Natural Balance Ultra Premium Formula Dry Cat Food

We are breeders of sphynx (hairless) cats. Prior to Natural Balance, the only way we could get our cats to eat dry food was to mix it with warm water and a half can of canned cat food, usually Iams or Friskies when money was low. Our local feed store recommended Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance as a healthy and tasty alternative. Our adult cats love it...no more "hunger strikes" holding out for canned food. Even our kittens started eating it at only 8 weeks, when mixed with a bit of warm water. Since there are no 'fillers', the cats are eating less to become full, which to me justifies the higher price. EDIT NOVEMBER 2011: Six years later, this is the only food we buy for our cats and they still love it.

Some time ago I started looking into what is in pet food and was horrified, so I decided to find better food for them. I usually buy one bag of this brand and one bag of AvoDerm and mix them together. I've long been a believer that cats should eat fruits and vegetables, and this food has some of both in it, so they get more variety than they would with most cat foods.

I'm not sure of what changes the cats may have had since eating this food, but it does seem like the food lasts longer than it used to. Whatever the case, the cats are all healthy and love this food. One of the cats has gained a few too many pounds since she got spayed a couple years ago, so I'm going to get the reduced calorie formula for her and see if that helps.

I recently switched to this brand for dry and wet and Castor&Pollux's dry food. Since they all like the gravy based wet foods, I do add water to the canned food which they then happily devour. My 17 yo cat is very overweight, has bad teeth which cannot be cleaned again due to his age. Otherwise the vet thinks he's healthy. By accident I stumbled on some web based cat food reviews and was appalled at what I had been feeding my babies. I was naive in thinking Purina was healthy food. Since making the switch they all eat less although there is no change in the litterboxes. For now I'm sticking to these brands and possibly adding Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul brand as they really enjoy the sample bag as bedtime treats.