Does my cat need prescription food?

I have a 4 1/2 year old healthy male cat. His previous owners gave me a big bag of hills prescription diet c/d for urinary tract health which I plan to use up but the bag is getting low now. As far as I know he has no health problems. his old owner basically said they'd rather spend more money on cat food than future vet bills (which I agree with). Is this the best kind of food for him though? The first 5 ingredients are brewers rice, corn gluten meal, chicken by product meal, pork fat, then finally real meat, chicken. I don't know a lot about feline nutrition but that doesn't sound too good to me?? He has only ever eaten this dry food but I'm planning on slowly added wet food too. I just don't know if I should change his dry food or keep this if it keeps him healthy and he likes it? Does this prescription stuff actually work or is it like snackwells cookies for humans? Marketed as healthy but is actually just junk.

Science Diet is garbage in my opinion.

Unless he has had prior issues with urinary tract infections or crystals he does not need to be on this junk food.

I would make certain he has not.

Go get some high quality, grain free dry and canned food. Try to stay away from fish, Nature's Variety Instinct is excellent food.

You can help minimize his chances of getting crystals with feeding canned food.

Work towards feeding breakfast and dinner with canned and a bit of dry during the day.

It amazes me that vets sell science diet! The newest crap food is the Purina vet formulas, talk about junky ingredients! Same as you listed in science diet. Corn gluten meal, meat by products, carageenan, guar gum, and so on. Wow, I never did find the meat protein in that list of garbage ingredients. And it's SO expensive!!

Sounds like most of the ingredients are food industry wastes. Unless he's having actual problems right now, I don't think you need to feed the prescription diet. When a vet gave a prescription diet to my cats, one of them started losing hair. Then I switched to all low carb high protein canned food, and their coats got really beautiful. You can add some water to canned food to increase water intake. It made my cats pee more and smell less. 

@datas  I'd really suggest asking the previous owner if the cat ever had urinary issues before. Of all the possible foods available, it's hard to believe that the owner would go to a vet to purchase that expensive food for a cat that did not once have urinary issues. Plus, most vets wouldn't just sell it like that. So that's really the 1st thing that needs to be understood.

Once you can clarify that the cat did indeed have urinary issues in the past, then you can search hundreds of threads on here related to that. You'll likely find that 99% suggest a wet food only diet. Some are proponents of the wet Hills c/d or Royal Canin SO (both urinary formulas), others say that it only needs to be wet & high quality, not necessarily Rx. That's a decision for you to make along with the advice of your vet. Wishing you and your kitty many more healthy years!

If the cat had urinary tract disease issues, then you should feed it accordingly. But that does not necessarily mean a commercial prescription diet. Although prescription foods usually address the medical issue, they are notorious for being full of grain/carb fillers and cheap protein sources.

Prescription or non-prescription, cats should be on a wet food diet to prevent dehydration, which can also contribute towards urinary tract issues. Wet food also tends to be higher in protein, which naturally acidifies the urine so crystals and stones will be more likely to dissolve.

If the cat has had a history of urinary tract disease, then you might want to try feeding it non-prescription food, but test the urine with pH strips. They are available in the aquarium section of the pet store or can be ordered online from places like Amazon. Keep in mind that some kitties have very stubborn urinary tract issues and do need the prescription food, so it is a risk. Testing the urine pH can provide some feedback.

There are many articles on this site to help you choose the right cat food:

http://www.thecatsite.com/atype/46/Cat_Health

Dr. Lisa Pierson is considered a leader in cat nutrition and specifically discusses cat food and urinary tract disease at her website:

http://www.catinfo.org

http://catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth

Thanks for all the advice. She did say the food was for prevention because all male cats are prone to urinary issues. She said he's a perfectly healthy cat, he just had his annual vet checkup a couple weeks before I got him & he has no known health issues.

