Dr. Elsey's cleanprotein Chicken Cat Kibble 2 lb. Bag

Do you ever struggle with feeling like you do not get enough "bang for your buck" when it comes to pet food or feel like pet food manufacturers are ripping you off as a whole? I've certainly felt this way time and again. I remember several years ago reading many articles warning of the dangers of various popular pet food brands and their secret and inadvertent poisoning of our feline friends. From that time, I decided to consciously make an effort to ensure that my cats had quality food. I scoured the Internet to find what products were the best for the animal, not just the pocketbook. I have taken a collegiate nutrition course and read many scholarly articles which helped me to find the information I desired, not being content at simply looking at a single source and I made sure that my sources were reliable via further research into them. Dr. Elsey's CleanProtein is a wonderful choice of cat food—the best (pure) "dry" cat food on the market currently that money can buy, it contains no "grain-filler" products as many other pet foods do, it provides our pets with additional needed vitamins and minerals while containing no [carcinogenic] food-dyes and maintaining a pet-approved flavor. It is one of the top-rated "dry" pet foods according to CatFoodDataBase, being marked at "9 out of 10 paws" for ingredients and nutrition, containing no "questionable" ingredients, only being beaten by freeze-dried cat foods "Primal", and "ZiwiPeak" as well as Wysong's Epigen Chicken. ("Dr Elsey's Cleanprotein Chicken Recipe Review", CatFoodDB.com, ¶1). "Overall, Dr. Elsey's is a significantly above average cat food …." ("Dr Elsey's Cleanprotein Chicken Recipe Review", CatFoodDB.com, ¶1). It contains more protein and fewer carbohydrates than most other cat food brands. According to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), it gets a whopping 53.8% of its Calories from protein and 39.8% of them from fat while only using carbohydrates for 6.4% of it's Caloric content. At Dr. Elsey's, they are careful not to pack typical "filler" into the food. Generally, fillers refer to things such as cornmeal, oats, and other grain products that are oftentimes used to provide additional quantity without additional notable substance to pet foods. Unlike dogs, cats specifically are not designed to eat starches and grains over a long period of time and doing so can lead to horrible problems later in the pet's life. ("Cats and Carbohydrates: The Carnivore Fantasy?", Verbruggheand, Hesta, & ed. Rand, Abstract). They take care to ensure that the nutrition going into their feed is exactly that: nutrition. ("The CleanProtein Diet", Dr. Elsey, ¶1). They do use dried egg product as a certain type of filler, but this is nutritious for cats, being an excellent source of [tasty] protein. They add no dyes to their product, noting that many of these dyes have shown cancerous properties in a lab setting. In fact, these dyes are added to products simply to attract human purchasers with little regard to a pet's health. Foods with these dyes and grain-fillers in them are equivalent to the "fast food" of the pet-world—tasty with little value and toxic traits. At Dr. Elsey's also makes sure that the flavor of the product really shines through, if my little feline friends' appetites (and contented "meows") for it have taught me anything! It has a very mild aroma and a firm, "crunchy" texture. Numerous other individuals on Dr. Elsey's website have also confirmed their delight with the product. Some of you may panic whenever you see "salmon" listed within the ingredients, which is understandable but in this case, a bit of further research shows that you have little to fear (unless your cat has a specific allergy to this fish). See, it is not the fish's protein that is used, simply the oil—and not in a massive quantity either, having "significantly less moisture than an equivalent wet food." ("Dr Elsey's Cleanprotein Chicken Recipe Review", CatfoodDB.com, ¶6). Others may have a fright whenever seeing that "oxalate" is used in the food but with some further research, we are delighted to find out that this helps prevent our feline friends from getting Chronic Kidney Disease, a leading feline cause-of-death! ("Chronic Kidney Disease is the #1 Cat Killer: What is Oxylate and Why Does It Matter?", Dr. Elsey, ¶2). This food is packed to the brim with great feline nutrition and carefully crafted to mimic a cat's most natural diet. It uses no toxic dyes or grains & starches in it and even it's filler is protein-based. Cats love its flavor and it even helps to ward off CKD in cats, a leading killer. Some people worry because of fish-based oil used in it, but after a bit of research, you find that the amount is minimal and is actually healthy for felines—improving brain development and cognitive function, reducing inflammation, slowing tumor growths, reducing abnormal heart rhythms, and seizure frequency. ("What Are the Benefits of Fish Oil for Dogs and Cats?", PetMD, Pendergrass, ¶5-11). Dr. Elsey's CleanProtein is one of the best dry cat foods that the market has to offer, fighting for our pets' health, giving them a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals that they need for peak bodily performance, and it is quite affordable. If you're like me and you want your cats to not just live but to really thrive, then give Dr. Elsey's a try, I am sure you won't regret it! Sources: CatfoodDB.com PetMD.com Petfood.AAFCO.com NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov Dr.Elseys.com

