Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Binch Lover]

We got a 6 month old kitten a few weeks ago. The previous owner gave us some Royal Canin dry kitten food, which is running out. We tend to give our cat dry food in the morning, and mixed dry and wet in the evening. I chose a Japanese brand of wet food in Homeplus based on its protein percentage (much higher than the others at 18%).

From looking on the internet, brands like Purina and Royal Canin don't seem to be the best option. What do you feed your cat, and where do you get it from?

[Dazed and Confused]

What about Science Diet or ProPlan??? Eukanuba is made by Iams and carried here as well. I don't have cats but I've had good success with feeding those to my dogs.

[Illysook]

I like feeding my cat Iams when I can afford it, but I also know of a cat that lived for 18 years on Dad's, and he even survived for another 8 months after a vicious dog attack... so I don't worry about it too much. Mostly, they need love.

[miljeong]

[Gatsby]

Get your cat used to eating a variety of foods while he is young. Don't stick to one dry food.

One of the best dry foods I've found in Korea is at HomePlus, U.S. Grain's Regal Cat Bites. Ingredients: Chicken meal, turkey meal, brown rice, corn, corn gluten meal, beet pulp, chicken fat, fish meal, oat meal... It's not the cheapest, but there is no soy, no wheat, which are not particularly good for cats, and the corn is not near the top of the list.

If you get more than one dry cat food, alternate it, don't mix it all together. It's healthier that way, and the cat needs a change of pace.

They've got some moderately priced Purina Cat Chow in Korea. It is not the same formula as the American Cat Chow. The ingredients list is horrifying. Salt is the third ingredient. Great if you want to be changing the kitty litter every day. But if the cat doesn't have lots of water (a stray), I'm afraid it could cause kidney damage. Thanks, Nestle.

If you have a good pet store nearby or order from gmarket, ProBest is a good Korean cat food. Texas Star Pro is a very good cat food. You can get these cheap in big bags, but it will be too much for a kitten.

Korean canned cat food is absurdly over priced, and it is mostly tuna or mackerel. Try giving your cat some canned tuna or canned mackerel. You can even get canned Alaska salmon cheaper than cat food; try it. Even Costco's canned chicken chunks look cheap compared to Korean canned cat food.

Try giving your cat fresh fish. Don't worry about the bones in raw fish, I haven't seen any cats here have a problem. I give raw fish heads to stray cats, and they love them.

My cats love shredded cuttlefish. And those little dried "anchovies" (sardines?). And surimi - fake crab sticks - I cut them diagonally and warm them; eating them whole can cause the cat to throw up.

Pork is relatively cheap. Get your cat used to eating it.

I sometimes make cat food with rice and ground up whole corn. I add canned mackerel, sometimes pork, maybe an egg, some garlic, a little salt, a good portion of vegetable oil for fat, and finally I may add some wheat flour to thicken it. I cook it in a pot, but find that it helps to bake it in the final stage in a microwave, since it tends to burn on the bottom of the pot towards the end.

For extra calcium, I add eggshell, washed, dried and powdered with a pestle or mini blender.

If you want to keep it simple, try mixing some cooked rice with canned mackerel or tuna.

There are things you should never give a cat or dog: No onions. No xylitol artificial sweetner. Avoid red peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant -- they are nightshades. No Spam. Check the internet for more advice on things to avoid.

Garlic is fine, carrots are fine -- shredded.

The dog treats here seem to be safe for cats, too. I get a beef jerky from Costco and cut it into thinner slices. The duck jerky from Lotte is very popular with my cats.

If you can find liver here, it is very good for cats. You can find chicken gizzards, and they are good, too, if you simmer them for an hour.

For an indoor cat, try growing some grass from wheat, barley or oats if you can find some whole grains that will sprout, and have a sunny balcony.

Good luck with your cat!

[pkang0202]

I switch around the dry food for my cats. They get bored of a single kind so I gotta buy a new brand every couple months.

For dinner, they get canned food. A box of canned food that will last a month can be bought on gmarket for like 20,000w.

