This is my first post: can fiber be added to dry food?

This is my first post here. My initital question is: is there a way to add fiber to dry food? Can I use Benefiber? If so, how much and at what proportion?

My 6 year old cat Gwenny has just been diagnosed with interstitial cystitis. I am transitioning her diet to wet food and a dry which has cranberry for urinary health--Wellness Indoor Health. Now that she is eating the Wellness dry food, she is beginning to have very loose stools and diarrhea. I had been feeding her Eukanuba Indoor dry for the last few years as she has had ongoing intestinal problems and did best, intestinally, on a high fiber dry diet (I have tried many types of wet and dry before finding the one that worked best). I have been adding Benefiber to the wet food (Science Diet Hairball-which already has a high fiber content). Before I try something else, I would like to try adding Benefiber to the dry to see if that helps.

Any suggestions on what to feed her? She needs high fiber for her intestinal troubles (probably IBD) but now needs food that will help with the cystitis as well.

Thanks.

I cannot answer on the Benefiber, I would ask the vet.
As far as adding fiber to her diet, if she'll eat it, you can add plain canned pumpkin(not the pie filling) to her food.
Pumpkin is great at regulating stool, it will firm up the loose, and loosen up the hard.


Welcome to TCS!
I do hope you'll stick around and share and learn with the rest of us.

TOO much FIBER can be a problem too

Thanks for your input. I have tried pumpkin and she won't eat it. The dry food she was on before had 8%fiber (according to the guaranteed analysis) and the new has 5%, so I am assuming she needs more. I have been looking at other posts and may try probiotics. I don't want to make too many changes at one time. I am also mixing Cosequin in with her wet food--would this be a problem mixing these together, along with the Benefiber? The Benefiber helped with the wet food while she was still eating the old Eukanuba dry, but now that she has transitioned to mostly the new Wellness, she is having the problems.

Thanks again.

5% is actually the upper end of AVE .... that should be sufficiant..

SLOW the transition... some cats need a MONTH or so to go on a new food... if after this issues arise you may need to readjust the foods
the indoor wellness may not be the right formula .... why did you choose that over adult or the senior

Wet food often is better for those with

Thank you Sharky for your advice. I started her on the Wellness almost 2 weeks ago and the mixture is about 90/10 now, although I don't think she is eating any of the old dry. How long before I can assume this is not going to work for her? Might she eventually adjust to this? I chose the Wellness Indoor because of the cranberry for urinary problems and the higher fiber content. Are there other dry foods out there which include ingredients for urinary health and also higher fiber content? That is the only one I found in Petsmart. Because of her intestinal problems, over the years I have experimented with many different wet and dry foods--including low residue--and found that she does best on high fiber. Even wet foods with fiber didn't really work for her, so I stopped giving her wet food a few years ago (which has probably contributed to this IC). The only dry food which gave her firm stools is Eukanuba Hairball or Indoor. Do you think I would aggravate the situation by going back to that? I hate having to experiment all over again. Also, I am supposed to start her on Amitriptyline but I am holding off to see if the change in diet and the Cosequin helps--so far, it seems to be, as she hasn't peed outside the box in over a week. I will have her urine tested in a few weeks to see if there has been improvement. Is this a bad strategy?

Again, thanks for your advice.

I couldn't tell from your post, but did you abruptly change her food over to the new one? That could well cause diarrhea.

All these things you are adding/wanting to add to her food, have you discussed these with a vet before doing so? That would be my first suggestion - talk to your vet about these issues. Although vets often don't have a lot of nutrition/food knowledge, they often will know what not to do.