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A: Cats are obligatory carnivores, needing meat as their primary source of protein. Most commercial cat food has had grain added to raise the protein content and to make the food easier to process. Cats eating these grain-filled foods as their primary diet are showing up at vets' offices with degenerative, dietary-related diseases in much larger numbers than fifty years ago: diabetes, congestive heart failure, feline urological syndrome in males, obesity and related arterial blockages. For more information on feeding cats a high-meat-protein diet for their health, I recommend the book Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life, by Elizabeth Hodgkins, DVM, Esq.
I feed all of my cats mostly raw meats that I grind or chop and mix myself. I started out with the recipe and suggestions at Cat Nutrition.org, and modified them to suit my cats. There is also a lot of good information available at Raw Feeding Lifestyle (this is a friendly Facebook group which discusses many different approaches to raw feeding without criticism of any particular method). I wean the kittens onto raw food. As they get older, a high-quality grain-free dry food is made available free choice, and they are given some exposure to grain-free canned foods. I have just recently found Young Again Pet Food, a group of high-protein, low-carbohydrate dry foods uniquely formulated to mimic the nutritional content of species-appropriate raw prey, and I now do not feed any other dry foods. Use the link to find out more about Young Again foods or to order online. Orders over $25 are shipped free.
Canned foods with no grain:
1. Wellness canned foods (look for yellow "grain-free" triangle on label)
2. Wellness Core canned varieties (all of these are grain-free)
3. Evo canned foods. Evo's parent company, Innova, also makes a line of foods with some grains -- these should be avoided.
4. Taste of the Wild canned foods
5. Merrick Before Grain (BG) canned foods
6. Blue Buffalo Wilderness canned foods (scroll down when page opens). Blue Buffalo also makes a line of foods with some grains -- these should be avoided.
Many more varieties than these are now readily available at high-end pet stores as well as at PetCo or PetSmart, so it is no longer possible to list them all here. Most of these companies also make grain-free dry food which is of reasonably good quality, though lower in protein than the Young Again foods.
A: The litters I recommend are clumping litters containing no sodium bentonite, which is known to be dangerous to young kittens. It can be ingested as they lick it from their fur and can cause fatal blockages in the intestines. I also avoid scented litters of any kind, as most cats find these difficult to tolerate and will avoid the litter box if scents are used. A list of recommended products is below.
I mix Swheat Scoop, World's Best, and Nature's Miracle, using two scoops of Swheat Scoop and two scoops of World's Best to one scoop of Nature's Miracle. The combination prevents any odor problems, provides good clumping without sticking to the bottom of the pan, gives a comfortable surface to walk on, cuts the scent of the pine to a manageable level, and is MUCH cheaper than Nature's Miracle used alone.
