The truth about wet vs. dry

mrbradstewart

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I feed my kitty dry food everyday, she eats it moderately throughout the day. I thought for more variety I should mix in some wet food. She's not very picky at all, but when I mix wet and dry, she goes crazy and eats everything. I tried giving her wet food for a week with no dry because of someones recommendation, but she starting shedding almost 10x as much! Her litter box was more smelly too. When I switched back, nothing changed. Which one is better, I want a healthy cat with healthy bowel movements. But I'm so confused with all the hooplah out there, I don't know what to believe! I know people out there have gone through this.
 

optionken

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What I have seen is cats get diabetes, amoung a host of other health problems from eating dry foods. What I have also seen is remarkable changes when cats are switched to canned no gravy or a raw diet. My cat got diabetes from eating dry food
my adopted cat i assume was the same, diabetic from eating dry food and with insulin for a bit and a switch to low carb canned, he does not need insulin anymore
I have seen so many examples of this that dy food is not allowed within 5 miles of my house!
I do not know of any relation between food and shedding. There may be but I do not know. I do know of relations betwen food and allergies causing rashes and pimples.
For smelly poop get some acidoupholous from a health food store and sprinkle bout 1/8 a teaspoon on the food each day Best of luck
 

sharky

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Truthfully ...

Wet= closer to natural diet ... even grain containing ones are relatively low carb ... ie in most premium dry carbs are 20-30% premium grain containing wet 5-15% carbs ...

I prior to raw( which it and homemade are in my rotation heavily) ... feed 50/50 wet and dry ( these cats all saw mid to late teens feed grocery foods most of their lives) ....

Cats often do have smellys and hair issue for up to about 4-6 weeks when going form all dry to wet or wet/ dry combos ... likely this is from the food being more digestable ( and having a faster digestion time) ... the shedding usually takes longer to show up , did you use the same brand??? wet as normal dry ??...
 

mimosa

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nr1; make sure the wet food you feed does not contain any ingredients that are not from animal origin.

nr2; give the cat's body some time to adjust.

I fed Ernesto and Mimosa kibble for 1.5 years, I switched them over to raw food when dEUS and Flynn came to live here. I was warned they might detox when I stopped the kibble. They did, they started pooping really weird stuff, it looked like big pieces of gelatin. Apparently that had been building up inside their digestive system. I've heard of other cats getting really watery eyes for a while, or shedding, but that must depend on the cat.
With us, they started to shed less, so I went from two to four longhaired cats and found less hair in the house, plus Mimosa stopped getting those big hairballs all the time.
Food without grains/other plants is more digestible, so they don't put as much back in the litterbox, just firm droppings with little smell. I have uncovered litterboxes all over the house now (4+1 as advised by behavior experts), one is three feet from where I am sitting now, not a whiff of something smelly.
 

shanynne

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Originally Posted by mrbradstewart

I feed my kitty dry food everyday, she eats it moderately throughout the day. I thought for more variety I should mix in some wet food. She's not very picky at all, but when I mix wet and dry, she goes crazy and eats everything. I tried giving her wet food for a week with no dry because of someones recommendation, but she starting shedding almost 10x as much! Her litter box was more smelly too. When I switched back, nothing changed. Which one is better, I want a healthy cat with healthy bowel movements. But I'm so confused with all the hooplah out there, I don't know what to believe! I know people out there have gone through this.
Here's a great link on cat nutrition that explains the pros and cons of dry vs wet food: http://www.catinfo.org/#My_Cat_is_Do...ne_on_Dry_Food
 

mschauer

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I'd just like to add that, as others have stated, one of the problems with most dry foods is that they are high in carbs. BUT, not all wet foods are low in carbs. In general, the pate style ones are low in carbs. Any that come in chunks or even small pieces could be as high in carbs as a dry food.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by mschauer

I'd just like to add that, as others have stated, one of the problems with most dry foods is that they are high in carbs. BUT, not all wet foods are low in carbs. In general, the pate style ones are low in carbs. Any that come in chunks or even small pieces could be as high in carbs as a dry food.
Really ??... Wellness pouches are 2-3% carb and Nutro is ranging 6-15 ... are you talking about grocery?? have a link??
 

sharky

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thank you for the link ... it seems like orginally thought even most gravies are well under ave 20-30 carb dry food ... there are three main brands = the carbs of dry according to that chart ( thank YOU
it is the new one) ... the ave for gravies is a bit higher ... pates mainly under 10% graveys under 15%
 

artgecko

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Thought that I'd add that most cats have digestive issues when switching between any food....and also, the "smell" might be due to what type of wet you were trying with them...when I feed my cats the cheaper foods (i.e. friskies) their poo seems smellier than when I feed them the mid-level or grain free foods like authority, newmans own, EVO, etc. I think it might have something to do with the flavorings, colorants, and by-products in foods like friskies.

Art
 
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