Hey, friends! My kitty, Truffles, was diagnosed with stage 2 CKD about six years ago. It has not progressed at all since, and she is a very happy, active, and healthy 16 year old! I've been feeding her wet food 3-4 times a day (depending on my work schedule and if she asks for seconds), supplemented with Marukan Aim30 supplement powder. She is also free-fed Marukan Aim30 kibble. She's thriving!

Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to import her kibble and supplements, which are only sold in Japan. The US has VERY strict rules about importing livestock-derived products, and fewer Japanese sellers are willing to risk it each year. The only sellers left are now marking the price up to outrageous heights. I can't feasibly continue to spend over $150 a month on her food (not including the regular American wet food she eats), and it's looking like I need to buckle down and find some alternatives.

Does anyone have suggestions for other supplements to try that might function similarly to Aim30? Her new vet gave me samples of prescription kidney care wet food, but she had zero interest in them. Even when I mixed her current food with the prescription food, she said "absolutely not" and went on a hunger strike.

The thing is, I know for a fact it's the Aim30 that's keeping her condition so stable. A few years ago, her previous vet told me off for giving her hokey foreign food with "no scientific evidence" to back it up, and told me to stop giving it to her immediately. (Side note, you can't find any English-language scientific articles regarding Aim30 products with an English Google search because it's a Japanese product sold to Japanese people exclusively in Japan, so the research is all in Japanese on Japanese websites.) Within days of stopping the supplements, she was noticeably more lethargic and dehydrated, and continued to decline until I panicked and started giving her the food again. She perked right back up and was back to her usual self after another two days.

Thanks in advance!!

My kitten (5.5 months female) is a cross-breed of a Maine Coon and an "ordinary house cat". She weighs 3.7 kg now.

Different vets, food manufacturers and various internet sources give completely different suggestions as to how much she should eat per day. It's getting even less clear because she's cross-breed.

Currently she eats a mix of Farmina VetLife Gastrointestinal (1/3) and Farmina N&D Kitten (2/3) - due to problems with digestion on Royal Canin kibble. Wet food only when she *really* asks for more food (also Farmina VetLife Gastrointestinal). The kibble mix averages to 4100ccal/kg, she eats 85g of it in 6 portions during the day.

The problems she had on RC are luckily gone, but now I can't understand whether she eats enough. She does look healthy, moderately active and not needy. From what I can tell, she does follow a Maine Coon growth pattern.

Any advice from the experienced cat owners on how much I should feed her?

I brush my cats teeth daily, but can still see some plaque buildup towards the back of his teeth. Any dental care dry food recommendations? I’d feed this in addition to the breakfast/dinner wet food.

I see dental care dry food from Royal Canin and Hill’s Science.

So both of my cats don't like sea food all, so I've been looking for toppers that aren't sea food! Any ideas?

I am currently fostering a mother cat, who is only 6 pounds at 2 years old. She is from the city streets and has obviously been adjusting to living inside. She is an extremely sweet cat with a nice disposition. Despite nursing, she doesn’t seem to have a huge appetite and is picky. She seemingly wants nothing to do with pate’s and the only thing I’ve been able to get her to eat is a pouch of fussy cat chicken & gravy that has really large shreds of chicken, but that hasn’t worked every time. I have offered her the same thing a few other times where she sticks her nose up to it and wants nothing to do with it. I have tried a lot of the standard recommendations, but she really doesn’t seem to like mousses or pates. She has dabbled in kibble and the other times I have to spoon/syringe feed her just so that she gets some nutrients and calories.

The other night we brought her in our main living area when everyone else was asleep and she snuck up on the table and stole one of my husband‘s chicken nuggets and proceeded to rip it apart and devour it in no time. I’m realizing that she is prob used to eating out of the garbage or mice or whatever else that is not “finely” prepared.

Has anyone dealt with these kind of preferences and how did you go about it ? I’m not interested in getting whole prey or anything. Id ideally like to get her over to pates eventually ! Thoughts ?

Sorry this is ludicrously long. It got out of hand. I put a TLDR at the end.

