Nutrition help

Piper has had only dry food since a few days after I found her. At first we gave her wet to hydrate her, but she refused it in favor of dry after a few days so I quit giving it to her. Since the birth of the kittens we are trying the pouches as well as the dry. She now gorges herself on the wet, refusing dry complety. The kittens appear to be healthy and are nursing so Piper is my concern with this.
Should I continue to give as much wet as she wants (3 pouches a day) as well as dry; or should I just feed dry in as much as she wants and add wet for flavor? I've read the contents and it seems to my untrained eye that dry is better for her.
BTW~ She'll still nab a piece of pizza right out of my hand.

The wet food contains all-important protein and helps to keep her hydrated while the dry gives her much-needed calories since she is providing 100% nutrition for her babies. Give both freely, as much and as often as she wants. Pizza may not be the best for her right now *grin* because it will upset her stomach and possibly give her poopy butt (diarrhea). If she doesn't feel good, she may not want to care for her kittens. If you really want to have her eat from your hand, find a good cat treat she likes or even put some of the little dry food biscuits in your hand and feed them to her.

~gf~

I agree. let her have the wet food. Its good for her! And also keep the dry out so she can nibble in between if she wants to.

Dutchy will always try to grab pizza out of my hand! what is it with that? LOL but it is not the best thing for her to have. As Gayef said it may make her sick

Your doing just fine in giving momma the wet food!

wet food is generally better then dry as dry has too many grains/carbohydrates which are not good for cats at all. I would not feed dry at all.

I don't typically care much for dry food either, but when you have a nursing queen with a litter nursing, it is next to impossible to get the calories in with only feeding wet food. Feeding a good, high-quality kitten formula dry food while nursing and then decreasing it gradually after the babies are weaned is normally what I would suggest.

How about some extra meat on the side? Calories from carbs would not be my choice.

They aren't my choice either honestly ... but the protein calories gained from the meat sources alone don't always allow for the best retention of weight and resources.

If I could find a way to keep enough weight on a nursing queen without having to resort to feeding dry, then believe me, I would.

~gf~

the reason I say this is because I have a queen that is almost impossible to keep weight on. I tried free feeding her dry and wet-as much as she wanted. She never gained weight untill I took her off of the commercial food and put her on an all meat diet. They can get all the extra calories they need from fats. That's what they really should be getting the extra calories from. Meat source fats like chicken fat or even butter or cream from raw milk (must be raw not pasturized) ect. When I feed chicken I give them the skin and the fat along with the chicken. They would naturally consume the fat and skin along with the meat anyway. Just buy fattier cuts of meat or add the extra fat to your recipie.