Price range: 6.65$ through 19.35$
Inside your best friend lives the ultimate feline athlete. While our cats are now domesticated, their innate primal nature is still that of a carnivore, craving the right balance of whole prey to fuel their everyday adventures. Nulo Freeze-Dried Raw provides convenient, complete & balanced nutrition with the highest quality sourced ingredients from the most trusted suppliers.
| Weight | 0.34375 lbs |
|---|---|
| Brand Name | Nulo |
| Flavor | Chicken & Salmon |
| Age Range Description | All Life Stages |
| Item Form | Pellet |
| Specific Uses for Product | Balanced Nutrition, Digestive Health, Immune Support |
| Special Ingredients | Salmon |
| Breed Recommendation | All Breed Sizes |
| Occasion | Feeding Time |
| UPC | 810125290770 |
| ASIN | B0DDCTHBM8 |
| Item Height | 8.75 inches |
| Unit Count | 5.5 Ounce |
| Number of Items | 1 |
| Item Weight | 5.5 Ounces |
| Manufacturer | Nulo |
| size | 1 Pound (Pack of 1), 3.5 Ounce (Pack of 1), 5.5 Ounce (Pack of 1), 8 Ounce (Pack of 1) |
| Flavor Name | Chicken & Salmon, Turkey & Duck |
Wet canned food research was giving me a headache because I have a cat who is also allergic to most grains. Even some wet food brands claiming to be ‘grain-free’ still had rice and corn in the ingredients list!
So I began searching Raw food. I found 2 different brands on Amazon and gave them a shot, compared, and fed them to my cats. Here are the Nulo Freestyle Freeze dried raw food results.
These were the test subjects:
Banana - Age 6 - Breed Gray Chartreux - High energy and high affection. Picky eater. Have to trick her to eat healthy. She’ll only eat the raw food with the smallest amount of water in the bowl, she likes to have some dry bits of food in between, and some crunchy cat treats on top to bribe her into eating. It took her 4 days before I could get her to eat taste a little bit of raw food, she actually still prefers her dry food. Despite her pickiness, she does finish ALL of the Nulo brand in her bowl. The same cannot be said for the other competitors brand I bought.
Derpy - Age 10 - American Shorthair Tabby - Largest and most sensitive cat. Loves to eat TOO much, will eat other cats food if I don’t keep an eye on her. She developed a grain and corn allergy at age 6, finding safe foods for her can be challenging. She likes her food to be fully hydrated with water, but won’t eat it if there is too much water on the top. She is no fool and doesn’t wish to ‘fill up on water.” She had zero difficulties with the inclusion of raw food into her daily routine.
Pooky - Age 12 - Breed American Shorthair Black -Oldest cat. Laid back, patient, has arthritis and asthma. “Don’t cite the old magic to me witch, I was there when it was written!” Pooky prefers the raw food heavily watered down with lots of warm water, to the point there is a pool of gravy fats that appears at the top. She’ll drink all the gravy water, then wait about 15 minutes and come back to finish the rest of her meal. Pooky had a little difficulty in the beginning getting used to the raw food, it wasn’t until I began to heavily water it down that she would accept and eat all of it. She can’t eat it all in one go tho, and paces herself.
****Each cat is having dry food in the morning and then raw food with water in the evening. Measured half of what they need for the day based on the bag measurement instructions on the back of the food bag. My picky princess cat Banana still prefers dry food over raw food, so I don’t think I’ll be able to do a full transition to freeze-dried raw for awhile.****
Pros-
-Appetizing color. The pellets have a pink/orange color similar to a salmon fillet. Remember, cats can see color. While it is different from what we see from our eyes, they definitely prefer something that looks like meat compared to boring brown canned food.
-Mouth-watering smell. I won’t lie, I was adding water to their food one night and I hadn’t eaten for a bit. The foods smell gets potent after adding water, and hit me like an aromatic bomb and made my tummy growl. 😅 The smell is so intense that the cats begin meowing for their food as soon as the water is added.
-Nutrition - The bag says they have met all cats nutritional needs and have been approved by AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profile for All Stages of Life. In short, you don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of vitamin supplements for your cat to meet it’s daily nutrition levels. It’s a ‘guarantee’ that the food already contains all the protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals your cats little body requires daily.
-Ingredients - Something that really caught my eye with this food is that they are giving the cat a lot of the chicken breast and thigh meat, not JUST the organ meat. The chicken and salmon meat is higher than the organ meat on the ingredients list, meaning there is more cuts of real, whole meat than the stinky organ meat (that my picky eater cat is NOT fond of!).
-Freeze dried. Did you know that freeze dried food only loses 3% of its original nutrition? You do now, and you can tuck it safely away in your pantry. It will spoil however, yes freeze dried food expires! The bag I got said it would have expired by April 2022. Freeze dried is a natural preserving method. So be sure to use it when you have it and only buy it when you need it.
-Light weight. Until you add water to it, the bag is so light weight that you may question if there is actual food inside.
-REAL raw food and bones. Cats are carnivores, and carnivores typically devour their prey bones and all. Those bones contain needed cat nutrition. The bones are small and ground up so there is no choking risk to your cat.
-Resealable bag. I didn’t have to go out and buy a container to keep the food in. The bag seals down so easy, with no struggle to “line up” the ziplock cause it isn’t a ziplock seal. It’s a Velcro seal. Nice!
Con:
-Price. Yes, remember I mentioned buying two different brands. This brand is a whopping $5.00 higher than the competition. $5.00 doesn’t sound much more expensive until you realize you’ll need a bag of this every 2 weeks.
-Pellets. I’m sure the companies can’t help this because of the machines that perform the freeze-dried process on the raw food. The problem is, the pellets are SO large that none of my cats risked chomping into them. Every time I make this food, I have to break apart each and every pellet which is easier to do when it’s dry, which means…
-Frequent hand-washing. Remember even tho it’s lost the moisture THIS IS RAW MEAT. If you drop it on your countertop, you need to disinfect where it touched. Since I have to crush the pellets before my cats will eat the food, I have to wash my hands to get the salmon-stink off my hands. Twice. This food is POTENT, which is a fantastic quality for the cats but a con quality for me. I suppose I could just buy some disposable food prep gloves in the future.
SUMMARY: I’m giving 4 out of 5 stars. This food is high quality with minor cons and enjoyed by all 3 of my cats. The one star deduction is for the price, because there exist other more affordable freeze-dried raw food brands that also meet the cats daily nutrition.