My Cat loves this Very Healthy Brand. Though expensive, my cat nibbles this kibble with gusto!

Helps diabetic kitty eat dry food. He enjoys it. Great low carb choice, high protein. Cat enjoys Chicken and has tried other flavors but this is lowest carb. Great choice for low carb! Best product!

I have two cats, an eight-year-old and one who's about a year and a half old. I free-feed Blue Buffalo kibble, which I have been pleased with for many years now, and continue to be. But I bought a 6.6 lb. bag of Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein Chicken Recipe because I like to give them a treat every now and then, not that it's necessarily better than the food they always have available, but because it's something different and, despite what some of the professionals say, my experience with cats has been that they like to try something different from time to time. Normally, I rotate between the various Blue Buffalo recipes but, every now and then, I'll buy another premium cat food. As a result, they fought over it. That says something when you consider that they always have kibble available. I won't list all of the ingredients here because the list is relatively long, but there's nothing that looks scary to me. The first six ingredients are chicken, dried egg product, gelatin, chicken fat, natural flavor, and salmon oil. Then you get into a long list of vitamins and minerals, for the most part. The only thing that I would question there, and which I always question when I see it in an ingredient list, is natural flavor. What is natural flavor? Shouldn't the kibble have the natural flavor of the natural foods that it consists of? "Natural flavor" doesn't tell me anything, so I wonder about that. However, there is no gluten, byproducts, corn, soy, wheat, fillers, or other ingredients that cats sometimes have trouble with. It's 89% protein, and it seems clear that the taste is something that my cats love. It also has a clean smell, which might seem like an odd thing to say but I've tried some kibble that doesn't. Given that I free-feed, that's important to me, although we all know that cats often enjoy some pretty rancid-smelling stuff. Besides the uncertainty of "natural flavors," my only concern is that I don't think I could afford to feed them this as a regular staple. They like Blue Buffalo well enough too, and it has great ingredients, as well as a price that's more reasonable. Had I been regularly feeding them another food, and given them Blue Buffalo as a treat, they might fight over that too. If I had reason to believe that Dr. Elsey's was better for my cats than Blue Buffalo, I would eat the cost and let them eat the better food, but I've raised four cats into their mid-20s on Blue Buffalo, one nearly making it to 29 years of age, so I'll stick with the Blue as a staple. However, I will certainly buy it again as a treat or to mix with the Blue Buffalo kibble.

I fed my cat meow mix for most of his life, until I grew older and was able to comprehend that most pet food brands don't have your pet's health in mind. My cat is very picky about food, but this food he immediately liked. He prefers it over fresh chicken. I did have many problems switching him to this food. He began to eat random stuff off the floor and would get constipated and not poop for weeks. He ate some bits of string that we didn't know at the time and his poop, like exploded out of him (not literally) and got all over his rear end. He is a long haired cat and we ended up having to call groomers all over town to help during quarantine. We got an amazing mobile groomer called Gabi Kat that stopped everything and worked past their closing time to help us. They were the ones that pointed out string in his feces and said that he was probably eating random stuff off the floor due to the switch in food. He had never been bathed before and we were in awe of their professionalism and experience. They brought him into the house and he was prancing around and showing off his beautiful fur for two weeks. He smelled so good and he had so much pride in himself, it was amazing to see. We eventually took him to the vet and used my stimulus check to cover the costs. $1500 later, there was nothing wrong with him, except he was dehydrated. They gave him an IV for an additional $100 because I spent all that money so might as well. I now mix his food with a little water so he isn't as dehydrated. When I first purchased this food from Chewy, it was about $60. It had a very fishy odor and was pretty moist. It had a consistent kibble shape except at the bottom where there was broken pieces, which was fine since it wasn't a lot. When I purchased this from Amazon for the first time, the food was incredibly dry and I was pretty dissatisfied. I chose to not purchase from here for a while due to this because I thought maybe it was an issue with the batch. I purchased more from Chewy and the food was dry exactly like the one from Amazon and I was extremely disappointed. Now, a year later, the food has decreased in price by about $10 and the quality is very different. Over half the bag is broken kibble pieces and it no longer has a fishy smell. It smells like what you'd expect dog kibble to smell like. I have to individually find full kibble pieces for my cat in order for him to eat it and I notice he is not as enthusiastic to eat it. Instead of, "yay, food!" It's now, "time to eat 😒" I am a bit conflicted about this change. Although I am disappointed by this, I am very grateful because my family is suffering financially due to all that has been happening and more. It will not hurt me as severely to feed my cat something healthy even though he doesn't really like it as much.