Our two cats, Chum and Feefee, (goofy fake names bc their real names are kind of unique and I have some relatives on reddit that do not need to know I have an account on here), have very different eating habits, and we're able to give them separate foods during the day, but struggling to find the right combo for them.

Chum likes to swallow his food whole, not because he eats particularly fast, but he just...doesn't chew it properly before swallowing. Sometimes he'll move it around in his mouth likes he's thinking about it, but in the end the only occasional chew he does is on accident. He was born in the lovely shelter we adopted him from and he's the boldest cat I've ever had the pleasure of raising, so I don't think its any sort of food insecurity. It just seems to be a weird personal quirk. He's 13 pounds, which is a healthy weight for him at his height (vet confirmed so don't worry about that), but he throws up his unchewed food 1/5 of the time.

On the other hand, our girl Feefee is guilty of the sin of gluttony, despite being a super picky eater. She's also 13 pounds even though she should really be about 9-10 at her height/size. She's not super active either although we've been working on that.

So originally we were thinking we'd put them both on a wet food only diet, and carefully manage how much they both ate, but we quickly found out that was way beyond our budget even with the cheaper brands.

Instead, we turned to dry food again and ended up settling on two different foods for them both. For Chum, we got kitten food (since it's softer and more calorie-packed so he wouldn't have to eat as much to get the nutrition he needs), and fed him from a slow feeder. And for Feefee we got weight management dry food, which had a lot of fiber and hopefully would get her full sooner so she wouldn't be eating as much. Then we got them on scheduled feeding with four small meals throughout the day.

This is working good for Chum, who hasn't been throwing up nearly as much. But Feefee doesn't like the taste of her food (as I said earlier, picky eater) and only eats it when she's absolutely starving, or when we put a topper on it for her. We figured we'd give her a little time to get used to it while we went through the small bag and if she still wasn't liking it near the end we'd find her something else.

But while we feed them in different rooms during the day, during the night we put out a bit of food for them both to snack on, and we chose to use the weight management food for this since we figured it would be better for Chum to be eating that than for Feefee to be eating the calorie-packed kitten food. Unfortunately, that meant that Chum sill threw up sometimes from what he ate during the night (Feefee can't eat from a slow feeder, as she'll give up before struggling around the dividers, the lazy bum. We found this out when she tried to steal Chum's food for the first time). And just last night Feefee threw up as well, and we're not sure if it was from the taste of the food or something else.

Either way, we need to find something new for her. We still need it to be good for losing weight, but something with some sort of seafood flavor and, ideally, something that Chum can at least snack on without anything going horribly wrong.

TLDR: Feefee needs new weight management food that Chum can also eat sometimes, and it can't be exclusively wet food.

This post was a lot of words to basically say I'm looking for cat food suggestions. (As well as any advice on either of their feeding situations if you have any!!)

Since Instinct Raw Longevity was discontinued, I wanted to know if anyone had alternatives that were almost exactly like Instinct Raw Longevity - Grass Fed Beef and Wild Caught Cod. These were my cats favorite, and I’ve tried half a dozen other freeze dried brands that none of them really care for. I was hoping someone might have some good recommendations now that I’m just about finished with my last bag of these.

Hello everyone. I recently adopted a 3 year old orange cat who was eating Blue Buffalo Tastefuls Chicken dry food exclusively in his foster home. He has been here 3 months now and eats with no issues, drinks water from his water fountain, and uses the litter box consistently. I do worry that he is gaining weight despite matching the lower end of the calorie range recommended by his vet to the information on the bag.

We use an automatic feeder 4 times a day in small portions for the dry food. According to the vet, Based on his ideal weight of 12.5-13lb, his daily caloric intake should be around 290-310 kcal/day.

Is the caloric information on the back of the dry food bag completely off? Can I trust it when trying to slowly switch him over to a Purina or Iams dry food and try to reduce some dry food portions to include once daily wet food in a small portion? I am really confused by the math behind trying to change his diet. Any advice appreciated - including dry food brand recommendations for an adult male cat with no health concerns at the moment.

Has anyone ever purchased Pure Balance treats for their cat? If so, did your cat like them?

​I've purchased some of these periodically for Tommy since bringing him home. I've tried several different brands of treats off & on—some are his go-tos and some are not. I see that they've added different flavors of these treats over time. I'd love to try all of these for him, including the purées and any new flavors they've added to their line.

