans we have grain and meats in our diets but what do cats/kittens need?

Thanks for your help - just want to do the best thing for Lola!

Hi,

To quickly answer your questions:
-no wet food isn't bad for teeth
-generally a higher meat content is desirable and a sign of a quality food
-cats have little/no requirements for carbohydrates which grains are abundant in, furthermore they are a common source of intolerances or allergies so ideally foods should contain none. Certain grains are worse than others.

If you have a read through the relevant sections in the below link it should help explain further:

Feline Nutrition

If you are thinking of changing foods, please do so slowly gradually introducing the new food so as not to cause upset tummies.

Neither normal wet nor dry food has any dental benefit to their teeth. That doesn't mean they're BAD for their teeth, it just doesn't clean them.

To aid cleaning your cat's teeth, invest in a pet toothbrush/toothpaste, occasionally feed them special dry kibble designed for teeth cleaning, and/or occasionally feed them chunks of raw meat.

__________________
My lifelong ambition is to be a crazy cat lady. The only obstacle is my OH.

Who will go and who gets to stay? Stay tuned...

Vets will always tell you that wet food is bad for their teeth, and dry food is good or better for their teeth. Well, to put this in perspective, this is way down at the bottom of the scale. We are talking 1 out of 10 for wet food, and 2 out of 10 for dry. So in fact, neither are particularly good for dental health.

Start thinking of your cat as a top predator and carnivore. All of her physical features indicate this. The fact that she is tame means that she is a wonderul pet and companion. But that doesn't change her physical make-up.

There is no place for grains, rice, corn gluten meal, barley, beet pulp, etc in a cat's diet - as others have said these ingredients can lead to food intolerance and a host of serious health problems in the long term.

Try grain-free wet food with a high meat content. Cats have a low thirst drive and take in most of the water they need via their food. For dental health feed regular chunks of raw meat or raw chicken wings.

And don't expect your vet to be up to speed on cat nutrition. They are more bothered about flogging Science Diet and Royal Canin.

__________________
Rescue cats for many years, currently one moggie and 3 young Maine Coons.

I saw it for sale a few weeks ago, had a quick look at the label and bought it as it was on offer. I usually feed a very small amount of JW to relieve the boredom of wet all the time, just as a treat, so thought it would be OK.

I mixed it with the JW and it went very quickly, however, it came back up a while later, so has gone in the donations for the animal sanctuary. Not sure which ingredient caused the problem, she seems not to tolerate any other dry, only JW.

__________________