I've been feeding this great catfood to my cats for their entire lives. It was great, all 5 cats were healthy and happy and loved the food. I've had the monthly subscription for years and years. Never a consistent problem until THIS SUMMER, starting about June or so. Now this catfood makes all my cats sick. It's awful. So sad. I have previous bags from past subscriptions, still perfect, different formula. I had to throw the new sickness inducing food away. Daily vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, itching. The OLD formula causes no issues. I've been slowly cancelling all subscriptions to all flavors as these formula changes and sickness seem to be trickling diwn to every flavor variety now. All the new formulas and flavors make the cats sick. It's really so sad, this was such a good company, such a great catfood. Now it makes my cats sick. I thought it was just a bad batch at first, but different packs, bags, expiration dates, flavors, quantities, all cause issues, even a few kibble bits mixed into other foods. Something is seriously off now. Even the smell is different in some flavors and bathches. I've tried Salmon, Turkey, Chicken, Duck. The Salmon was the first to make them sick. The Chicken must have been the last reformulation because that was the safest flavor and formula until about this June / July subscribe and save subscriptions came in, and then cats got sick from that too. Just so sad. I'm lucky to still have several bags of the old formulation which still is great, causes no issues, but soon I'll be out. I've been mixing in other brands now as the final Dr. Elsey's Chicken kibble is gradually used up. So far there's been no problem at all with the other brands, like Instict Ultimate Protein Cage Free Chicken (47% minimum protein), Purina Pro Plan LiveClear Chicken for Kittens (42% minimum protein level), etc. It's just so sad not to be able to rely on the Dr. Elsey's Chicken (59% minimum protein) dry food. Why on earth did they replace the dried eggs with hydrolyzed pork and pork plasma and whatever else is causing such distress to my cats? I don't get it? Egg is a great protein and cats like it (at least mine- they even steal scrambled eggs bits when they are sbeaky and find them on a plate) and I'm glad that other brands like Purina LiveClear still use the dried egg. In fact, research has found that as well as being a great protein source, egg also reduces cat allergens in their saliva. It's made a big difference to those in my family with cat allergies and it's a good easily digestible protein. I don't know why Dr. Elsey's changed a good formula, but I can't make my cats sick anymore by using it. I even tried just mixing small amounts to get the cats slowly used to the new formula, but that hasn't worked. They just can't adapt even after 3 months. A few cats were starting to do okay (minimal vomiting and diarrhea), but then started itching, pulling out fur, getting bald patches, like with food allergy reactions. Maybe my cat family (Momma Cat and her 4 kittens) just all have allergy to pork protein? Whatever it is, I can no longer use or recommend any of the Dr. Elsey cat food varieties. The litter is still great and they haven't reformulated that, but the cat food is bad now, at least for my particular family of cats. Just sad after so many many good years with this once trusted high quality brand that really seemed to care and want the best for cats, and avoid cheap fillers, by products, protein mixes, excesdive carbs, etc. I don't know why they would make such a huge change, say nothing, and just allow cats to get sick and have to suddenly change the food formula and add an entirely different protein in the mix? And no warning or anything? It makes no sense to me. BEWARE of all the excellent PAST reviews. All the PAST 5-Star ratings are completely correct and accurate, but they are all based on a different formula and a different time. I LOVED this cat food for YEARS AND YEARS! Always reliable, my cats have NEVER been sick ever, until this formula change started occurring, and whatever changes started creeping into all the flavors, starting months ago with the Salmon formula. But the Chicken was always safe until now. Maybe it takes awhile for the alkergy and sick reactions to build up? I don't realky know. If you want to see what has been happening lately just review the latest / most current ratings. Not just on Amazon but all over the internet with this formula change and the impact on so many cats. You can go to reviews and filter by most recent and it tells a different story. Or just research the Dr. Elsey's Formula Change. The reviews have dropped fast and are scary with the cats getting sick. I'm glad I got rid of it fast and it didn't lead to any lasting illness or anything severe, just vomiting and diarrhea and bald patches and itching, which immediately resolved upon switching to the old formula and other brands. This may not be your experience, and I hope your cats love the new formula, don't have reactions to pork protein or pork plasma, and stay healthy and happy. My cats have all reacted to it. Again, these 5 cats are all related (Mother and her children) so it may run in the family, but I just wanted to share. I didn't know what was going on at all until I started reading similar incidents occurring in the last few months with the formula change. I don't write many reviews, and my reviews tend to be mostly 5-star positive, but I wanted to share my specific experience with this new formula, in case it helps anyone else. If Dr. Elsey's wanted to save money by eliminating the dried egg as a protein boost to the chicken protein or as a filler, why not just choose more chicken or add in chicken fat, or something that keeps the formula clean without mixing an entirely different protein into the formula that's existed for a decade or more? I still can't understand it. I knew something was going on about a year ago, little by little different flavors were changing ingredients. I just thought my cats didn't like the different flavors and smells so I switched. I sure was lucky I had so many bags of the original formula saved up. But now I understand why the smell of the foods became different and the reactions by the cats became so different based on the formula and flavor changes. Anyway, sorry for rambling on!

