Please help, I have been feeding only dry my cats' entire lives!

Hi, I am really upset after learning how unhealthy it is for cats to only eat dry food.

One of my cats I believe has a UTI. 1 question, will the vet give her medicine for this, or just fluids and food?

My boy poops out of the litter box constantly. Not sure if this is related. 

Anyways, I have bought them a fountain today, which they don't seem to mind. I tried to come up with a healthy diet for them, but the problem was that it will cost me $210 a month, which is money I definitely do not have.

Male 1 Cobe is 15 lbs and needs 300 cals a day.

Male 2 Sebastian is 12 lbs and needs 240 cals a day.

Female 3 Teddy is 10 lbs and needs 200 cals a day.

The diet I came up with is a can of Fancy Feast for each every day, half a can of Nutro wet food, an eight of a cup of wet food (Should I eliminate this altogether? Is there any point?), and the rest being dry food (Nutro) which would be 2/5 c for Cobe, 1/5 c for Sebastian, and 1/10 c for Teddy.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to make this affordable? I really appreciate it. And only one of my cats likes the raw food, but I figured I would mix it in with wet.

Also, all of them are under 3 years old, so hopefully I can help them get better ASAP. 

The vet will probably give you some antibiotics to help with the UTI. 

I fed my cats dry only up until recently so I totally see the problem when it comes to budget. I am hoping to buy a cat fountain after my next paycheck.

Hopefully someone else can help you find a way to cut back budget wise. The way I've been doing it with my cats (Carrot, age 3 and Angua, almost a year) is to feed them wet food for one meal a day. Carrot hates wet food so it is a constant struggle. I am planning to increase this soon, once he is eating the wet food more consistently. 

My suggestions on cutting the price down is to shop sales and buy in bulk. Chewy.com is  good place to go. Amazon is also good. I managed to find a good deal on fancy feast on petco a while back so I got most of my current supply for like 50 cents a can. Another good thing to do is buy 12 or 13 oz cans. I know Wellness brand comes in these. These tend to be cheaper as well.

Thank you! It is a lot more expensive, sadly, when it's much better for them. I def do want to order things online but the shipping hurts lol.

I am looking at other threads and people say they feed their cats a can and a half a day which confuses me because canned food's way lower in calories than dry. I am wondering if I should be going by quantity or calories? I think I will cut out the raw food completely. 

Many neutered indoor cats need fewer calories. Probably more like 15 kcals per pound. Sometimes smaller cats need more calories per pound than larger cats, and of course age and activity level make a difference too. Do you keep track of their caloric intake now?

Most of the pet food sites have free shipping over $50. It's not hard to get to $50 . I like www.chewy.com best but there are others too.

I wouldn't cut out the raw food (unless it's an undue burden for you); fresh food is always a good addition. If you need to cut out the raw for financial reasons, that's fine, but don't feel like it's pointless.

In general, the larger the can, the less the food will cost per ounce. Wellness comes in 12.5 ounce cans, Dave's, Triumph, Canidae, and a few others come in 13 ounce cans. It's not as convenient as a single-serve can like Fancy Feast, but you can cut the price considerably!

Don't be surprised if the cats rebel against switching. Cats hate change. Even if they like canned food they still don't like change :lol3:. So go slow, let them set the pace. Don't stress them by expecting a complete change right away.

It certainly can become overwhelming quickly! Just remember that any increase in wet food in their diet helps, so don't stress yourself and your budget too much trying to make everything perfect. 

If your cat is pooping outside the litter box but nothing else seems off, they may have some moderate constipation and wet food should help with that. You may need to get a new litter box that the cat doesn't have any negative associations with yet even if the constipation goes away because they'll think the old box will cause the discomfort to return if they go back to it. If their stools don't get softer, you can add 1/8 tsp of Miralax (not the generic version) to their food once a day, or a tablespoon or so of canned pumpkin. Some people have more success with one or the other. If their appetite decreases, their mood changes, or they start pooping less often, though, you need to take them to a vet.

I'd go by the calories, because even different flavors in a brand can have different calories in the same size can. When I'm shopping for food I calculate how much each food is per calorie to see what is going to be the best deal.

