Just wondering how you guys balance the mix of these. Our cats looooove wet food, but keep it as a treat for every now and then. Have to keep the wet cat food in a plastic sealed container as our cats will tear through the box they come in and dig their way through haha.
Pretty much only wet food, except for a few kibbles every day because they love them so much, like treats. Dry food is super bad for cats, because they have very little natural thirst drive. This means they won’t drink enough water by themselves, no matter how many fountains or water bowls you put out. This is easily explained. Cats are obligatory carnivores. This means that they need to eat meat. House cats are not different at all from their wild (and bigger) counterparts. Instinctively they do the same things. So ask yourself this: How do cats get most of their fluid intake in nature? Exactly! While eating their prey. Cats are ‘used to’ getting enough water by eating.
When you exclusively feed your cat dry food, they’ll never get enough water intake to be healthy. This increases the risk of urinary tract infections and a bunch of other things. When you feed them bad quality dry food (lots of grains and non-meat filler), in addition to UTI’s they will run a high risk of developing other problems like Diabetes.
So basically I’m saying: Only/mostly feed your cat wet food. The worst wet food is still always better than the best dry food. Because water is so important.
Edit: Also note that most of the “special diet” cat food is dry food. Which is ridiculous. I would never feed my cats that. Most vets have these well-known products like Hill’s or Royal Canin that they prescribe… PLEASE REMEMBER: Vets are sponsored by these brands, and pet food regulations aren’t nearly as strong as they should be. Vets get money specifically for advertising and prescribing these brands. This does not necessarily mean that they are good for your cats. Why would a vet prescribe dry food for cats, when the worst dietary offenders are low water content and non-meat ingredients?
This exactly, thank you. I’ve had multiple cats during my life make it to old age and each one had health issues from the food I was feeding them. Chronic dehydration leading to kidney issues, chronic high blood sugar from grains and vegetable fillers leading to pancreatitis and diabetes, etc etc. My old man is now on nothing but wet food and is pushing 18. He’s got some issues since I fed him junk for the first half of his life but he’s in decent shape for his age, and I bet if I hadn’t changed his diet he’d already be gone.
I hope you’re not feeling too guilty about it. Many people just don’t know these things and when you buy stuff in the store you kinda sorta expect it to, at the very least, not be so harmful.
One of my cats had chronic diarrhea when she was a kitten and even after vet visit it didn’t stop. That’s why I started reading about feline nutrition and learned that cats need basically two things: meat and water. That stupid special diet food didn’t help, of course, it was dry food with stuff they didn’t need. We switched to better wet food and cut almost all their dry food and all the issues were gone. My boy started peeing more which is very good, especially for male cats (they get UTI’s very easily). They also both started pooping less, which is very logical if you think about it. All the non-meat filler… well they can’t digest it, so they poop it out. Now they eat 100% meat and they poop once every 2-3 days, and in way smaller quantities. Oh and their fur became way more full and much softer too. They just look healthier.
During my search for info I found this website. It’s a great thing to read for every cat owner. It lays out the info in a very logical way en it’s easily understandable. I’d say everyone who has cats should read it.
My cats are pushing 11 now (they’re siblings) and have zero health issues. I’m so happy I figured it out when they were so young. Still, I think it’s terrible that so many people just don’t know/learn these things and have the best intentions but then still end up hurting their own cats, because the stuff they buy is simply bad. But I guess pets aren’t really a high priority for lawmakers, so I doubt standards for pet food will change any time soon. This is why I try to spread around info a bit.
Your cat is very lucky boy, hopefully he still has many years. :)
Thanks, I did feel guilty when my first cat passed, I was the most ignorant then and she had the worst diet and died the youngest. Since then I know I’ve done what I could with the money I could budget, and tried to educate myself so I could do better. Now I try to make up for it by spreading the word to other cat owners in my life and leading by example.
You’re doing fine. All we can do is try our best. :)
THANK YOU! Cats (and humans for that fact) were NEVER meant to eat so much grain.
Yup. I always try to explain this to people, because I’ve noticed many people who really try to give their cats the best just don’t really know about these things. And they inadvertently hurt their cats.
