Author Topic: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?  (Read 4703 times)

Offline Fire Fox

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #18 on: January 11, 2011, 21:41:49 PM »
At the end of the day JWB plus a decent wet is a million times better than a cat which refuses to eat, can't keep his food in long enough to extract the nutrients or a cat with a stressed out meowmy.  :hug: The key to complete wellbeing of a cat is arguably a human who cares enough to play regularly, steel themselves against vet visits, reads the ingredients on ALL the cat foods on Zooplus etc. etc. I bet you had double vision by the end!  ;)

This is not directed at you, Helen, just at anyone who might be considering raw but worried about the time aspect. Providing your cat takes to raw as Noah did (duck to water  :wow: ) I am amazed how easy it is. You can buy heart ready diced, liver ready sliced - I freeze on a baking sheet lined with silicone paper so the wet offal doesn't stick and the washing up takes seconds. Flip off the sheet and bag or box up free flowing. Chicken I buy lazy person's ready frozen portions (drumsticks , thighs). I defrost two days at a time in a tupperware - offal a few cubes by eye, then top up with chicken to approx 400g total. It isn't any slower than commercial as I have to mash up wet or Noah eats the jelly and flips chunks on the floor.  :tired:

Having said that I absolutely would NOT want to go through the rigmarole of encouraging a reluctant cat by progressively adding raw into their wet! Plus commercial wet gets fly eggs  :sick: by the end of a summer's day, I wouldn't want to leave that out whilst at work never mind raw and the extra worry about bacteria. Hygiene is part of the reason I buy ready-frozen chicken, I know it's not been sat in a butcher's window or supermarket chiller for days before I serve it.  :sick: I know some US raw feeders mince their own but it looks like an awful lot of washing up effort and stress.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2011, 21:43:39 PM by Fire Fox »
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Offline Tiggy's Mum

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #17 on: January 11, 2011, 18:07:42 PM »
Sheryl - they have eaten it in the past with no issues (as kittens) and have also eaten PAH premium for years which contains rice. Riley's RC wet stuff is chicken and rice so don't think rice is his issue although if there are any tummy troubles with the JWB  my next step is probably going to be a grain free dry food so will probably try one of the ones your Benglies have  :)

Offline sheryl

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2011, 13:40:49 PM »
I am going to give that a go too - thanks

My Benglies couldnt eat JWB Helen - the rice in it gave them pebbledash squits.  The only dry that i have found that is totally okay with them is the Orijen and the Arden Grange sensitive.x
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Offline Susanne (urbantigers)

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2011, 13:11:28 PM »
Maybe you had a different type or flavour?  The one I had stank to high heaven!  Definitely the smelliest cat food ever, bar a few fishy ones.

Offline paddypaws101

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2011, 13:17:10 PM »
I  have bought Grau in the past and it's gone down well with both Jaffa and Mosi but I warn you now - it stinks!

Really, you think so? Ok I do eat meat...but it honestly smells...and looks....like something you could serve up on crackers as canapes!
Regarding the raw....not all cats will 'recognise' it as food straight away, especially a whole chicken wing. Minced meat seems to be easier for more cats to get the hang of things. If you are buying complete minces from Darlings etc, then it is almost as easy as opening a pouch...defrost overnight in the fridge then serve up. I don't think many cats would eat meat that had gone off ( have to admit that mine seem to quite like it after it has been hanging around in a bowl for a good few hours)
Funnily enough RAW meat hardly smells, either on the way in or the way out, much less pongy than cat food.

Offline Susanne (urbantigers)

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2011, 12:42:38 PM »
I  have bought Grau in the past and it's gone down well with both Jaffa and Mosi but I warn you now - it stinks!

Offline Tiggy's Mum

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2011, 11:15:45 AM »
Wow, just read that food thread - must have taken aaaaaages. Very, very informative so if you could post a thank you on my behalf that would be great. Also repeat thanks go to you as would never have found out about it if you hadn't mentioned it. There's a similar thread for dry food so if I can't get him eating JWB OK then I can make a decision on a new dry food based on that list. I know JWB isn't the best dry food due to the high grain content but it was recommended by the vet due to being hypoallergenic, they also hoover it up on the same scale as dreamies so palatability isn't a problem either!

