Wellness is a truly a premium range, and the Wellness CORE Grain Free cat foods are very good.
“Grain Free” is always good for a cat because our cats shouldn’t have any grains in their diet – they’re an obligate carnivore, and it’s undisputed fact. Not once in nearly two decades of reviewing pet foods have I found a pet food manufacturer to offer a decent reason why so many cat foods are rammed with grains, other than it’s cheap to make cat foods with them.
Your cat doesn’t need “grain free alternatives” either, like potatoes or tapioca, which is why Wellness CORE starts to look really good – you don’t find these ingredients either.
Let’s take a look at Wellness CORE Grain Free Original Adult for the sake of this review, but I would recommend feeding your cat a variety (not just flavours of kibble, but other types of cat food as well).
Wellness CORE cat food review
What the marketing says
The bag features a gold badge – how fancy – which says you can “Discover the 5 Signs of Wellbeing”. I feel the purpose is to make the bag look good, as it doesn’t say much about the product.
“Veterinarians recommend Wellness” may offer the brand credibility, but in truth I’ve known some veterinarians to happily endorse any pet food if they get paid for doing so.
What should matter more to you is the ingredients, and how appropriate those ingredients are for your pet carnivore.
Let’s take a look…
What the ingredients really say
What I love about the ingredients of Wellness CORE is they’re excellent choices for your carnivorous cat.
45% minimum protein and 18% fat is excellent, and I don’t think you’ll find a better dry cat food in Australia in that respect.
Out of the seven main ingredients (and I say main as these amount to most of the recipe), only one is a non-animal ingredient – peas. I see no reason to see that as a bad thing, as peas offer protein, fibre, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, and in such a moderation are likely beneficial for your cat.
Let’s consider the animal ingredients – deboned turkey, deboned chicken, turkey meal, chicken meal, chicken fat, and herring meal.
These are very appropriate ingredients for your carnivorous cat, and exactly what you should be looking for in a dry cat food.
“Deboned” is a form similar to what we would buy for ourselves, sometimes referred to as “real chicken”, whereas “Meal” is a protein powder from pre-cooking the animal and separating the protein from fat content.
The long list of ingredients which follow the above main ingredients will all amount to a few percent or less, but I’m happy to say they’re all beneficial for your cat.
Cheap cat foods use preservatives which may be detrimental to your cat’s health. Not immediately, but from consistent feeding over many months or years. That’s not the case with Wellness cat foods which use natural preservatives such as rosemary extract.
Flaxseed and Salmon Oil are great additions to support wellness – heart health, general wellbeing, skin and coat. It’s good to see salmon oil used instead of a cheaper plant-based oil.
Covering the remaining ingredients individually would take a while, but you can be assured they’re full of antioxidants, probiotics, and vitamins and minerals essential for your cat (as well as being required by pet food standard AAFCO).
Wellness CORE is without doubt a premium cat food, and premium isn’t a word I’d used for many cat foods which tell you they’re “premium”.
Wellness CORE isn’t the cheapest cat food, for good reason, but I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for a top quality dry cat food.
Where to buy
Wellness CORE can be purchased from the following retailers:
Ingredients
The ingredients of Wellness CORE cat food (Grain Free Original):
Deboned Turkey, Deboned Chicken, Turkey Meal, Chicken Meal (source of Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate), Peas, Chicken Fat, Herring Meal, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Flaxseed, Natural Flavor, Salmon Oil, Calcium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Cranberries, Dried Chicory Root, Hydrolyzed Yeast, Taurine, Vitamin E Supplement, Dried Kelp, Mixed Tocopherols added to preserve freshness, Vitamin C (L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate), Niacin, Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Iron Proteinate, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Sulfate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Manganese Sulfate, Riboflavin, Manganese Proteinate, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Calcium iodate, Folic Acid, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus licheniformis Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Product, Rosemary Extract, Green Tea Extract, Spearmint Extract.
