For people who've had cats that lived over 20 years: What kind of cat food did you feed your cat?

I have had two cats live over 20 years eating a variety of cheap cat foods, including Friskies and Cat Chow, as well as plenty of table scraps. They were also indoor/outdoor cats.

My last cat before the current crew made it to 17.8 years before she had to be euthanized. I didn’t feed her anything fancy. In her early years it was Chef’s Blend because that was the only food she liked. Later on, it was Friskies, Chef’s Blend, and Fancy Feast, all dry. Occasionally a treat of people food, scrabbled eggs, Pringles chips, pancakes, chicken, top roman, etc; not much but a good taste. She wasn’t fed ultra expensive food like Iams or Science Diet etc.

She was an outdoor cat, came to me at 9 months after living in the wild and having had a litter of kittens that I never saw. I fed her on the doorstep and left the window open.
Rosie liked tuna. That was all she ever ate. Deep red tuna that really looked like tuna. Brand name was Figaro. I guess some crunchies too but not sure.

She had a stroke at 21 after undergoing anaesthesia to have matts removed from her fur. A few hours after she returned she got up on the dining table and pissed it. Her decline was rapid after that. She did what cats [and people] do, went outside to find a private corner to turn her face to the wall and die. I couldn’t let her. I put plastic on the bed and kept her with me. She weakened in a few days and then stopped eating and died.

@anartist awww. She was lucky to have you.

We had a cat who was 21 before we had to put her down. She went deaf and, closer to her death, blind, but was otherwise normal until her last day, when she just lay around not moving much, not eating or drinking. I had moved out of my folks’ house by then and when my mom called me at work to ask me to come right to their place after my shift, I had to leave work right then because I was too upset. We had had her since I was 3; she really was more sister than pet.

She ate a bunch of different cheap cat foods over the years, like @ANef_is_Enuf and @Hypocrisy_Central said – Meow Mix, Friskies, whatever. She did get people food snacks now and then, too – a bit of fish or chicken, cheese, butter, milk. Plus whatever mice and bugs and things she ate outdoors – we stopped letting her out when we realized she was deaf, but she used to spend time outside for years.

My oldest cat lived to be 18 and she was a Siamese that ate mostly cat chow and canned food. This was pre-high quality cat foods.

My others have all died between 15–16 on average and one at 14.

Most recently my 15 month old Marley to FIP, being the youngest ever in my life of about 10 cats in 30 years. )

My cat now gets science diet mixed with purina cat chow and fancy feast. I have tried Evo and other expensive designer brands but she likes her 50/50 SD & CC blend.

I think, just like humans animals are subject to their genetics. My bosses shop cat ” Sunburst” is an ancient 19 yr. old longhair tortoiseshell that lives in the garage of our river store and eats a hodge podge of different foods, whatever is on sale. She gets canned food once a day and has her random brands of dry food out all times.

I spent an hour grooming her yesterday and de-tangling some mats in her coat.

She is the old girl of the river cat scene and has always been more of an outdoor barn cat type.

She still treks down to hunt on the riverbanks and is pushing 20 this year!

It’s 90% genetic IMO.

I have had two who lived to be over twenty and have a third who is still kickin’ at 21. The all ate Kit & Kaboodle for their entire lives.