The best canned cat food is the one that meets your cat’s nutritional needs. This is best accomplished by not sticking to one brand. For optimum health (and to keep your cat from getting bored), feed four or five brands on rotation. Also, if your cat’s teeth are healthy, make canned cat food only a small part of your cat’s diet, which should also include dry food and occasional treats.
Work With Your Vet
You can’t find out what your cat’s nutritional needs are if you don’t take your cat to the vet for regular checkups. Your cat might need to go on kitten food in order to put on weight if coming off an illness, such as an overactive thyroid. Your cat might need to go on a diet. Perhaps your cat has problems with hairballs. Or maybe your cat has problems with developing stones in his urinary tract, so you can only fed low ash foods.
Or, perhaps your vet recommends that your cat shouldn’t be fed wet foods. It is high in calories and has very high water content. For your cat, then, the best canned cat food would be none at all.
If your cat is allowed canned cat food, then ask the vet what brands he or she recommends. They may have coupons, free samples and candid opinions about what they think the best canned food for your cat should be. If they are not sure of what brands, then they will let you know of what ingredients you should stay away from or what overall fat percentage you should stay away from.
Work With Your Cat
Cats are strange when it comes to food. The first thing you have to remember about pet cats (as opposed to feral cats) is that they refuse to eat cheap food. Even if a case of premium brand cat food dropped from the sky into your lap, they won’t eat it because they know you didn’t pay for it. Scientists say that cats do not have a concept of monetary value, but many cat owners beg to differ. Whenever you feed your cat, always complain about how expensive it was. The cat will somehow be more interested in the food.
Cats usually do not eat when they are not hungry. Sometimes this happens for a couple of meals or a whole day. They are not necessarily going on a hunger strike in order to get you to change canned cat food brands. Unless more than 24 hours go by that you know they haven’t eaten anything, call your vet, because the cat could be ill.
When you choose the four or five brands for your cat, you should throw one easily available, nationally known brand into the mix. This is for emergency times, such as if you have to kennel your cat or a natural disaster hits and you and your cat have to move quickly. At least you’ll know that your cat will eat the food offered and that the food won’t bother the cat’s digestive system.