I have a diabetic cat. This is the best kibble I can find for him, and he loves it. Trying to feed him separately from the others was a real nightmare. This product allows all the cats to eat the same food and get good nutrition.

I have tried many different dry foods over the years and Dr. Elsey's Chicken formula is the one that they seem to do better on. I first tried the Salmon Formula they offer but there was some vomiting issues, I chalked it up to the chickpeas in the food. While cats can have them, they shouldn't have them often. I switched the to this Chicken formula and they seemed to do much better on it than the salmon formula. Unfortunately the chicken formula isn't always in stock, so I had to change them back to the salmon and the vomiting returned. I am thankful that at least now the chicken is in stock more regularly than it had been before because the local pet stores do not carry this brand for some reason. I saw some comments about the formula of this changing to add PORK PLASMA in the ingredients, and I did a lot of research on it and it seems like it is used because of it's binding nature and it also has health benefits as well as it is supposed to help support digestive health. My cats have been back on the chicken formula for several months now and I have not had any digestive issues in any of them. My largest, Muninn, he is the one that seems to be very sensitive to foods and he has done quite well on this new formula, which I am thankful for as I had them on the Ziwi dried food, and while it is great food it is VERY expensive. My suggestion to those who have issues with this brand maybe give Ziwi a try, but be warned it is not cheap by any means. Which is another great thing about the Dr. Elsey's, you get a great product at a reasonable price point, and while it also isn't a cheap food, it is more affordable than some and you still feel good about the quality of food you are getting.

Product is as mentioned by others on the expensive side for a small bag. However you are getting what you pay for and I can’t find anything else of this quality and protein percentage on the market. Everything else is full of fillers, fruits, gains, vegetables legumes, inflammatory oils etc. If you want quality this is where it’s at no bs. My cats health is important to me, and so is her diet, cats being complete obligate carnivores this kibble fits that perfectly, Pure protein and vitamins that’s it! As close as possible to raw feeding but in safe easy to feed kibble form! Hydrate kibble with water or bone broth for best benefits to your kitty 😊 Happy customer.

My cat’s writing this review; he did not like it :(

My cats accept this. Will continue to feed this. Seems healthy. Price seems to be increasing and not always in stock.

But my cat has no problem eat it. And it is a high protein diet so my cat don't eat much. One bag can last quite long time.

I wish they offered larger sized bags..... The food does its job. It's kept my cats sugars down and saved her from needing insulin, but the shipping takes forever and it's so little that we have to buy 2 or 3 bags at a time. Also - the price seems to fluctuate heavily.