is senior food a must for older cats?

[Mark]

Senior light is OK but regular senior is high fat. Not too many senior/light brands though - I've only seen Hill's, JWB and PAH

[Desley (booktigger)]

WEll, according to JWB's leaflet, their Senior/Light has 33% less fat and less calories. Their typical analysis shows 31% protein for adults and 29% for senior, no fat level, nor does Perfect Fit (haven't got round to checking the PAH bags yet)

[Mark]

it certainly surprises me Mark, I had three cats eating senior food on an at-call basis for several years and none of them suffered obesity as can be seen from the photos i have posted in the past ... maybe you need to re-check that information ...

No - I checked it once and that was enough 

It was either PAH or Hill's I looked at and it was something like 18& fat for adult and 21% for senior. There is some good info on Burns website re quality of protein etc. I'm assuming they don't see the need for special diets for obesity or senior. As their only food is 12% fat, that can't be bad. I think I will give it a try.

[Gwen]

I'll look into doing bloods on him then.  Had bloods done on grwndi to check for diabetes etc because of his tabs

[blackcat]

it certainly surprises me Mark, I had three cats eating senior food on an at-call basis for several years and none of them suffered obesity as can be seen from the photos i have posted in the past ... maybe you need to re-check that information ...

[Desley (booktigger)]

I personally believe in doing bloods yearly, Molly will be having hers in the next 2 weeks. I also do 6 monthly checkups on mine, although every cat bar Molly have been at the vets more often than that anyway!!

[Gwen]

No I haven't recently Des,do you think I should?   

[Desley (booktigger)]

That surprises me too Mark, as it goes against what my vet nurse told me, and my own experiences with it. Gwen, have you had bloods done on Ging, accoridng to my vet nurse cats dont lose weight with age, they are like humans and put it on.

[Gwen]

Wow Mark thats surprised me,I would of thaught it would be less in fat   so am I doing ok in giving it to Grwndi thien?

[Gwen]

No, so far so good,Grwndi has a tendancy of putting weight on but thats mainly because of his tablets,he's on Prednicare tablets for allergies.

Ging is definately not overweight,infact he's a bit on the skinny side but I put that down to his age mainly,Ging prefers his pouch to dry anyway,he'll eat dry if he's really hungry

[Mark]

Senior food is very high fat - I have read up on this and checked packs. Its to allow for the fact that they eat less and don't absorb fat so well - so an adult cat could get fat on it.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

Unless there are special needs, I don't think senior food is essential.  Usually it has slightly lower phosphorus content which is useful for senior puds, but unless the cat has kidney problems I don't think that's esential.  A lot of foods are all life stages anyway.  Jaffa is only 10, but he is fed a mix of adult food and the odd senior food.  Most of the stuff he eats is normal adult or all life stages (natures menu, bozita, applaws...) but he also has the odd pouch of felix or perfect fit and I do buy the senior version of those.  That's because his last blood test showed his kidney values to be towards the high end of normal and since Mosi doesn't eat either of those I thought Jaffa might benefit from having the senior variety.  If he was on dry I think I'd probably feed him normal adult.  Senior is often light food too so I wouldn't feed that to a cat of normal weight.  Do either of your older cats have any health issues?

[Desley (booktigger)]

I wouldnt give senior food to adult cats, unless they are overweight, as it does have certain thigns reduced due to seniors being less active (Tell Molly that at 12am!!). Personally, mine aren't on senior food at the moment, if they have purely senior dry, they loose too much weight, so they have a mix of it. If you want to try Senior PAH, pm me your address and I shall happily send you some, as I have 4kg here that they dont want!! I used to feed Senior wet, but then went on higher meat content foods, and only one of those come in senior, so mine (15 and I feed Zi who is 17) get adult wet.

[blackcat]

Since I find it impossible to feed two different types of food with multiple cats in the household, I was feeding senior to Bob (19), Ralfie ( and Sofie (3) with no ill effects. Probably would not do it with a cat less than a year old, but otherwise it does not seem to be a problem. the benefit of the senior food is that it contains elements that keep their bones strong and keep them fit and healthy and their bladders working healthiliy. Normal adult food has similar ingredients, but not in such a readily accessible form, or so my vet explained ...

[Tiggy's Mum]

Have you tried Pets at Home dry Gwen?  It's got virtually identical ingredients to JWB but is much cheaper - you could stock up when on offer (think it's 3 for 2 at the mo) and then you could get both the adult and senior at the same time.

In answer to your question - if I had the choice I would feed the correct food for the age range ie senior over adult but I'd also bear in mind that age targetted food is a relatively new thing and cats have done very well for many years without age targetted food.  As long as they are healthy and not over/under weight then I personally wouldn't worry too much about which one they got.

[Gwen]

I know I am going to get slammed for this question but I am finding it hard to afford two lots of food for my puddies. 

My older two (11 and 18) are on jwb senior/light and Rameses is at the moment on kitten but after this bag has finished is going onto adult,but it still means I have to buy two lots of food,if senior REALLY is a must and does help my older puddies then I'll carry on with it but is senoir just a "marketing" thing or does it really benefit them?

Sorry in advance