Guaranteed analysis
The guaranteed analysis of Wellness CORE cat food (Grain Free Original):
| Protein | (min) 45% |
| Fat | (min) 18% |
| Crude Fibre | (max) 4% |
| Carbohydrates * | 19% (estimated) |
* May be estimated. Read how to calculate carbohydrates in a pet food.
I noticed the kibble in my last bag from Wellness looks different, and my cats have had more spews after eating.
Do you know of any changes to their recipe?
Also, the article says you can still find at Petbarn, but after their agreement lapsed it’s now available via Pet Circle.
Hi Samantha, not good news if your cats were vomiting. Did you return the bag or have any other issues later?
There could be a number of reasons – a manufacturing issue or bad batch is a possibility, but also issues with transport and storage, such as bags being left in hot sun or a hot warehouse, so it may not be an issue from Wellness per se.
I didn’t realise Petbarn no longer sell Wellness, so thank you – updated.
It seems that PetBarn have phased out the Wellness Brand of dry cat food! Probably replaced it with their Leaps and Bounds brand?
I feed my cat raw kangaroo meat daily (the mince sold for human consumption) and he loves the stuff and wont eat much else except small amounts occasionally of raw liver, raw kidney, raw beef etc. I very ocassionaly give him a small amount of a dry food.
My cats hate this brand. Won’t touch it.
Hello! Has anyone heard of the Clean Label Project and their review of Wellness? They did an independent study of this cat food and the results were sky-high lead and arsenic. I’ve written to Wellness for a response and dead silence. I spend a fortune on Wellness and now have removed this from my rotation.
One of Susan’s posts was pinned for that exact matter, I think it should be pinned here as well though, so people know what their buying, not everyone is going to visit the page where it was pinned.
It’s not surprising you didn’t get a response, after all their here to sell the food and make money not to care about your pet.
Those that do care will reply every time and it won’t take them several months to reply either.
My 15 month old Birman female has been on Wellness Core Kitten and now Indoor (also tried Complete) and has had a number of urinary issues. Thought I was feeding her one of the best foods, but my vet says that they see a high number of cats with urinary issues that are being feed high protein grain free type foods.
Vet of course recommends Science diet S/D or Royal Canin S/O.
Are there any better options, need something that is good for the cat and has low PH to reduce urinary issues, which doesn’t seem to exist?
You will want to increase water intake immediately, almost all urinary problems in cats are caused by a dehydrating dry food diet.
High protein grain free is not the issue I had actually read somewhere that some vet had started that and everyone kind of followed only it has no basis or proof.
You will now need to feed canned and maybe even add extra water to the food probably for the entire life of your cat, I’ve noticed over the years once people’s cats got a urinary problem once they then had it for life.
You may even be better off feeding a freeze dried food where you have to add the water back in, that’s what cats should typically be eating that and raw, dry foods have no real place for them on their food pyramid, it’s just convienient is all.
There also is no best food for you or your pets, each food has its problems, but species appropriate is better then not species appropriate.
Pets are typically chronically dehydrated on kibble when fed alone, I know that if I don’t drink enough water my urine burns it’s really no different for pets.
My cat has access to water all the time and seems to drink a fair bit of water.
She doesn’t like any wet food, have tried many flavors/brands, she sniffs them and walks off.
My vet only deals with cats, she said that her personally has seen a lot of cats with urinary issues where a high number were on a high protein – good food, she suspects that these foods can increase the PH of the urine which causes issues.
I have her on Royal Canin Urinary care at the moment, it seems to have more protein than Wellness Complete indoor 33% v 30% so it can’t be all that bad.
Hello Paul, trying to feed wet from petbarn…tiki cat …no grain, no veg, no fillers .a lot fish flavors and some chicken.and feed dry food advance indoor adult or trilogy kangaroo .lamb combination.my two cats love it…and is a healthy good mix
Personally I have read a lot of comments and websites stating that even though cats seem to drink a lot, adding extra to their diet is always the best course of action.