[Muffin]

I no longer live in Korea and when I did, I didn't have a cat so don't know much about the pet foods on offer.

However, now I care for several street cats in a country where cat food is extortionately expensive. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to feed them the best. Corn is not very good for cats, but less expensive kibble tends to have a lot of it. It causes skin allergies in some cats.

I use kibble for convenience but supplement it with other stuff, chicken, fish and chicken liver. My vet told me that too much liver is not very good for cats, so I tend to limit it to once a week. Never feed chicken bones to dogs or cats, they can splinter inside.

I have read, that unlike dogs, cats are true carnivores so anything that is not animal based is purely a filler and does nothing to nourish the cat.

Dried kibble is not great for older cats because it increases the likelihood of kidney problems (so a vet told me).

Cats should not be given dog food because cats need taurine, and dog food does not provide this in high enough quantity. Without taurine, cats can go blind.

[Gatsby]

Good advice, Muffin.

I saw a store selling kittens here, and they were not doing well. It looked like they were being fed dog food, presumably because it is half the price of cat food, and looks about the same. Kittens, especially, need the taurine to develop properly. Taurine is in meat, particularly organ meats. It is also in fish, so raw fish heads is a good food for street cats, as long as they avoid any sharp teeth.

Liver is a good source of vitamin A and other vitamins, so it is an excellent food for kittens and cats. I suppose if a cat ate too much of it they could get a vitamin A overdose. It's better to mix it with rice, etc.

My experience is that cats do fine eating chicken bones. I give them to my house cats and street cats. They chew on the softer parts and leave the hard, sharp parts behind. They have a lot of common cat sense. I suppose if they were starving, they might go too far.

Skin problems in cats, especially in a dusty, dry locale like Egypt might more likely be due to skin mites. This can be treated with Revolution flea treatment. You need to be able to pet the cats to treat them, though. Here's the trick: Get the biggest tubes of Revolution for dogs. Figure out the dose for cats, then do the math for the dog tube, which will be larger and more concentrated. Get a dull hypodermic needle, like that used for filling ink jet cartridges. Measure out a dose and give it to the cats. You might be able to get 10 doses from one cat for about the same price. It's the same chemical -- I asked a company rep. If you have any left over, seal the tube with chewing gum.

While a raw meat diet may be the best for cats, frankly, I think this carnivore bit is overdone. Plenty of cats live to be 15 or even 20 on commercial diets. And some dry food is very good for their teeth. Cooking grains and vegetables probably makes them more digestible for cats. And they do like to chew on grass and some leaves. If you are feeding adult street cats, they need calories. Get cheap organ meats, even kidneys, and mix them in with cooked grain, such as rice, barley, corn, oats, wheat, buckwheat. Add some garlic and vegetable oil or animal fat.

Frankly, cats love the taste of corn. They will gladly eat a corn muffin. It's hard to avoid in dry cat food. When feeding street cats and trying to give them enough calories to make it through the winter, corn is a good option. For house cats, the risk is it is fattening. But if you put a little in for flavor, that should not be too much of a problem.

Wheat is probably more allergenic, and soy more dangerous to their health. But for a cat back in the States, there are reasonably priced cat foods without corn -- I forget the name, but the company was based in Germany.

Back to the OP and Korea, get a young cat used to eating lots of different stuff. There is a danger that a house cat can get finicky and only eat dry food or canned food. Too much dry food is not good for older cats, especially. And there has been some question about the safety of canned food because of chemicals in the can's liner. More important, look at the canned food: many contain soy, even canned cat tuna in the States.

There has been speculation that long term consumption of soy can damage the cat's thyroid. My cat died of thyroid disease, and it seems to be increasingly common.

Soy contains toxins and hormones. Consumption of unprocessed soy on a daily basis can be dangerous to your health, whether you are a cat or a human. Soy beans are not a health food, unless they are processed into something like tofu. Don't take my word for it, just go to google.com and type in: soy dangers.