[Maleke]

Ok, I have switched my kitten over to Nutro Natural because I have heard it's very good. So I want everyone's opinions on it! I was feeding him Science Diet....I have never liked that food but someone recommended it. So that was my temporary food until I found a better one.

I noticed that the first ingredient in Nutro Natural is Chicken meal. Is that ok? Or is that bad? I can't keep the "meal" and "by-product" stuff straight and which is good and which is bad!!!!!

Any thoughts?

 

[Ariel]

I'm sorry. I can't help you here. My cat has always been on Kibbles 'n Bits.

 

[cmaijer]

Nutro

If you look on the labels of most dry foods, it will say "By-product". Nutro uses real chicken. I think it's the best dry food out there. Even the other "expensive" brands such as Science Diet, Iams, Eukanuba used by-products. You've "done good" by your cat by switching. My kitten is on Nutro. Unfortunately, I can't feed my older cats Nutro. Tammy must be on Kidney Diet Food. So Sheba is forced to be on it also (since she's older too).

 

[Maleke]

Ok, thanks! I knew it was a good food but I wasn't sure what chicken meal was and if it was good or bad....since it was the first ingrediant. Good to know I made a good decision though.

 

[AngelZoo]

Maleke: Nutro Natural is an "ok" diet in my opinion, but certainly better then the Science Diet, so it was a smart move.


Chicken Meal is great, in fact that is what you want to see, or lamb meal, turkey meal...etc.

It's just as healthy as regular Chicken, only with Chicken, if you start with 5 pounds, after cooking, you are only left with about 1 pound so in actuality after cooking, there can often be more corn or rice in the pet food bag then there is chicken, this is due to the high moister content of the meat.
So it also helps to have more then one meat listed in the first ingreidents specially for animals like cats. Nutro unfortunatly does not have this.

As for Chicken Meal, if you start with 5 pounds, you end up with 5 pounds because all the moister has already been extracted before the cooking process.

When you look at the ingreidents listed on the bag, they go in order from most to least content, BEFORE cooking.
The fiber is a teeny bit higher then what I like, but shouldnt' be a problem as long as you don't have a cat proned to taking on lots of weight!

Things listed as by-products, or meat meal or poultry meal, stear away from, they are normally not direved from the muscle, but things like intestines, bone, feathers, and excretion etc. I also personally don't feed anything with corn in it either, but that's up to you.

Hope you have good luck with this food!

 

[Maleke]

AngelZoo, what do you feed your cats?

 

[AngelZoo]

I feed Felidae & Solid Gold Dry ( I rotate every 5 months.)
And Wysong Rabbit the whole can is just 100% rabbit and nothing else, in wet food.

Sometimes they get a little treat of different yet high grade wet foods like felidae, wellness, natural balance.

Plus they get fed the raw/barf diet when I have the time.

 

[tanyuh]

So it also helps to have more then one meat listed in the first ingreidents specially for animals like cats. Nutro unfortunatly does not have this.

That's why I opted for Natural Balance premium dry cat food. These are the first few ingredients:

Chicken, Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Duck, Lamb Meal, Potatoes, Chicken Fat


They love it.

 

[Maleke]

Crap!!!! Tanyuh! That is what I was going to buy! I accidentally bought Nutro Natural instead! Remember I was talking to you about it a while ago?????? That is why when I read the ingrediants on Nutro it seemed strange cause I didn't think that that was what you had listed as the first ingrediants! Alrighty, I guess I'll feed him this bag of food and then find Natural Balance! Arrrrgggghhhh....what a dumb mistake!

 

[tanyuh]

Hehehehhe, oh well. It's not like Nutro is junk or anything! -smile- I just found that Natural Balance had more meat in the ingredient list so that's what I decided to get. I can't wait until their winter coats come in, they are going to be SO FLUFFY!

 

[tiggs]

I adopted a one-year old cat a little over a month ago, and she was a mom and rather malnourished. She would go through the cheaper cat foods really fast, so someone suggested I try Nutro Natural. I like it, she seems to like the taste and doesn't eat as big a portion, and seems to have more energy. Plus, I like that it doesn't have any meat by-products (ugh!). However, I have a question. On the back of the bag, Nutro says that they don't use ground corn. But the third ingredient is "corn gluten meal." I looked this up and from what I gather it is the "protein" part of corn. Is this correct? I know ground corn is bad for cats, but what about this stuff?
Thanks for the info on chicken Vs. chicken meal, I was wondering about that too!

 

[AngelZoo]

Tiggs: It is true, Corn does contain protein, and they basically use one specific part of the corn for indivudul ingreidents.

Now... for humans, yes corn is a good food to have, but even some people specially infants, can have a tough time digesting corn, which leads me into talking about cats...

Cats... are basically unable to digest corn, in any form be it corn gluten meal, ground corn...etc.

So, corn is a protein source... just not for cats, most cat owners don't know this, so some companies like SD, Iams, Nutro etc... could care less, it takes up a lot of room in the food, a lot of that food is just corn, which fills up a cats belly (a filler food if you will) tricking them into thinking they are full, but in the long run, they just poop it out... can't use it, no nutrients come of it etc.

Now you might be saying "well why is this allowed in pet foods, I don't think it's that the companies (don't care.)"
When it comes to the AFFCO as long as the ingredient doesn't have overwhelming proof of posionus or other ill effects it can be put in the food, to any quanity you want just about. Plus it's cheap, so a lot of companies decide to use it, except for those select few, I am very greatful to, who take it upon themselves (basically smaller brands) to make a better food, because they care about animals, they constantly study whats best in nutrition, not whats cheapist in nutrition.

This goes a lot deaper, but I will stop here before I completely confuse you. lol

I hope this helped!

 

[Maleke]

But I thought Nutro was good food. Now I'm confused again!

 

[AngelZoo]

Maleke: In comparison to all the other foods out there, Nutro Natural is in the class of... Good. Lets look at it this way, in their non scientific classification terms..

Low Grade - meow mix, friskies, purina chow, etc
Medium Grade - iams, science diet, etc
Good Grade Nutro Natural, Authority, Royal Canin, Bil Jac..etc
Best Grade - Natural Balance, Solid Gold, Felidae... etc

So in otherwords it IS a perfectly acceptible food to be feeding, but there are other brands out there which are better.

That's all hee hee.

 

[Maleke]

Alright then, I will go get Natural Balance today which is the food I intended to get in the first place! :wink:

 

[AngelZoo]

Maleke: If you haven't opened the Nutro Natural yet, you could consider donating it to a local rescue/shelter

 

[tiggs]

Thanks for the info! You guys have been really helpful, I'm still a novice at this! :lol: My friend's aunt is a breeder and loves feliidae, I may try that or Natural Balance if I can find it next time.

 

[Maleke]

Tiggs, go to http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/ and go to the top left corner where it says "Store Locater"....you can find a store near you that has Natural Balance!

 

[AngelZoo]

Tiggs: LOL don't feel bad, that's a lot to soak in at one time, this all comes from years of research I have done on my own. You defiently can't know everything there ever is to know about companion animal nutrition in a matter of minutes