If it were my cat I’d get her onto a non dry food whether she liked it or not, chronic dehydration is no joke or laughing matter, I’m hoping to become a holistic nutritionist to help owners make better decisions but that all comes down to the owners and if their willing to change things.
I don’t feel that vet diets should be the first line of defence I reckon they should only be added if you’ve tried everything else and nothing has worked.
I am going to need to learn more about homeopathic methods because I feel herbs can be very beneficial also, but I currently lack herbal knowledge except that Hawthorn is good for heart health and Milk Thistle for cleansing.
I would just try a non dry food for 1 month and see how that goes, there’s no harm in trying it, a lot of pet food stores will gladly accept returns if nothing you do works.
Wet can foods are mostly all water (generally 70-80%) and have very little protein, so you can’t feed exclusively Wet food as they are not getting enough protein and minerals.
You can’t compare the protein content of a wet food (whether raw or canned) to dry food because it doesn’t list protein on a dry matter basis.
Lets say a wet food is listed as 8% protein,
Most wet foods have a 70-75% moisture content but lets assume that the food is 80% moisture.
That wet food with 8% protein and 80% moisture has a dry matter protein content of 40% which is comparable to this dry kibble of 45% protein 😉
That being said many canned foods can be crap if you don’t know what to look for in very much the same way dry food can be bad 🙂
That’s where freeze dried comes in, have you tried any of them?
K9 Natural has all breed all life stage formulas from their cat range.
Sunday Pets has a cat/kitten range, I haven’t really heard anyone talk about them in awhile though.
And then Frontier Pets is only dog so far, which is too bad their food is amazing, even though only Rusty thinks so, Andzia she just walks away.
Thing with her is that I found the reason she refused to eat and that was because of her stomach pain, thanks to Susan’s help with that as I thought it was just a skin pain or nerve pain issue she had apparently it was not, upon supplementing with some digestive, oils and vitamin c aids her stomach stopped hurting so much and she began eating daily instead of constantly walking away.
Karen Becker also mentions that cats are stubborn but that it’s not impossible to change them, you can go look up the article if you want, I can’t link anything here or else it needs to be approved and you won’t see my comment sometimes all day.
Even had several day old ones at times waiting approval.
I wonder how feline natural and Ziwipeak would rate for protein in their wet foods, since their formulas are almost exclusively meat.
I also guess try telling people that? Some feed exclusively wet and those that say on the pack that it’s not even for full feeding as it doesn’t meet any requirements, then their cats and dogs go to the vets with deficiencies congrats on not reading!
Reminds me of that lady at the shop who pushed past me to pick up a stick of bread without even checking if it can be used for anything other than adding crumbs to a batter lol, it was like a rock eww.
My kitten will not touch the wellness core dry kitten food but loves the wet!! I’ve tried and mixed with his kitten royal canon details ( which makes him have awful poops). About to try the ivory coat kitten to see how he goes.. I’m really looking into the best foods as my last cat developed cancer and it was awful 🙁 I think food related. Kitten also loves ziwipeak lamb wet food.
i would try the wellness core original my cat would not eat the kitten but loved the original,and it’s such a great food that it is perfectly fine to give a kitten 🙂
High carb foods are the bane of cats and dogs, if they have cancer it’s best to get off the processed foods completely and onto raw, a dog with the most aggressive cancer has been completely treated with a change to real food imagine that for a moment.
Same with diabetes also requires lower carbs.
Any thoughts on natural flavours in dry cat food? I reached out to Wellness who advised its some kind of broth (digest I suspect with possible vegetable derivatives in it too).
Is this a no no for cat food? Wellness also have these flavours in their wet food and appears in both dry and wet very high up on the ingredient list. I rotate my dry and use Ivory Coat Chicken, Wellness Core Original, Wellness Core Turkey, Earthborn Holistic Primitive Feline and I’m very happy. Dry only makes a small portion of overall diet mixed with fresh meat, Wellness Grain Free Wet and ZiwiPeak.