I think I will try switching in different dry food. I just gave him his first taste of wet food tonight. He was pretty excited about that I think

How do those ph strips work? Do you just hide them in the litter box & hope he pees on them? It's be nice to be able to keep tabs on his health from home.

datas said:

Thanks for all the advice. She did say the food was for prevention because all male cats are prone to urinary issues. She said he's a perfectly healthy cat, he just had his annual vet checkup a couple weeks before I got him & he has no known health issues.

I think I will try switching in different dry food. I just gave him his first taste of wet food tonight. He was pretty excited about that I think

How do those ph strips work? Do you just hide them in the litter box & hope he pees on them? It's be nice to be able to keep tabs on his health from home.

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That's great news.   

Also, great that he likes wet food. 

I may be doing it wrong, but I just use non clumping litter (Yesterday's News) and dip a strip right after my cat peed. But if your kitty is not too shy about it, maybe you can aim midstream? I don't know. 

ankitty said:

That's great news.   
Also, great that he likes wet food. 

I may be doing it wrong, but I just use non clumping litter (Yesterday's News) and dip a strip right after my cat peed. But if your kitty is not too shy about it, maybe you can aim midstream? I don't know. 

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Haha don't think that'll work. If I even set foot in the bathroom while he's using the litter box he bolts out of there leaving a trail of dust behind. He won't use a box without a cover either. Likes his privacy I guess. I'll see what I can do though.

You're supposed to stick the strip in mid-stream. I got lucky in that my kitty would go to the litter box, but have really bad aim. Her litter box was placed inside a giant Rubbermaid storage container. There would typically be some urine that landed on the outer edge of the litter box, so I used that.

I have had male cats for 25 years and last year was the first time I ever had a cat with urinary issues. Though it's awful when it does happen I don't know if it's common enough to put your cat on the special food if he doesn't have urinary problems. Pro plan makes a urinary Health dry food and it smells and looks just like the purina prescription urinary food. It is a little disturbing that both smell like play doh but mine has had a blockage and I need to go with what the vet says. I have been told it won't hurt a normal cat to eat a urinary health diet. I think the best way to avoid urinary problems is to feed your cat more wet food than dry and encourage water intake. I don't think you need to keep feeding him science diet or any special diet. I won't get started on Science diet that will be pages and pages....

datas said:

How do those ph strips work? Do you just hide them in the litter box & hope he pees on them? It's be nice to be able to keep tabs on his health from home.

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You want fresh urine. Ideally you should stick the strip right into the urine stream as the cat goes. Alternatively, you can stick along handle soup ladel under the cat to catch the urine. If your cat won't let you stick anything under his butt, thoroughly clean out the litter box or buy a new one. Litter box dust can affect the test strip reading. Put a layer of fish tank gravel/pebbles into the litter box. After your cat has used the box, tip the box to pool the urine into a corner and stick the test strip into it.

I did the prescription wet food for a couple of days. I would personally choose wet over dry though.

While I researched what to do next as far as diet goes, I came across so many statements of "any wet food is better than all dry food". Adding water in the wet food helps too - just getting more water in the cat helps!  

My cat was never 100% blocked and his PH level was fine. He was healthy up until that point. I noticed that he wouldn't sit all the way down and he was "dribbling" some pee with a little blood in it whenever he stooped somewhere. But just switching to wet foods, adding water in, and then continuing with the meds helps tremendously. He had clavamox antibiotics and some prazosin pills to help with inflammation that I would add into his wet food. That's all I did - ANY canned food to up his intake of fluids, the prescribed meds, and watched his pee.

He's all good now It's been over a month and a half. I have leftover prescription wet food cans still that I need to return for something else. He didn't like the taste compared to other wet foods and with the freaking ingredients being the same, might as well get purchase three times the amount of .50 cent cans of Fancy Feast Classic with no grains to the price of one prescription can.

Have you discussed this with your vet? If the cat has never had urinary issues I don't think prescription food is a good idea, regardless of the quality of the product. Discuss this with your vet though, just to make sure the cat really doesn't need it.