Wet vs. Dry vs. Homemade (Help Me Make A Start)

Okay I have read all over the internet, talked to pet owners, etc. I need a community vote here on food. I want to use homemade food, I think commercial wetfood is horrible. With that being said, I have people swearing by never feeding wet food and sticking with a high quality dry food 24/7. I think that is a band-aid fix to poor quality commercial wetfood and wetfood is crucial in moderation? 

I see many people make their own wetfood and just feed that twice a day, every day and I am not sure that is the solution either.... this is just my opinion from a non-educated background in this, and that is to feed high quality dry food AND homemade wetfood but it is the ratio I am unsure about. Wet once a week, several times a week, every other day or mix it daily with dry food? Dry food does not seem nutritional sort of like popped corn snacks, but maybe some contain protein I am not sure. My cat is a kitten and we have been mixing the dry with the wet so she does not get used to anything until we decide what to feed her, we have Purina Kitten Chow (Nurture) and "by Nature - ActiveDefense+ Grain Free"

So, can anyone tell me how much and when, to feed dry and homemade wet? Is it worth making any dry food myself?

Thanks  

I'm not even sure how one would go about making their own dry food . So, no, don't even try. No point really.

All commercially sold cat foods in the US (and most other industrial countries, but if you're not in the US you should see what your government does about pet food) are required to be complete and balanced (unless they say on the label that they aren't). So any one you can buy will be "OK". But that doesn't mean that they're particularly healthy or that your cat will do well on that food. It's best to look for a food that has meat as the first ingredient and not many grains or other veggie ingredients.

There is a general consensus that wet foods are better for cats, because cats are desert animals and developed to get their moisture from the blood and flesh of their prey. They aren't good drinkers, generally speaking. You can feed dry food, too, if you want, but make sure they get at least some wet food every day. Many cat owners find that 50/50 works for them and their cats.

As for homemade vs commercial, that's up to you. If you make it yourself, you'll have more control over the ingredients. But there's no denying that canned food is easier. If you do feed any kind of homemade food, though, you have to make sure it's balanced. You can check on the homemade food subforum for more info on that.

Thank you, I will look into balancing the homemade food. One of the biggest benefits with homemade I think, is the fact that their nutrition comes from the real foods and not "added nutrition" the same way vitamins from a balanced diet is better than taking vitamin supplements since they are synthetic. 

I will make sure wet food is part of her regular daily diet, whether that is one wet meal and one dry or both mixed.  

Balancing homemade food isn't difficult if you buy a supplement. I use Ezcomplete, which is designed for use with boneless meats, cooked or raw; it truly is EZ. Using a supplement isn't just a matter of adding vitamins, it's also a matter of balancing certain things in the right proportions.

FWIW, we currently feed our cats one homemade (cooked) meal a day, three raw meals a day (two with freeze-dried foods, the other frozen), and one canned meal a day. That works very well for our cats, who both have digestive quirks!