My recent cat food review (some brands I've tested and my/my cat's thoughts on them)

Well, in the recent recall of Diamond brand pet foods, I've had to experiment with some new foods (since the food I usually feed, Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, was recalled). The first one I've tried was Evolve cat food. Specifically "Evolve Maintenance Formula with Chicken Natural Cat Food" This food's first five ingredients are as follows... Chicken, chicken meal, ground brown rice, rice flour, chicken fat (preserved with mixed topcopherols). This is not a bad start. There is no corn, wheat, or soy in the food (also no by-products/by-product meals) and there is a whole list of veggies/fruits. This food seems like a good food (and ingredient wise it is except that it has rice flour, and brewers dried yeast), but only if your cats eat it/like it. Mine both don't like it a whole lot and Sunny flat out won't eat it (Smokey will eat it but she doesn't like it as much as other foods). The next food I've tried is Purina ONE Beyond (what they're currently eating until I can get some NEW Chicken Soup brand food) and so far so good with it (with the cats eating it and seeming to like it OK). This food's first five ingredients are... chicken, chicken meal, whole brown rice, soybean meal, whole barley. There are only a couple of ingredients that bother me in this food. The first is anything "soy" related (soybean meal, soy protein isolate) and the other is "animal fat" (what kind of animal???). However, the food has no corn or wheat and doesn't have any by-products either so overall, it is a healthy food. My list of foods that I'll feed my cats has expanded some. Foods that I would NOT hesitate to feed my cats are as follows... Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul (despite the recent recall, I would still feed this food to my cats) Purina ONE Beyond Taste of the Wild (never tried this one but it looks good and seems to be a good food) Wellness (again, never tried it but looks excellent) Wellness CORE (excellent food but never tried) Blue Buffalo (same with this one, excellent food but I've never tried it on my cats) I also feed my cats canned food and have tried many different types on the cats (different flavors, brands, etc) and my cat's favorites are as follows... Fancy Feast Classic Chicken Feast Fancy Feast Classic Turkey & Giblets Feast Fancy Feast Classic Ocean Whitefish & Tuna Feast Fancy Feast Classic Savory Salmon Feast I would feed many other canned foods to my cats but these are favorites. In a taste test though (maybe I'll do one if I can get some more Chicken Soup brand food soon) I'm guessing that Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul would win (and that's the one with the best nutrition so that would make me happy!) though it might be close with Purina ONE Beyond.

Pet Food Recall

Well, since Diamond expanded the pet food recall of Chicken Soup (among other brands that they also make) cat and dog foods, I checked the bag of food that I had to find out if it was included and, sure enough, the production code and date both matched so I took it back to the store I bought it at and got a refund (Diamond hasn't shipped any new/unaffected bags to this store yet). This all makes sense now because my cats have both thrown up within the past week and I haven't felt good either (queasy stomach and not able to eat a whole lot) so I suspect the cat food (since I'm the one that feeds the cats). Just glad it's nothing worse than salmonella (which is bad enough but it could be a LOT worse). So, for now, my cats are eating Evolve pet food (similar enough in ingredients to Chicken Soup so that the cats shouldn't get an upset stomach from it). Hopefully, I can switch back to Chicken Soup brand soon (since it's just salmonella I'll give them a pass because it can and does happen to the best of pet food companies). I'm including a link to the recall website so anyone who needs to know can find out if their food is affected by this recall... http://diamondpetrecall.com/

Sad update on seahorses...

Greetings to all on this beautiful Monday! I have some bad news on the seahorses. Something is eating the adults/babies and I now only have 2 adults. There are several pests in the tank so it could be one of several things. I'm going to move the seahorses to a different tank that will be setup so that I can save the two remaining and then eventually get a few more. They're happy (I know this because they're breeding) but something keeps getting them. When they get in the new tank, it will look better (because I'm going to make it more "natural" looking) so I'll get some pictures up when I get it all situated. I guess it's not ALL bad because I do still have two seahorses and they're healthy but this is definitely a setback. Well, off to work on the seahorse tank I go...

Fantastic Friday

Well, today is a beautiful day! Smokey and Sunny are just lying around the house. I will probably try to get them both to exercise later but for now, I guess they can rest! Lilly on the other hand has been exercising all morning! She's been running around her cage and doing laps! My reef tank is still not looking its best but it does look better so hopefully things will work out with it soon. Seahorses still look good and I'll TRY to get some pictures of them soon. I will need to water the flowers later today because it's kinda hot here! We have celosia, periwinkles, hibiscus, and lantana in our beds. The lantana came back from last year and we planted everything else this year. The lantana is not blooming yet but it just a couple of inches tall. I hope everyone has a very relaxing day on this fantastic Friday!

It's been a while since I blogged so I figured I should probably update on several things. First off, Smokey and Sunny are doing great although I feel as if Sunny needs to loose a bit of weight (she's on excellent food so she just needs exercise I guess but any help is greatly appreciated). I have some sad news... Fiona went to the rainbow bridge on March 2nd. I got Lilly (new guinea pig) on March 17th. She was a very young guinea pig when I got her. She is also a bit of a drama queen! She is very loud and lets you know when she wants something (I mean, won't stop till she gets it!). She also wouldn't eat fresh fruits or vegetables when I got her (guinea pigs NEED those to stay healthy) but I've gotten her to where she eats a good variety now (had to mince them up and mix them with her food to get her to eat them at first but now she eats them whole). She has litter-box trained herself too which is awesome! My two geckos (Gex and Seze) are doing great! I've had some issues with my reef tank but things are looking slightly better now. First off, I had some algae problems (probably from phosphates in the water) but didn't do anything about them for a while because I was busy and it wasn't hurting anything at the time. Then I got a new light (I had planned to get a new light for the tank for a while) and the corals seem to like it better (except one that needs time to adjust). Then, I got something to remove the phosphate from the water and the corals didn't seem to like THAT (they need time to adjust to it I guess) so I removed it for a while. Things are finally looking better though so maybe, I can just enjoy the tank and not have so much stuff to do. The seahorse tank has been doing fairly well. I say fairly well because I had a seahorse give birth to one baby but both baby and adult got stressed and died. Then, a week or so later, I had a seahorse give birth to 3 (which I still have). I am not totally sure but I think I lost another adult (can't find it) but that doesn't worry me TOO much because they are not long lived (1-2 years and these were already adults). I am glad they have been having babies though because that means that I MIGHT be able to keep the population up with some luck. The freshwater tank is doing good and has some new fish in it. I also have a baby platy that I'm raising. So, overall, things are going well but I've had some down turns too. Well, I'll try to keep my blog updated more often now...