Not so dear cow-irkers:

You want to do my job? you think cutting me out of the information loop will accomplish something? fine ... I'll sit in my office, collect my salary, and hang out with my Buffistas.

whatever

me

Iams indoor cat variety (hairball control and weightloss)--is it really bad for her, and what should I get if not that?

Iams is pretty much junk pet food, too. I settled on Wellness cat food products. They make their food with human quality meat ingredients. Some of their products have a minimal amount of rice for cohesion/consistency, but they are otherwise high quality food.

And they have an Indoor Cat/Hairball/Weight Control formula.

She doesn't like gooshyfood at all, just kibble.

You'll want to do a transition to the new food, rather than just switching over from one meal to the next, but after you switch over, you might want to try giving her some of the Wellness gooshyfood.

My guy never used to like gooshyfood, and now he demands it. I give him a combo of kibble and gooshy (in seperate dish spaces) - half a 3 oz. can plus half a cup of kibble at each feeding (once in the morning, once at night). Those are the portions for a large cat. There's a feeding guide on the back of the Wellness bags.

Geez, Toddson, sounds like you and omnis can have a frustrating job situations road rally.

Are you sure she's a cat? [link]

I know! But she's weird that way--I once ran out of kibble and decided to give her tuna fish instead of running out to the grocery store at 10 pm and paying a fortune for a small bag of Iams. She turned her nose up to tuna fish!!! She loves tuna water, but ix-nay on the una-tay.

the fewer fillers in a food, the more nutritionally dense it is, and so a cat may be more satisfied on a significantly smaller portion.

This is good to know. I feed her 1/2-2/3 cup of the kibble once a day, and she still is putting on a bit of weight (last month's vet visit had her at 13 lbs, 4 oz. When I adopted her from the shelter and she was all lean and skinny, she was just under 9 lbs.

Thanks for the info!!

My cat Ivan throws up Felidae. (He also throws up Purina.)

Right now I'm feeding them "Taste of the Wild" - a no grain catfood I got at my local Natural Pet Food Store. I also give them the occasional can of Tiki Cat - an excellent 'wet' food.

I fed Iams for years and then Ivan started throwing it up. I think it is the grain content. It's like NOW he really cannot tolerate it.

Thanks, Sean! (ETA: and sumi!!) I just bought a bag of Iams last week, so it'll be a month or so before I'll switch her over--maybe after I get back from vacation at the end of July.

She had managed to hork up some of the kibble yesterday (which she does when she eats it too fast, on average once a week or so), and her food dish was empty this morning, about 15 hours after I fed her last, so I put in another 1/8 cup to tide her over until tonight.

I have found that portion guides on pet foods tend to be very very generous. So if you find yourself needing to adjust the cat's portions below the guidelines, you are not necessarily starving the cat, particularly with the higher quality foods.

Kathy, if you have a local boutique pet food store - you might go and see what they have and if they have any samples.

Also, my local organic human food coop also sells some pet food including Wellness and Wysong - a little bit cheaper than you can get it at the pet food store. If you have one of those - give it a go.

I fed Iams for years and then Ivan started throwing it up. I think it is the grain content. It's like NOW he really cannot tolerate it.

I had a couple of cans of the Hills Science Diet prescription food left over after I switched to Wellness. At one point, I ran out of Wellness, and didn't want to go shopping right away. Before I switched, my guy was throwing up fairly regularly after he ate. When I switched to Wellness, he stopped throwing up.

He ate the whole serving of Science Diet, and immediately threw it ALL up all over the place. Like, Super Power Projectile Vomiting.

I cleaned up and went immediately to the pet store. Since then, he will occasionally throw up, but not very much, and I think I can count the number of times (that I'm aware of) on one hand.

The only places I know of around here to get pet food is either Pet Supplies Plus (my usual source) or PetSmart. Jewel has a small selection that costs waay to much, and I don't know of any organic coops here at all--we have the usual chains (Jewel, Dominicks, TJ, Whole Foods) as well as some small grocery stores that are privately owned, but no coops.