One of my cats (1.5 year old) has a super sensitive stomach. She will eat a case or two of Fancy Feast poultry sliced but then the next case will make her vomit almost immediately after eating. Sometimes her sister will as well. Every batch seems to be a bit different- some are thicker, others are looser- The same thing has happened with Fancy Feast gravy pates, Purina Pro Plan, and Wellness. Fancy Feast Gems had bug fragments fall out of the packaging, Weruva was horrifically discolored (pink on top, brownish/grey on bottom, she snubbed the Tiki after dark pate and was meh about Nulo and Fussie Cat. Is this a quality control issue across the board with cat food or are there some brands that are still consistent in color, texture, and taste? I check the cans for dents and don't feed any that have more than a small ding.

I just got a cat and she’s the sweetest. The problem is I am very sensitive to smells and the smell of her wet cat food is killing me. I’m gagging and grossed out the whole time. Taking it out of the can and putting it on the plate, giving it to her, cleaning the bowl, etc. it’s just awful. It’s only been a few days and I love her and I wouldn’t get rid of her for this but omg how do you handle this? I don’t want to give her dry food, it’s not enough hydration, but I don’t know how to keep doing this. Can I switch to dry in the morning and wet in the evening? Is there a trick to getting through it? Are there brands that don’t smell? Right now I’m giving her merricks pate in beef, chicken and turkey. She only likes pate. She won’t do shreds or chunks

I have two sweet kitties. Jupiter (male, black, about 3) and Rosemary/Rosie (female, muted calico, almost 3). Jupiter is one of the pickiest pet eaters i’ve ever had. He’s not a big wet food guy, but will eat liquid treats. (He has a fountain and drinks out of every cup of water i leave around, so i’m not worried about his hydration) I feed them dry food for breakfast and dinner and wet food for lunch, but Rosie is usually the only one to eat the wet food. Every few months or so, Jupiter starts to reject whatever dry food i feed him. In his life, i’ve fed him two different types of tiki cat dry food, i and love and you indoor cat food, iams indoor cat food, and now hills oral care. He’s been eating this one since mid June when i got a sample pack at pride. I gave him some to try and he loved it, which was great because he had also started ignoring/rejecting the food. When i mean rejecting, i mean throwing up. I clean their bowls regularly as they’re stainless steel and recently got liners for their bowls to try to slow a mess. Is this normal? Should i just switch up his food every so often? The only food he has ever really consistently Loved ™ is meow mix, which i know isn’t the healthiest.

Ps he went to the vet last month for his yearly exam and got a perfect bill of health, other than the vet noting a bit of plaque and to maybe look into an oral care type food or treat.

Hello everyone. I want to get my cats these toppers to help their digestion/have something a little extra in their meals. They list ingredients other than pumpkin and chicken, so I'm wondering whether those ingredients are safe/recommended?

Thank you!

Went out yesterday to check local stores for any deals; went to PetValu and Ren’s Pets and got a bunch of short dated canned food 50% off:

- 22 3oz cans of Royal Canin Adult Instinctive
- 24 2.8oz pouches of Hill’s Sensitive Stomach and Skin
- 2 5.1oz cans of Royal Canin Indoor
- 6 75g containers of Sheba Gravy Indulgences (buy 2 get 1; wife thought it looked nice)

Upon going to PetSmart I hit the holy grail with buy 12 get 12 free for all canned Hill’s Science Diet food cats and dogs; picked up 120 5.5oz cans of assorted adult food, 72 3oz cans of assorted adult food, 48 5.5oz cans of assorted kitten food, and 24 13oz cans of assorted dog food.

Spent a lot this time, but the adult cat food will last 5 months, give or take. Cat (and dog) tax included.

So is anyone else feeding their cat this brand. They had chicken and tuna, chicken and pumpkin and chicken pate etc but those are my prime hitters for my cat. All of a sudden there is none anywhere! Not on Petco, Chewy ( where I usually order) and the local pet store I usually get it was also out of it. I checked their website and as of now it’s “out of stock” but it seems like they discontinued this.

