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.
Should be all wet if you can. It’s healthier for them.
My guy loves the dehydrated stuff but won’t eat it with water, so i mix it with raw kangaroo meat (which he also loves).
Picky little spoiled fucker won’t eat anything cheaper.
Wow really? I always figured wet food was considered a treat only. I have some reading to do!
A mix of both is better for their teeth. Wet is good for hydration (which cats are bad at), whereas dry is good for teeth. I know some cats who have lost teeth, but my 7/yo has extremely healthy ones and we’ve never had to do any sort of dentistry
We give her wet & dry together, twice a day and a handful of “Feline Greenie” treats throughout the day which allegedly help with dental hygiene. I have no reason to doubt so far!
We’re really fortunate that our cat loves to gnosh on toys that will scrape her teeth; she’s on an all wet diet to help with bowel issues. Of course I still toss her a few greenies treats every other night because she goes nuts for them and it can’t hurt.
My dad was a veterinarian for 30 years and always recommended dry cat food. He doesn’t have a cat any more, and I doubt that he has kept up with the latest research, so it’s possible this is outdated.
Our cats get wet food morning and night, and dry food available all day. They munch on the dry food occasionally, but they are now in love with wet. ~6oz of wet food per day for each of them
Thanks for sharing 👍
No problem! I will say that even thought it’s quite a bit more expensive, I wish I would have started all our cats out on wet food. We have 2 senior cats (14) and we just got a new kitten last year. He had some health problems which required him to be on wet food. Once he was on it, it was unfair to not put the others on it as well (not that they would have let us anyway, it’s like a treat for them every day)
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.
We used to feed our cats almost entirely dry food, with wet food as an occasional treat (no real schedule for wet, just every now and then).
But over the years we’ve had a number of cats that had health issues that were mitigated by switching to mostly wet food.
So now it’s reversed- almost entirely wet food with dry food occasionally (every couple of days or so). At least, for our indoor cats.
We also take care of a feral colony (many of which we’ve TNR’d), and those cats get dry food for logistical and cost reasons.
Once a day, 18:00, religiously, as a treat. And there’s no way that I’d forget about it without them reminding me, they get really excited.
(We call it “papá” here, as if it was baby food - and the word is forbidden outside the wet food context. Frieda’s face when I tell her “es ist Papázeit!” is hilariously cute: she dilates her pupils, gives me a “mrrwwwn!”, and start dancing around me.)
Typically I buy it in cans, blend it with half can of water, then freeze it into ~1tbsp portions. They seem to enjoy it more this way - if I don’t do it they lick the liquid, leave the solid on their dishes, and ask me for more. Then I just need to unfreeze two portions, make sure that there’s no frozen bit, and serve.
How adorable 🥹 Appreciate your tip
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.
After our last cat had kidney issues, new cat gets wet food daily. We basically go 50/50, half wet food half dry food. That works out to half a 5oz can a day, 1/4 in morning and 1/4 in evening. She normally eats the wet food within ~15 minutes and nibbles the dry food throughout the day. Not sure if it helps her kidneys but she has maintained a good weight and has the softest coat.
We also use a water fountain to try to encourage drinking, but I don’t think she drinks any extra because of it.
Dry food is always available. Wet food is split one can between both kitties at the same time every day. The big one finishes what the smaller one leaves behind.
Tuna is reserved for special ocassions, like their bday, certain holidays (the ones where humans celebrate with food), or after having to visit the vet.
Mine are basically the same, but the little one finishes what his big brother doesn’t eat lol.
Mine has CKD so he mostly eats wet, but his second bowl always has some dry and he snacks on it whenever the other becomes unedible.
Twice a day. Little buggers eat better than I do. But I also mix it 50/50 with water and make a kind of cat food slurry to force them into hydrating a little. And then I put a little dry food out late at night as an offering so they will let me sleep.
It sounds expensive but it works out to a little under $2 per cat per day in food.
Watering it out seems to be common based on the comments here, that’s definitely good to know.
Yeah same, I like to get the paté cans because it’s easy to add water to get him better hydrated.
We do all wet, ours are a couple of old ladies, so they get what they want.
Blanket statements are often exaggerated, but I’m fairly certain the worst wet food is still better than the best dry food.
Crunchies are always available. About 10 pm, just before i go to bed, i let the dogs out to potty and the cats come running. 1 can or pouch split among the 3 (half to the old girl who’s missing teeth) mixed with a little hot water.
Wet food twice a day (quarter of a 300ml can each), one in the morning, and then in the evening. dry food available throughout the day.
I feed my cat 3 meals a day because he has a food routine like a person. So I feed him wet food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For some reason he is really crazy about dry food so I give him a little bit of dry food at night. This helps him to not starve to death while I’m sleeping.
