Customer Reviews

Hill's Science Diet Adult Indoor Dry Cat Food - 3.5-Pound Bag

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

My cat is picky, especially when it comes to dry food. She will happily go days refusing to eat anything if I push a kibble she doesn't like on her (damn torties!. I switched my cat from friskies to Hills Scienc Diet when she grew to adulthood. Then I decided to try one of those natural diets, with no fillers, and only uses real meats and blah blah blah. One she wouldn't go near, and the other she would eat reluctantly. Except the super active, petite 7lb 4oz tortie grew to just over ten pounds, waddled when she walked, because she was horribly obese, and slept 24 hours a day, waking up only to eat, and her coat was staritng ot lose it's shine. That scared the hell out of me! So I switched back to Hills. With a week, she was starting to show interest in toys again, and was already starting to lose that swaying flabby fat belly. Now she's back down to 7lb 7oz, and very active, healthy, and happy. I will NEVER switch her food again!

My kitten--now a hefty 11 pound slug--went through the same antics as the 1-star review written about Bean.

I couldn't figure out why our Tiki was always hungry. Why she got fat and lazy and was always panting, but never too satiated to turn up her nose at Science Diet. She was always begging for it, every 4 hours. And her litter-box smells, and the size of the poos--I swear, they were human-size! I thought okay, she's a growing kitten, she must know more than I do about her nutritional needs, so I kept filling the bowl. But she got so huge so fast that I knew something was wrong.

So I did my research and learned all about sub-standard pet food, and what cats really need. It's not Science Diet, that's for sure! Yet our local pound where I adopted Tiki insisted on keeping her on Science Diet, because "it's good for the cats and they love it". Hmmm.

I began weaning our Tiki off Science Diet about 2 months ago. It has been a long and tortuous change for both of us. I have to put up with pitiful meowing all hours of the night. Unfortunately I have to keep a small bag of Science Diet in the pantry (long story short: our other emaciated cat Tonga needs to have a small amount of Science Diet mixed in with her good Evo food to "fatten her up" with empty calories).

You should see Tiki when she comes anywhere near the Science Diet bag of food. She goes nuts, literally. She yanks at the bag, tries to rip it open, drags it around the house in her teeth...one time she even bit through some plastic water bottles to try to get behind them and attack the Science Diet.

When we began this process 2 months ago I switched to Innova Evo (timed feeding) along with various expensive wet foods, freely fed. Evo is great for the cats (though Tonga, already a sleek looking cheetah-wannabee) lost weight on it; hence, the need to augment her food with fattening, empty-cal Science Diet. On strictly Evo and wet food our Tiki, too, has lost weight, but it has been gradual, as I can't do it too fast, because she is still a growing kitten at 10 months.

Sorry for the jumble of writing, but you get the point: NO to Science Diet.

This review will make me sound really stupid, but whatever. I don't really care as long as people find out what's real and can avoid my mistakes.

I got my wonderful little sweet Bella Bean when she was a few days shy of three years old. She had been bounced around from house to house and eating whatever was cheap. I have had cats around me my entire life, for about twenty-five years now. My mother always just fed them whatever, the kinds of food you buy in the supermarket - Friskies, Nine Lives, Kit & Kaboodle, stuff like that. And our cats were always fine, at least in terms of their eating habits. They would eat in the morning, stop when they were done, come back, and eat some more when they got hungry.

My housemate at the time was working for Hill's and assured me that this was the best food ever made, so great, so on and so forth. I now know that she is an utter buffoon, but I initially trusted her judgment, which is so unfortunate because she doesn't think. She also had plenty of coupons for free or deeply discounted bags, which made it a much more attractive choice.

I first tried feeding the little Bean an unmeasured amount of Science Diet in a bowl, but that didn't work, as she would devour it in one sitting. So then I took to measuring it, and she did the same thing. Then I started parsing it out to twice a day. That didn't work either, because she would start going crazy in the middle of the day, running around, intentionally destroying things, deliberately spilling her water, crying, etc., until she got more food. So then I split it into three servings. Same thing. Then it got to be four servings. That was a little better, but it was too much maintenance and unrealistic to be around every day to feed her four times. So then it went back to three. All the while, I was trying to reduce the amount of food I was feeding her to less than 3/4 of a cup because she was a little chubby. Reducing was hell. She became even more hungry, but I figured she would get used to it. Not really.

For over a year, she would wake me up every morning looking for food in a serious way, knocking things off my desk, ripping up any paper she could find, scratching at the door and committing general acts of mischief. As soon as she got food, she was back to her sweet self, but only for three or four hours.

We thought she was bored, we thought she was a little nutty, and maybe even had a kitty eating disorder. She always wanted food. It was kind of funny but in the end it was just sad.

A few weeks back, we took her to a new (good, non-money factory) vet for her second checkup since I've had her. I talked with him about her being always hungry. He asked what she ate, and I told him the adult indoor Science Diet. Without saying as much, he basically told me that this food is garbage and I should look for something else. He said cat food should have a protein followed by a carbohydrate as the first two ingredients. Science Diet does, in a very loose, by-product kind of way - ground up slaughterhouse leftovers and corn dust. Then they put a bunch of vitamins in it to make it "healthy," instead of just using good ingredients from the beginning. Not that I care about spending money on the Bean, but this food is way too expensive for what it is.