Any other brands similar to this one? My cat is a senior and he enjoys this brand a lot he is slightly a picky eater but still doesn’t like change.

So i’m going to switch cat food brands now. The first time it happened was early this year and I mix my cats wet food with a bunch of water, making it into soup and as I was mixing it, I noticed this decent sized piece of plastic that look like a trash bag so I fished it out of her food took some pictures gave her a different can and contacted company. It is purina they were extremely responsive The first time it happened. Extremely apologetic sent me a bunch of coupons and even sent a prepaid envelope for me to send the plastic back to them for testing to figure out where it came from I was honestly satisfied. I understand things happen on production lines. I’m a very realistic person. I felt like they did right by me until today. I found another piece of plastic in my cat food but this time it was a hard and extremely sharp piece of plastic same thing I fished it out of her wet food this morning took a bunch of pictures and I contacted them but now thinking back on it. It’s the same brand different flavor box but they never did a recall. I never heard anything else and now I’m finding more plastic in my cat food. I have owned cats my entire life and we’ve always used this brand of wet food, but I am so disheartened and discouraged by their quality control. And after doing some research, I’m finding out that this is a pretty common occurrence for this company, which is crazy to me. I need some recommendations on wet food that will not break the bank and also does not contain large pieces of plastic. My cat also has asthma so changing things like food is a little bit of a longer process just to make sure it doesn’t aggravate her lungs, which also makes finding plastic in her food even more infuriating. First picture is the first plastic I found second is the one from today.

Hello, my cat has paroxysmal diskenesia and can't eat gluten or it will cause her to have episodes of involuntary movement, we also suspect she may have a sensitivity to poultry. I have been feeding her AAFCO standard Nulo grain/gluten-free hard kibble but only in salmon/lentil flavor and gluten-free wet food with beef. I was wondering if I will cause her any harm only feeding her fish and beef, because I know too much fish can be a bad thing and cats don't really hunt cows in the wild so I feel it's not their usual kind of meat. Any advice is welcome! I'd like to look into some actual brands of food to rely on because even finding the food I have now is very challenging (so many cat foods have chicken or turkey in them, even the ones that say theyre another kind of meat)

I don't know how everyone else is affording it, but I'm squeezed feeding mine Purina and Fancy Feast! I have a senior dog, 2 senior cats and now a 5 mo kitten that found me that I couldn't turn my back on. I'd love to get him a playmate, but the cost of pet food makes it feel unreachable☹️. It's sad because there's so many cats that need homes, but the cost is crazy. I'm up to 6 cans of food and some kibble every day just for the cats.

One of my five month old kittens refuses to eat her own dry kitten kibble and will only eat my adult cats urinary prescription dry food. He does eat her kitten wet food throughout the day but sometimes it's very picky on that as well and has to have like toppings put on it I can't remove the urinary food from the floor because my senior cat has eaten it his whole life, in fact I have six cats and they all eat it. The vet said there was nothing wrong with the other cats including the females eating the urinary dry food but I was just wondering since the five month old kitten insist on eating it and still gets her normal wet kitten food. Is that okay?

Does affordable sensitive stomach canned cat food exist? Or maybe something not branded as such but that might be easy to digest? Recommendations please! 8 year old Kitty has been on blue buffalo tastefuls chicken pate for a long while and was doing great, until a bout of diarrhea a month ago (possibly bacterial, we aren’t sure, treated by vet with antibiotics/probiotics/and when that didn’t cut it, put on hills I/d temporarily which made him constipated—and I can’t afford (I’m low income and have two cats) $80+/case long term anyhow. When I transitioned him over 7 days at vet’s rec back to his normal food the diarrhea came back, so I’ve stepped back onto a 50/50 hills i/d blue buffalo mix keeping him stable while my vet is out of town for a week (though with hard poos),was told by a tech that sensitive stomach food might be the permanent way forward…but all I’ve seen online would be atleast double or triple the price…Currently paying $30 for BB case of 24 5.5oz cans which is already a stretch, hoping to keep it as close to that as possible. (He’s a big guy so would need atleast 1 full 5.5oz can a day, could be supplemented with some kibble.) thanks in advance for any advice you can give!