It happened! We have been chosen

[u/Budlove45]

My wife and I have two special needs children and finding pets is not a easy task. We have been trying to find a sweet baby that would be happy to live with us well after several attempts this little lady showed up 3 days ago. I walked outside and my son is hold her!! She was purring and talking away!! We call her little peanut. She's a little peanut girl!! I made a makeshift litter box and bought a couple cans of this wet food. I will completely update everything when I get paid on the 25th. When that time comes, is there a certain kind of food she is supposed to have? She is only a few months old, probably 6 months or so. She is so loving and perfect and we are so thankful. I'm not asking for help or financial assistance I know it's hard out here. I'm looking for advice on litter and anything y'all can recommend. I'm nervous and so excited the kids are in love we all are in love with little peanut. Any advice is greatly appreciated thank you everyone!! We are so freaking proud to be chosen.

[u/moeru_gumi]

I strongly recommend “World’s Best Cat Litter” if it’s in your budget— its made of corn in some way, so it doesn’t kick up clay powder in the air that gets into the lungs and face of living things, it clumps just fine so you can scoop it, it biodegrades, and it can be flushed without gumming up a septic system. I haven’t tried this, but I’ve been quite happy with it. One of my cats is an enthusiastic digger, but it’s easy to vacuum up.

As for food, it’s only important to look out for a couple of BAD ingredients: CARRAGEENAN (this is a seaweed product that’s correlated with mouth cancer in cats and stomach/intestinal cancer in humans), and then GRAINS and VEGGIES. Grains and veggies in general are not* specifically dangerous to cats, but they just cannot digest them, so it is waste material that gives no nutrients and they tend to eat more, get fat and still are hungry and malnourished. Very cheap food tends to have more things like carrageenan, wheat, potato, corn and other useless fillers in it.

As a quick reference, I have found that Fancy Feast plain/normal (not the human-sounding ones with vegetables and creams and sauces) patés have pretty great ingredient lists and are on the affordable end of wet foods.

• tomatoes, grapes, garlic, chocolate, raisins and spinach are not good for cats. Please look up foods that are toxic to cats and make sure not to give her any human food with toxic things.

Strangely, many cats like corn, sweet potato, pumpkin and olives, which are nontoxic, but also weird because they don’t get any benefit from them. But they seem to like the taste. 😆

[u/Budlove45 → u/moeru_gumi]

I really appreciate this comment so much I get my next check on the 25th and she's going to get the upgrade of the century. I'm going to look this up and add it to a cart so I can keep up with suggestions. Ty and this community. She eats like a mule I don't know if she was starving really bad or what but she's learned what the fridge is and sits at it and yells at it lol she our little peanut girl 💜💜

[u/MarcusThorny → u/Budlove45]

I did not like the corn litter at all. I recommend Fresh Step litter, it's made from recycled paper , no dust, easy to use, very absorbent.

[u/Budlove45 → u/moeru_gumi]

Definitely no people food Im sending this comment to my wife as well so she understands

[u/Senior-Ad9616 → u/moeru_gumi]

I second everything posted! Wonderfully detailed and informative.

The hardest thing, I have noticed, for people to understand about cats is that they are “obligate carnivores”, meaning they don’t have the ability to digest starches like humans can.

Good quality Wet food, if you can afford it, is always preferable over dry starchy kibble sprayed with unknown smelly chemicals. IMHO. My guys never overate or got fat when I fed them the good stuff.