Hi Nathan, it’s one of the many completely ambiguous ways of labelling animal digest. It’s the broth from rendering meats. Grim as it is it’s in most pet foods.
I’ve noticed added flavours are in quiet a lot of foods, I think at the end of the day as long as it’s a company you can trust with good ethics that it’s going to be of good quality and there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
Foods from the big brands I’d be reluctant to feed as their ethics seem to be lies on top of lies and you can tell from their ingredients that they are anything but good people, it’s all money for them.
Purina, Mars, Hills <— these guys are f'ing awful.
I've also read that with cats tastes adding digest helps them enjoy the food they otherwise may not? this was written on companies websites, again not sure the truth in it.
Your cats are very lucky food wise though like damn!
This food is like Orijen for Australia haha, well as close as were ever going to get to it anyways.
Not counting dried or freeze dried foods of course.
HI, I wanted to ask again about BARFF but for cats. I wanted to try to it for my cat to see if it will benefit her. How would you suggest I include it in her diet? Would I give it to her separately from her dry food at the start or end of the day? What are the benefits of adding raw meat to a cats diet?
I feed my 2 Ragdolls BARF Raw Isabel. Cats are Obligate Carnivores, they need raw meat in their diets to live a healthy life. Otherwise they will develop kidney and liver diseases if they are constantly fed on dry food.
Thanks so much for your pet food reviews – so helpful. Would love to see a review on Wellness Complete and Canidae grain free (standard & indoor – potatoes content varies). My 5 month old kitten is on Wellness Balance dry (morning) and Wellness wet (night) but will be alternating between Canidae & Wellness several months at a time – would love your feedback on this. Thanks again for the great reviews, I’m so grateful that someone out there is doing a great job like you 😉
Hi Les, they’re both good foods and I see rotating foods as a good thing as well as intermixing with wet. I’ve added a review for Wellness Complete, and here’s a review of Canidae Grain Free. The Canidae Indoor formula for cats is a grain recipe, so significantly more carbs than the grain free PURE range.
Thank you so much! Have also discovered Ziwipeak, however can only afford it when on bulk sae at mypetwarehouse.com.au Thank you again for your help, gets so confusing choosing the best food my cat. Your site is my go-to resource for pet food information! Would love it if you started reviews on wet food too!
🙂
My cat Cleo loves this cat food. I bought a bag on special and gave her a taste of a few biscuits. There were a few of her old Whiskas cat biscuits still in her bowl and because Cleo will eat anything, I expected her to gobble the old biscuits up after the new ones. Instead, after she finished the Wellness CORE biscuits she sniffed the Whiskas biscuits, turned her nose up and looked up at me like she was asking, “Where’s more of that good stuff?”. Glad that she loves it and glad that it’s good for her! 🙂
I have 4 cats. 3 just turned 1 & 1 new adoption who is 5 months. I am looking for a quality cost affect way to feed them. 1 was very sick when little & now has a sensitive tummy. She is the biggest at 6kg. I also have 1 who has had issues with urinating when eating dry food (not the 5 month old). ATM I feed them twice a day (although with the new addition who is still young they are being fed 3 x a day). They do like the dry food so I try & give this either for breakfast or lunch. Then the wet meal consist of pet kangaroo mince mixed with whiskas. )I find the 400g tins value for money however worry that it isn’t the best choice.
Would love to hear what other feed their kitty’s in a multi cat household.
I’m thinking the Wellness core grain free is a good option or the black hawk grain free but worry that it is not suitable for the kitty with the urinary tract issue.
Can any-1 help or know what these have as their PH level. I believe it needs to have low magnesium levels to help lower the acidity levels?
Also need a good wet food to add to the mince. mainly adding a can food to the mince for the vitamins?
Thanks
Hi Jos, just noticed your message as i was posting below. I noticed my cat’s wet food mentions it helps prevent urinary stones? Not sure if this is what you’re after, but here it’s called Canidae All Life Stages (green label on the tin). Hope that helps a little.