My cat is 13 lbs and she's eating about 170 calories a day (one 5.5 oz can), but she's overweight and needs to lose about 2 lbs. I think she's started plateauing so I'm going to have to cut her calories back even further. Cats seem to have wildly variable metabolisms. She's not very active, for example. But also, you might find you need to feed a bit less than you expect with the wet because it has more protein which is more filling.

Chewy.com is really great because if you arrange your shopping so you buy over $49 in an order, you get free shipping. And they have things on sale often, so sometimes you might be able to get something a little more premium for much less.

Great advice here already.  I just wanted to add that you shouldn't feel bad if you have to feed lower end canned foods like Friskies.  It might not be the best, but it's still better than all dry.  Nobody would benefit from you going bankrupt trying to feed your kitties. 

If you need to stick to a tight budget you can do part dry and part wet.  During your wet feedings you can add extra warm water.  That's what I do with one of my cats.

It's good to know 20 cals a pound is too much. They are very inactive indoor and all fixed. So around 15 is probably better, and I was thinking about getting the Trader Joes canned food because it seems better fhan Fancy Feast (?).

Thank you everyone for your comments! I really am getting a better idea of what to do about this. : ) Of course, they're being difficult about eating the wet food. 

Is there a Tractor Supply store nearby?  If so, you can get 5.5 ounce cans of 4Health Cat Food for 69 cents a can!  In my opinion, it's the least expensive, healthiest way of feeding wet food.  It's grain free and has absolutely no by-products.  Trader Joe's also has a canned food for 79 cents a can and it has no by-products but does have grains.

Good for you for taking your cats' health seriously.

You're a wonderful custodian to your animals and they are very fortunate to have you.

Grreat Choice (Petsmart brand) pates seem to be decent, and $0.45 a 5.5 oz can. A 24 pack comes out to $10:80. Most pates in general are decent, although some are higher in phosphorus (but if you don't care about that, you are probably fine).

Do you have Amazon Prime? I look out for things that are on sale. Fancy Feast and Friskies both have food for very decent prices occasionally. Friskies 32 pack is between $15-16 right now (I was looking today). True, some of the bigger (12-13 oz cans are worth more on a per-oz basis), but I suggest actually doing the math because it's not always a better value. You can maybe get a 24-pack of a decent food (Weruva is pretty decent and good price on Chewy.com). I do keep my eye on those two sites, as well as Drs Foster and Smith, to make sure I get the better price.

For what it's worth, I also feed dry, but trying to feed more wet as well. The two older ones get three meals of wet a day, the youngin's get two meals of wet a day. They have access to dry food (all five of them).

Just two things I think might help:

1) If you buy the larger cans, you can get plastic seals that keep the food fresh, like these, which are the ones I have:
If you have cats who are picky about leftovers, it could make a big difference.

2) Sheba and Nutro have "perfect portions" packaging, which looks like this:


Sheba is cheaper than Nutro, and it's a good cat food. It's not ultra-premium, but it does have turkey, chicken or beef as always the #1 ingredient, and it doesn't have fillers you'd find in other brands. It's also easy to find coupons for the Sheba Perfect Portions...buy 1, get 1, or 10 for $5.50, things like that.

And finally, you don't have to go 100% wet either. Lots of us feed mostly wet, then dry at night/overnight. I do this so my cat doesn't wake me up at 4 a.m., but also because he likes dry food too, and he likes having a bit of it every day. He's still getting 2/3 of his meals as wet food, and he drinks regularly, so I don't think it's a bad thing if he eats a small amount of dry food.

Good luck!

I'm going to second ordering from Chewy.com! I have been using them for over 3 years and couldn't be happier. (I do A LOT of ordering as I also have a rescue.)

Do some number crunching. Oftentimes, you can get a higher quality food for less per ounce when ordering in bulk online.

I personally feed a mix of wet and dry (everyone gets 2.5-3 oz wet daily...sometimes more) and am able to feed 6 cats for about $250 per month.
I used Pride by Instinct/Wild Calling dry and Evo/Petguard/Dave's/BFF for wet. I also go through a bag of Stella & Chewy's freeze-dried raw a month as I use this as a topper for the wet.