| Website | Kirkland |
| Available from | Costco |
Kirkland is made by Diamond Petfoods, known for making a number of premium brands including Taste of the Wild. That’s not a bad thing, especially when this food comes with a Costco price tag.
The main ingredient is salmon meal which is a good choice, far better than the grains or by-products we find in other supermarket and big name brands. It’s backed up by ocean fish meal to ensure the food is rich in protein our cats can digest.
The main carbs come from sweet potato, and although cats don’t really need carbs it’s definitely a better option than grains or regular potato which is higher GI. We do find potato as the fifth ingredient, but it has to be noted the overall estimated carbs is a relatively low 36%.
Peas and pea protein as the 4th and 6th ingredients will account for some of the protein in the food as well as fibre. Peas aren’t a bad ingredient, but for cats it’s an inferior ingredient to meat.
Canola oil is included as a good source of omega 3 to help protect against kidney and heart disease, aid joint health, and help your cat maintain a healthy coat. It would be nice to see the inclusion of flaxseed as well, but this is sadly lacking – it’s something we find in other quality foods. That said, we have a range of vitamins, minerals, as well as fruits and veggies. They’re quality vitamins and minerals too, so no skimping of cost compared to other brands – they’re some of the best sources of vitamins and minerals available.
There may be better foods, but bucket loads are far worse. This is well deserving of 4 stars, border line 5 stars. If you live near Costco then it’s a good option for both your cat and your wallet.
Ingredients
Salmon meal, ocean fish meal, sweet potatoes, peas, potatoes, pea protein, canola oil, natural flavor, choline chloride, DL-methionine, taurine, dried chicory root, tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, yucca schidigera extract, dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product, dried Bifidobacterium animalis fermentation product, zinc proteinate, vitamin E supplement, niacin, manganese proteinate, copper proteinate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), vitamin A supplement, biotin, potassium iodide, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin (vitamin B2), pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, manganous oxide, sodium selenite, vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
Hi, I was wondering how the Maintenance cat food from Costco compares? It costs about the same but the bag is 3kg more. It does list rice as the third and fourth ingredients, but on the face of it the nutritional figures are almost the same as the one you’ve reviewed above. We are a very small group of volunteers looking after 120+ cats in a daily basis and have been using the aldi premium food thinking it was better than their cheap crap until I saw your review of it and was horrified to find that as you’ve correctly put it “it’s crap in a fancy bag”. I’m trying to find the cheapest possible option obviously, but for food that is worth while feeding them. Many people laugh and say “they’re just street cats!” But of course to us they are family and it’s note important than even with house cats to feed them the correct food in order to fend off I’ll health to which they’re so much more prone than the average pet cat. If you have any suggestions for a good and inexpensive wet food I’d love to hear that also. We feed them raw (human grade) meat/mince/ chicken at least twice per week, but the rest of the time they’ve been getting certain kinds of cans (only certain “colours” as we’re aware some of them are just awful) from aldi which were described by a Choice review as fairly good for them.
Yes, Sonia, use the Kirkland maintenance cat chicken and rice formula. I have been using this to feed homeless cats for years and they do very well on it. I supplement it once or twice a week by buying cans of cheap mackerel at WinCo food or getting them a rotisserie chicken from costco. It’s only fault is being just a tiny bit low in protein but you can easily fix that by mixing in some of these meats once in awhile. They do really well on this, it doesn’t kill them like the cheap crap on the bottom shelf at Walmart.
Hi there what your doing is wonderful but indeed caring for so many souls is never a cheap task and as much as you’d love to feed them species appropriate it isn’t always that easy.
I have gone onto the website and I have checked the food out, it is perfect and very cheap for the ingredients, I highly recommend it on that basis alone, the analysis protein/fat etc is also very good. This food is very well thought out and deserves an oscar for those ingredients at that price point wow!
Aldi Natural Elements cans are very good, I’m just not sure they have cat versions, however since taurine is in the kibble, the cans don’t really require it, you can actually always supplement it if you feel it necessary.
You can get a 100g bag for $16 and all you need is a pinch per cat, would last forever even with 120+ lol. But their taurine needs I think are rather low and as long as they eat the kibble they’ll get what they need.
I looked it up but most have 0.12% and that’s enough and this one is 0.1%, but it is added and I would think that despite it looking lower that they are conforming to the AAFCO standards.
Would like to know what the Calcium to Protein ratio is for each of these products. Best way to know how good they are.
We bought this food based on this review and since feeding to our two cats one has developed occasional cystitis symptoms. Vet checks were done and they could not find an underlying cause, the only lifestyle change my cat had experienced was the swapping of dry food products. Since this food has a good ingredient list compared to other brands I’m at a loss as to why it would cause these problems.
Did you know that a combo of dry food mixed with wet food makes a better digestible diet?
Add canned food to the quantity of kibble you want to serve your cat. Mix them well. Try a ratio of 20% wet food to 80% dry for each meal. Even better= add a bit of water to some canned food and lightly warm in microwave. Make a mixture the consistency of a thick gravy and mix onto your kibble. Then serve this in a non-porous dish (or flattened bowl) = this is a great way to add moisture and a bit more flavor to your cats meal without changing the kibble base. Pate or ground canned food makes the better choice to mix in with the kibble.
Some specific ingredients have been known to make it worse, your cats could of already had the problem, just hid it really well from you as that’s what pets usually tend to do.
You should also be adding either water to the kibble or a canned food as cats don’t drink very much water, this will help to lower the chance of getting cystitis, doesn’t mean it will remove the chance completely though.
Absolutely! Always add more moisture to your cats meal! One of my methods is to hot-soak some of this kibble (Use half cup of dry kibble in steel bowl, add hot water, and cover). When cooled down, feed about 50/50 soaked kibble to dry kibble of an appropriate serving along with a few tablespoons of warmed canned food and mix well. This is my cats’ supper meal and it ensures they are getting an appropriate amount of moisture into their diet. It is called “scheduled” feeding and a lot better than free-feeding dry — which is hard on your cats kidneys.