As for the raw suggestion, not really something I would consider. I found advance cooking, cooling and chopping chicken breasts for a month really time consuming so don't really have the time for raw. Was very pleased when he started to eat the RC sensitivity, a quick squeeze of a pouch is more like it for me  :evillaugh: I would also worry about fresh meat going off, I don't have a sense of smell so wouldn't know if it had started to turn and might unwittingly feed it to them. Added to my laziness the boys also looked at me like I was a freak when I presented them with a raw chicken wing each once  :evillaugh:
« Last Edit: January 10, 2011, 11:18:38 AM by Tiggy's Mum - Helen »

Offline Mark

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2011, 09:52:42 AM »
Off topic but when I see part of the title, I keep thinking it is called "Complimentary v Complementary"  :evillaugh: - as so often the wrong word is used - often by petfood manufacturers on their packaging on ads.
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Offline paddypaws101

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2011, 09:25:34 AM »
Also....have you considered raw feeding? A lot of cats that react to a meat source when it is cooked will be able to handle it when raw. Darlings do a sample pack and I think they offer single protein packs....you might have to call them to get exact details.
You could try buying some meat from a butcher just to see if the cats will go for the idea of raw to start off with.

Offline paddypaws101

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2011, 09:16:41 AM »
I wont take all the glory for the information, there is a very useful sticky post on petforums all about foods. :-:
http://www.petforums.co.uk/cat-health-nutrition/112132-z-wet-food-cats-2.html
Grau comes in at around £1.60 per tin, but feeding recommendations are only 200g per day as it is such high quality ( not that my gang pay much attention to advice about portion size! ) So, it does actually work out at a reasonable cost and it is balanced and complete which SO many of the tiny posh tins are not.
Zooplus also sell a horsemeat cat food....ok, I know this will offend some people so I apologise in advance, but horse meat is still widely eaten in mainland Europe, and of course this would also be a useful 'novel protein' food for cats with food allergies.

Offline Tiggy's Mum

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2011, 21:38:30 PM »
Thanks for the musings FF - always very interesting!

It;s not answering your question, but if you are looking for single protein then have you tried Grau tins from Zooplus?
On complimentary/complete....well as FF says it is all a bit of a mystery...It is not as simple as something not being added back after processing, for example calc:phos balance should be around 1.2:1 ( I think ) whereas some posh complimentary foods such as Almo will come in at 1:33 Thats a heck of an imbalance

Oooh, thanks Paddypaws. Looking at the ingredients it looks VERY promising  :wow: I thought I'd checked the ingredients of every single cat food on Zooplus but somehow missed that one! The 400g cans are very reasonably priced for such high quality food so if Riley got on with it OK and Lukey liked it then I'd be onto a winner and they'd be able to eat together again!

As I have no idea what exactly he is intolerant of (vet suggested beef or pork as they were the other ingredients in 'chicken' flavour Bozita as an example) then only the turkey one and the lamb one of the 400g cans would be suitable as the others contain beef giblets. If he likes it and does well on it I could try the beefy ones and if it turns out he's OK with beef then he could have all six flavours  ;D

Definitely going to get some for him but at the moment I'm trying to gradually introduce JWB so he can have wet and dry so will wait until the verdict is out with the JWB first!

Offline paddypaws101

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2011, 21:12:03 PM »
It;s not answering your question, but if you are looking for single protein then have you tried Grau tins from Zooplus?
On complimentary/complete....well as FF says it is all a bit of a mystery...It is not as simple as something not being added back after processing, for example calc:phos balance should be around 1.2:1 ( I think ) whereas some posh complimentary foods such as Almo will come in at 1:33 Thats a heck of an imbalance

Offline Fire Fox

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2011, 19:35:56 PM »
I've looked into this before but never did find a satisfactory answer, looks like Suzanne is further ahead! ;D

I suspect the missing nutrients will vary from product to product - minerals (bone) are key as it saturated (animal) fat. I have wondered whether some companies do not want to go to the trouble of proving their food is complete as that costs money? For example I've never understood why the (cheaper) blue label Feline Fayre is complementary and the (more expensive) black label is complete.

