# meowing heads cat food, any good?



## Biawhiska (Mar 28, 2008)

Meowing Heads Cat Food | Net Pet Shop


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## Biawhiska (Mar 28, 2008)

Bump, anyone on here tried it?  I may get some to try.


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

I've never heard of it but had a look at the link - it does sounds quite good


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## spid (Nov 4, 2008)

Oh, I was hoping for another good quality wet.


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

Before you buy it I would email the company for some more nutritional info, particularly when it comes to minerals. When they sent me their figures for the grain-free one I was quite frankly startled by the alleged amount of magnesium and sodium in the food (with no reaction from them when queried).


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## Biawhiska (Mar 28, 2008)

Thanks. I won't even bother with it then.


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## HeartofClass (Jan 2, 2012)

Any new opinion on this food? It's coming into my local pet store and they're advertising it as a high quality food. Is it worth trying? Considering that yes, it is unfortunately dry food, and I still feed mine some dry along with wet.

Edit; it's impossible to copy the ingredients in a good readable way, so here's the links:

Hey Good Looking
Purr Nickety


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

HeartofClass said:


> Any new opinion on this food? It's coming into my local pet store and they're advertising it as a high quality food. Is it worth trying? Considering that yes, it is unfortunately dry food, and I still feed mine some dry along with wet.
> 
> Edit; it's impossible to copy the ingredients in a good readable way, so here's the links:
> 
> ...


Hey HoC, I would just send the manufacturers a quick email for more info re their analysis. Just ask them whether they could send you a more detailed outline of their mineral and trace element content. The Purrnickety was the one that I queried a while ago.


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## HeartofClass (Jan 2, 2012)

Okay, I just sent them an email. I can see that information on the particular amounts seems to be quite lacking. In general, looking at the protein amounts and ingredients, would you say it's a good quality food, or is it impossible to tell?

Edit, I found another list of ingredients:

Hey Good Looking:


> Ingredients:
> 
> Boneless Chicken*, Dried Chicken*, Rice, Dried Fish*, Dried Egg, Oats, Chicken Fat, Natural Flavours, Salmon Oil, Dried Tomato, Seaweed, Vegetable Fibre, Dried Carrot, Dried Cranberries
> 
> ...


Purr Nickety


> Ingredients:
> 
> Boneless Salmon*, Dried Fish*, Dried Chicken*, Rice, Potato Starch, Pea Starch, Dried Egg, Chicken Fat, Salmon Oil, Natural Flavours, Oats, Tomato, Seaweed, Vegetable Fibre, Dried Carrot, Dried Cranberries
> 
> ...


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

Ha, I was just going to post these. I think they must have changed the recipe for Purrnickety as I am quite sure that used to be grain-free but now contains "rice". 

I think they are alright foods. The % meat claim also includes the fresh meat proportion, which we know gets reduced during production.

Personally, if I had to choose between the two of them - and given the info provided so far - I would choose the Purrneckity myself: more protein, fewer carbs. However, that is the food that in the past they gave me off-the-scale magnesium and sodium values for.


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## HeartofClass (Jan 2, 2012)

> I think they are alright foods. The % meat claim also includes the fresh meat proportion, which we know gets reduced during production.


Wait, so just to make sure I am understanding you correctly - the actual amount of meat in the food would then be lower than their percentage provided?


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

HeartofClass said:


> Wait, so just to make sure I am understanding you correctly - the actual amount of meat in the food would then be lower than their percentage provided?


Well, yes, because ingredients get weighed before they get processed. Fresh meat, which contains moisture, is heavier than other products in this list. Say, that the first ingredient in the list is fresh chicken and it contains 26%. Let's also say that 70% of that fresh chicken is moisture, which will get extruded in the process - so you are effectively left with 7.8% of fresh chicken once it has been processed. All this means is that the proportion of the fresh meat to the other ingredients changes.

Have a read around here: The Dog Food Project - Meat vs. Meal


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## HeartofClass (Jan 2, 2012)

Thanks Hobbs! I've already said to myself that I'll try to learn more about cat nutrition and genetics this summer so thanks for the link too, I'll give it a read.


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

Let me know what meowing heads say re the more detailed analysis.


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## HeartofClass (Jan 2, 2012)

I hope you don't mind me asking you another question 
So, we can easily say that the % of actual meat in the food is lower, considering a lot of moisture gets "lost" in the process but was in the beginning included in the weight of the meat. What does that mean about the protein %? Is that measured in the end product and therefore supposed to be accurate, or shoud the actual content also be lower?

Oh and yes, I'll let you know when/if they get back to me


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

No, the protein content as such isn't affected by there being moisture in the raw ingredients (fresh meat) or not (meat meal). The values that they give you are the average values at a crude analysis once the food has been produced (and tested). 

Having said that, if you want to compare it with a different product then it makes sense to factor out the tiny bit of moisture that is still left (ie. 7%). So, for comparison purposes, say you have two foods

a) protein 40%, moisture 7%
b) protein 40%, moisture 10%

both have the same protein content - apparently. Once you factor out the moisture content though you see that food a) contains 43% protein, while food b) contains 44.4%

This particularly important when you compare a dry food with a wet food, which - by definition - have widely differing moisture levels. 

HTH


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## HeartofClass (Jan 2, 2012)

Thank you once again


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