The Cat Thread

My parents' kitten, visiting for a few days

Myself & Lula Balula have moved home into a narrowboat. The poor beast suffers terribly from anxiety & is sick whenever she senses change or gets in the car. I worried about her coping with being on a boat but she has settled in amazingly. She seems quite content. Fingers crossed we continue this way.

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Ok I have two kittens.

What food would you recommend? Currently we are currently trying different brands to find one they like.

Purina Gourmet Perle seems to be a reasonable balance of cost vs something resembling actual food. Our cats love it anyway.
If you're in London's famous London, Amazon Prime Now used to be the cheapest way to get it (60pk for ~£14).

on the subject of food - beyond what your cat likes, are there any reasons to go for brands that are generally considered better (ie:ethical/nutritious/middle class) than any other?

Just don’t feed them beef, that shit is fucked up. The image of my little cats taking down a cow is just ridiculous.

Actually feed them whatever you feel like. They’re your cats and they’ll learn to eat whatever you feed them. The more options you give them, the fussier they’ll get though.

Look at the ash content of cat food and go for the lowest percentage you can. Less ash, more meat is best.

Funny that, I've just moved onto a boat called Betty.

I choose food based on meat content, cheap jelly stuff is no no for me. Encore and Royal Canin are supposed to be pretty good.

I also choose how the company conducts tests on animals. I think someone here posted some list or something a long time ago. Hill's is shit company. Royal Canin is more ethical... for example. But again, my little fucker only east the expensive brands these days. My fault...

Also, don't forget some dry food is also needed.

At the mo, I am terrified. These two things need me to have my shit together to look after them. The fear of under feeding them, to the fear of over feeding them.

I just want them to be healthy, terrified that I will do something wrong.

We have all been there... Patch's vet seems to be happy with my method, so yes you can steal it. So I feed her half a tin of wet in the morning and half in the evening and there is always half a bowl of dry available. Clean water also...

Patch never finishes her dry but it's there so she can munch through the day and she does a number of time. She has managed to be around 4kg 3 years on a roll now. I have only had her for 4 years and she went from just over 3 kg (underweight) to now she is rouhgly the average for a adult female cat.

Obviously, you have 2, so you will have to keep an eye on their eating habit, jusy in case one ends up eating the other one's food too.

Finally, when a cat is hungry, it will tell you, don't you worry about it.

Testing out portrait mode on the new iPhone with a very unwilling model.

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Fleur has doubled in size over the last couple of weeks now her winter coat is in. Cannot describe how very floofy she's become! Her weight is the same so it's def just fuzz...

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So much flooff. It’s quite amazing just how much their coats change with the seasons.

It was only a few weeks ago she was still moulting all over the shop. By all rights she should be nearly bald, not twice the size now!
I'm also surprised at the change as she's an indoor kitty and our flat has a very constant temp throughout the year..

Gomez has been to the vet today after a day or two of urinating blood and in weird places. Vet thinks he has cystitis so I've had to get a urine sample.

Not the easiest thing I've ever done.

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Poor fella.

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Hendricks has cat acne.... yup - that's a thing.

Shows as black bits in fur under chin and flares up occasionally, causing redness and soreness.

Need to make a quick visit to the vets this afternoon to clean up and medicate.

Apparently feeding out of plastic bowls can exacerbate cat acne, so maybe try switching to ceramic bowls if not already doing so?

We've always used ceramic bowls unfortunately. They get cleaned at least once a day and twice most days.

One of ours developed this (was relatively mild) after drinking from pots of water in the garden that were filled with rain water. Got rid of pots and cleaned chin everyday with salted boiled water. Cleared it up ok.

Yeah; i've tried cleaning it up but it's clearly irritating him and he's scratching it when we're not around.

Hopefully the vet can give us something to clear this bout and we can try to keep on top of it with more regular cleaning moving forward.

So no plastic bowls?

Poor gomez hope it is nothing serious.