Giving your cats healthier food doesn’t necessarily have to be super expensive either. Even supermarket wet food is better than dry. Sure, they sometimes have vegetables or grains added as well, but at the very least you fix the water intake issue and this is the number one priority imo.
The fat one gets only wet (vet’s orders, she’s semi feral and she hunts rodents and may have a second family who feeds her) and the elderly underweight one gets all the wet food she’ll eat, then is offered dry food as a treat. She prefers dry, so she’ll have some even though she’s not hungry.
They both get a slurry of nutritional yeast and hydrolized collagen powder in water for dessert.
Does the nutritional yeast and collagen have a medical purpose?
Yeast for healthy skin, to (possibly but probably not) help with fleas and it’s tasty and makes the collagen mush enticing. Collagen for her old lady joints. I started giving it to her when I noticed her losing flexibility in her knees. Can’t give one a treat and not the other, so they both get it. I don’t know if it’s helping, but they like it.
https://www.petassure.com/maxscorner/is-nutritional-yeast-good-for-cats-benefits-and-side-effects/
Thank you so much for sharing the articles!
Wet food every time I can afford it. I will get a lot of flak from people here but cats are not supposed to eat that much grain.
Is there kibble with low, almost no grain percentage? For dogs there are decent options.
Cats “drink” water by eating wet food mostly. Feeding them dry food in any capacity will hurt their kidneys. They aren’t used to drinking because of it and even if they do, it usually isn’t enough. Most of the materials I was given for fostering / adoption says to try to switch them to wetfood and keep them on it because of the reasons above.
As to your question - there are freeze dried meats that can be given to them, but because of the kidneys thing, you aren’t supposed to give them more than a few cubes a day. Iirc 15 or 20?
There is plenty of grain-free food out there; it’s even a search option on chewy. The problem is the grain filler is often replaced by something else that’s either not nutritious for cats or possibly even harmful (like potato and peas), and that still doesn’t resolve the moisture content issue.
We do only wet food. Our last cat needed it to keep up hydration, and now we do the same with our new cats. Def more expensive, and not sure it’s worth it for healthy cats that drink enough.
Ours absolutely detests any form of wet food. If it’s not dry, he won’t eat it.
Each to their own taste I guess😅
Haha, right? That’s kinda the exact opposite of what you’d expect! Cats are silly. :)
And that’s why we love them! <3
We feed out cat wet food every day, but not a lot. Wet food is much better for cats because dry food has a lot of carbs, which cats really shouldn’t have in their diet. Our cat is a pretty picky eater though, and we don’t want to put down wet food just to watch it dry out and get thrown away, so we give her a small amount of dry food in the morning, and a little more dry food at night with a tablespoon of wet food.
We used to feed ours wet food once a day but then they got tired of that and decided they mostly wanted dry food, so now it’s once a week and they seem fine with that. You’d think a cat would enjoy more flavorful meals but… 🤷♂️
No wet food at all. I have wasted 100s of euros on wet food that he MAY lick a little bit before leaving it alone… No idea why he hates it so much
Same, I swear at least once a year I try a new brand and they just stick their noses up and gag. They love their delectables, tuna juice, and spinach though…
I give them dry for breakfast, then wet with a little dry for texture when I feed them at dinner
We do all wet, ours are a couple of old ladies, so they get what they want.
4 cats. We feed them all wet food (Friskies/Tastefuls) morning and night, and have an auto-feeder for 3 of them. The 4th has a kibble addiction so the auto-feeder has a RFID tag which locks upon him getting close, and we feed him ~1/4 cup dry food early afternoon.
my cat is very food orientated. so i give her dry food in the morning for breakfast and wet at night for dinner, because she will eat and eat until she vomits. so i dont give mine dry and wet at night, but i do incorporate other foods into her wet food just as a bit extra and extra nutrients. (only other foods that they can eat obviously)
My cat has hyperthyroidism and needs a pill twice a day. So I feed her 1/4 of a large can of wet food twice a day with the crushed pill mixed in. It’s just enough that she always finishes all of it so she gets all of her meds. And then always kibble out for snacking. Mostly snacking for her.
Never, in don’t have a cat
My family never bought wet cat food for any of the cats, but we lived in in a rural area and our cats could go outside at will. If they wanted wet food, they found it!
Only problem was when they brought it back inside…