So we began transitioning her onto Wellness indoor formula about two weeks ago. She is still eating 50 percent Science Diet with 50 percent Wellness (you really shouldn't just give a cat different food one day out of the blue) but SHE NEVER FREAKS OUT ANYMORE. It's amazing. And it's 100 percent because she is eating real food now, along with that sawdust and chicken hearts I still regrettable have to feed her. We have her down to eating twice a day, only 1/3 cup in TOTAL. She was eating three times a day, 5/8 of a cup in total. Now she eats some in the morning, walks away, eats some more a few hours later, and then looks for dinner about twelve hours after her initial feeding. No more knocking things over, no more trashing Dad's papers on the desk, no more howling, no more deliberately spilled water on the floor. It's incredible.

I feel so bad that I was doing this to her for so long. We really thought she was just being dramatic or whatever. But no, she was genuinely hungry because she wasn't eating any real food.

Do your cat a favor - buy her or him so food made with real ingredients, things you would eat - Wellness, Halo, Innova, Evo, whatever. Figure it out for yourself, but please don't feed your cat this. It's garbage.

Cats are carnivores.

Science Diet has no meat.

Instead, you get cheap corn filler, spent rice leftover from brewing beer, and meatless chicken parts that humans don't eat, like beaks.

Please do your research on pet foods and what is actually good for your cats. Hills science diet is a horrible food filled with horrible ingredients. They charge an outrageous price because it's the #1 vet recommended food. This is a joke and the only reason why it's rated #1 buy vets is because Hills gives money to soon to be vets to help them go through school. Then they sell the cat food to them cheap so they can jack up the price and make a nice profit off of your marketing foolishness. Read the back of the labels of Hills brand and you will see that most of the top ingredients are grains or cheap meat by products which are the feathers, bones, unwanted organs from animals, basically all of the stuff we wouldn't eat. try something like orijen or evo.

After a year on kitten food, one of my two cats began to get rather chubby. He had a hard time hauling himself up onto one of the cat perches in the house. We switched to this food when they hit their one-year birthday, and my little chubby cat began to lose weight. Now, a year later, the indoor cat formula is all they eat, and my cat can jump up to the top bunk of the cat perch with no problems at all. He has an all-star physique. I do have to say, they preferred the kitten food too at first, but when given no other options, they eat this food with no problems. If you look at the nutritional content of the food, indoor cat formula has very little fat, while kitten food is quite high in it. Oh, and I've also seen *maybe* one hairball in the last year. Not bad.

Science Diet has always been known for decent quality food to feed your cat or dog. This product is no different. I have a finicky cat who will only eat certain types of dry food and this seems to be one of them. She took right to the dry without any hesitation and seems to continue to enjoy it.

On the downside is the size of the food. The food comes in large triangular shaped pieces that some cats may not like. Buy a small bag and try it for your pet.

4/5 stars for the size of the food and the price tag.

Was feeding my 3 cats - Blue Buffalo Blue Wilderness Chicken Dry Cat Food - which is one of the best brands out there... No grain, all meat, blah blah. Cats loved it over all the other 'meat only' brands...

Only problem was... soft stools... Talked to the vet and she said that sometimes cats need some form of fiber, even if it isn't nutritious, it helps to bulk up the stools and get rid of the God awful odor...

So went up and down the food aisle and this particular brand/version had the highest fiber content of all of the bags of food. The BWC food has 3.5% fiber... This indoor cat food has 10% fiber... yes it is indigestible corn... that's the whole idea... a form of roughage to helps the bowels. This food also has added fiber on top of the corn stuff etc...

So I'm going to see if this helps with the soft very stinky stools... if it does, I'm sticking with it.

So far the cats haven't seemed to mind the larger kibble size. They chomp a piece in half, and eat both halves...

This food is not a good food and is not worth the money. It contains by products and lots of corn. It will make your cats fat and lazy. My friend's cat was vomiting and had been to every vet and had every test but when she switched the food to Innova Evo, the cat stopped vomiting. Do not buy this food because for the same price you can buy Evo which is grain free and made with table-grade meat. SCIENCE DIET IS GARBAGE!

I have two cats and have always been feeding them this food,one is 5 and the other 9 years old and they are both 15 pounds.So they are fat and I could never figure out why,since they only got to share on cup between each other all day.So about two weeks ago I did some research on this food and my eyes were opened.I feel horrible that I fed them this junk food and I thought I was giving them the Best out there,since my Vet gave it to me and said it was great for them.
So anyways my male cat is now on Wellness Indoor dry and expensive wet food like Blue Buffalo,Wellness and Merrick.He loves it and I had no problem switching him over and I already notice the difference in his energy level.But my biggest issue is my female cat,she will not touch any other food than her Science junk food.I tried mixing it with the new food,starting at 75% old to 25% new,nothing she wouldn't touch it.So I tried 90% to 10%,still nothing.She cried and wined and didn't eat one morsel in four days and was just laying in one spot all day having even less energy than before.So I called my new Vet and she said now it is getting dangerous because she wouldn't eat at all.I had to give her her old junk food back,because I did not want her to die.I have no idea what to do,she is so addicted to this food and I can't get her of it.She hates wet food with a passion.I am worried about Diabetes if she will get any bigger.So I am really sad that nothing seems to work with her.
I made her a junk food addict,it's my fault.I wish I never started her on this food at all.