A fish-based cat food is more likely to be deficient in saturated fat than a meat-based one, but it *could* be vice versa with minerals as it is common practice to leave the bones in human tinned fish. In the UK the regulations as to what can be labelled 'meat' are pretty strict - definitely no bone but some fat clearly allowed as mince can be quite fatty. HOWEVER it may be the regulations are more lenient elsewhere so the Kattovit *might* contain bonemeal.

That is probably not terribly helpful as it's just a series of my musings! I have fed complementary up to a third of Noah's diet, but obviously you are right to be more cautious. :-[ Maybe it's worth e-mailing the manufacturers? I think Mark did that for phosphorus content, of course some were more helpful than others! I'd certainly be interested in hearing the responses.
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Offline Tiggy's Mum

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2011, 14:21:46 PM »
Thanks Susanne, would two pouches of RC sensitive (complete) and one tin of Cosma/Almo Nature be OK ratio wise do you think? That's if they'll eat the new stuff as I bought some 60% real meat Hi-Life the other day and neither of them would even lick it!  :evillaugh:

Offline Susanne (urbantigers)

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2011, 14:06:40 PM »
Not sure about the kattovit - it sounds complete as they've added taurine but there's no mention of added minerals which makes me unsure.  I am wary of anything that doesn't have added minerals as they are destroyed/depleted by cooking/processing.

Imo 2 complementary pouches a day would be too much unless it was just short term.

Offline Tiggy's Mum

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2011, 13:52:57 PM »
Thanks Susanne, so if they ate Cosma or Almo Nature I would have to split it 10% Cosma/Almo Nature and 90% dry food? That's no good if that's the case as I like them to have wet food for breakfast and dinner with dry to munch on 24/7 as a snack.

The other food I got was Kattovit Sensitive mono-protein. Ingredients are: 100% chicken, iodised salt, Taurine (500 mg/kg).  It says on the Zooplus website that this is a complete food, does that sound right?

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/supplements_specialty_cat_food/kattovit/moist/158608#composition

Offline Susanne (urbantigers)

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Re: Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2011, 13:47:32 PM »
Cosma is complementary.  Jaffa and Mosi used to love it but I think they changed it in some way and now they're not so keen.  Almo nature is def complementary although they do try to claim otherwise.  Not sure how much dry you would  need but I think it's usually recommended not more than 10% snacks/complementary food?  It isn't just the amount as it will also throw the balance of things out.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2011, 13:48:21 PM by Susanne (urbantigers) »

Offline Tiggy's Mum

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Complimentary v Complete cat foods?
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2011, 13:36:05 PM »
I've been trying to track down different wet foods for Riley to try which are single protein or if not single protein then don't have beef or pork in. At the moment the only food he can eat is the RC sensitivity pouches but I'm trying to wean him (slowly this time!) onto JWB dry in addition to the wet food.

One of the foods I've got is Almo Nature Daily Menu - I didn't notice when I ordered but this seems to be complimentary  :doh: It's ingredients are Tuna 46%, Chicken 15%, Rice 5%, cooking water in jelly 34%.

If he was having Almo Nature Daily Menu for both breakfast and dinner does anyone know how much dry he would need to snack on to get the vitamins/minerals that a complimentary food lacks? Or is it more a case that he can't have complimentary foods for both breakfast and dinner?

Also have some Cosma, it's not clear whether this is complimentary or complete. It says 'a supplementary cat food' on the tin so does that mean it's complementary? The Cosma ingredients are Salmon 48%, Rice 1%, Potassium Chloride 0.24% and Water 49.8%

 


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