How much wet food?

I have been reading more and more lately about wet vs. dry food, and I'm debating about/how and when to try my 5 month old kittens on this diet. Currently, I'm feeding 1/2 cup of dry free feed. I do give them wet at night about 1 baby spoon or so.

But the more I read and see posts about this... I'm getting worried. Maybe this why my other 2 cats were a bit big because of this free feed dry. They also used to get wet as well. But anyway...

I thought dry food was supposed to given as well to help their teeth and for tarter control. I do plan to ask my Vet for more advice in a few weeks when I take Sarah & Max in for their check up.

Should I feed wet in the am & pm? With no dry? Does anyone here give both types of feed? I would like to still give them some dry, (just not free feed anymore, though).

You can still free feed, but measure it out. And if they finish it, don't give them anymore. I suggest feeding canned am and pm, with free fed *measured amount* during the day. Also, I'd go with a higher quality food. Science Diet is a really low quality food. Filled with meat by-products, corn and what not. I suggest Innova, California Natural, TimberWolf Organics, Felidae, Natural Balance, Solid Gold, etc. Any high quality food. Even Nutro would be a step up from SD. BTW, I like their names. My name is Sarah and my dad's name is Max. Haha.

We feed wet morning and evening with a measured amount of dry for during the day. Bijou has definitely slimmed down since I stopped feeding all dry.

Dry food does nothing to help tartar on their teeth. Cats don't actually chew. They break the dry pieces with the tip of their tooth and swallow. The old story about it helping to clean their teeth is another of those myths. Also, when you talk to the vet, ask him/her if they took nutrition classes - a great many vets know next to nothing about nutrition. I don't have a problem with that as long as they know their medical stuff but I wouldn't take their word as gospel when it comes to nutrition and what to feed unless they proved to me they knew what they were talking about and not just supporting whatever company supplies them with free food.

Thanks for all the info! I'll be looking into the different brands of food, plus starting a mainly wet diet. Thanks again

It is far easier to find good wet than dry ...

Search foods on this site and youll get quite the education... I would agree and disagree with foods mentioned .. SD is similiar to grocery in my book...

From all the research that I have done on here and elsewhere on the web, I am tending to find out that by products is a bad thing. I always thought SD was a good brand, but now I'm switching. I went to the petstore earlier today and was amazed by reading the different labels of stuff that they put in the food... wow, who knew? I'm trying Nutro Choice Indoor Kitten. I'm guessing this is good to start off with: Chicken Meal, Ground Rice. Rather than SD's kitten: Water, Liver, Pork By-Products, Egg Product, Chicken...

I'm still planning on a mainly wet diet. We tried mixing a bit of the Nutro dry with the SD (no go, on that yet). I hope they like it. Otherwise, we'll try a different brand. I always want the best for my babies (too bad, I didn't know about the wet diet before).

Update: since the last post, I checked their dry food bowl and the Nutro is all gone, SD still in the bowl. I guess that is good We tried the wet kitten food, which Max ate all of it! He never did that with SD .

That's great news that you got them to change over so easily.

Yes, I know. I'm still trying to figure how much wet? The cans are small 3 oz size and it says to feed 2 times a day 1 can. Sarah loves the wet more than Max. But he did eat all that I put out for him earlier in the day. Right now I use a baby spoon to measure the food out. So I'm still trying to figure out the whole "measuring" thing. Before I used to free feed dry.

I have to wonder: I had a cat for almost 22 yrs. - I gave her 1/2 can of wet in the morning, and the other half evening - always had dry out at all times. She never became overweight, obviously lived to a ripe old age.

Originally Posted by Flamingo13

I have to wonder: I had a cat for almost 22 yrs. - I gave her 1/2 can of wet in the morning, and the other half evening - always had dry out at all times. She never became overweight, obviously lived to a ripe old age.

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Did you feed the 3 ounce cans or the 6 ounce cans? How much dry food did your kitty eat compared to the canned?

You did great for your cat. You sure did. However, I do think different cats have different metabolisms. Some can eat dry food without gaining weight and others get heavy from it, like my Spotty who prefers dry over canned and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. I can't fast him into eating more canned food because he's the kind of cat who needs to eat smaller, more frequent meals or he eats too fast and throws up and he's done this with canned food too. So he'll always be a plump(but hopefully never obese) kitty, who walks his heavy self on my chest in the morning like the little furry alarm clock he is and boy does it hurt when he walks on my boobs.

I do have some good news. Only 1% of cats get FUS. So most cats(but not all) can eat dry food and drink a supplemental source of water without developing urinary tract disease. I bought a book today, the home vet handbook from the book store. But I do feel the information in this book is out of date. The vets who wrote the book reccommend dry over canned, high fiber dry foods instead of canned for controlling diabetis and don't seem to know about the connection between a high carbohydrate diet and obesity in some cats. In fact they reccommend weight control dry foods for weight loss. They also include the old myth about dry food being better for the teeth. I think I bought the wrong book and I'm going to have to look for one that's more up to date but I usually find this typical information in most books on cat care. Very dissappointing.

I think canned food is important to include because of the advantage it has for being more similar to a cat's natural diet, for weight control, less carbs, more protein, extra water intake, and because it makes a much more palatable diet. I can't deny them that. Rosie sure loves canned food and Spotty eats a little.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

We feed wet morning and evening with a measured amount of dry for during the day. Bijou has definitely slimmed down since I stopped feeding all dry.

Dry food does nothing to help tartar on their teeth. Cats don't actually chew. They break the dry pieces with the tip of their tooth and swallow. The old story about it helping to clean their teeth is another of those myths. Also, when you talk to the vet, ask him/her if they took nutrition classes - a great many vets know next to nothing about nutrition. I don't have a problem with that as long as they know their medical stuff but I wouldn't take their word as gospel when it comes to nutrition and what to feed unless they proved to me they knew what they were talking about and not just supporting whatever company supplies them with free food.

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Somewhere on this website www.littlebigcat.com it will tell you that cats can develop tarter on their teeth even from just being tube-fed through the stomach. Bacteria is always in the mouth.

I found the article about dental care on the site you mention. Note this:

One myth that is completely false is the notion that "dry food cleans the teeth." The best that can be said for dry food is that it may produce slightly less tartar than canned food. ... The exceptions are Hill's t/dÂ[emoji]174[/emoji] and Friskies Dental DietÂ[emoji]174[/emoji], which have very large kibbles designed to fracture so that the fragments scrape tartar off the teeth.

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On the one hand it says that the notion that dry food cleans the teeth is "completely false," and then it says that dry food produces teeth that are cleaner than canned food does. So, not completely false. And then it admits the advantages of large-kibble dental food.

There are also tests showing that these dental brands have an effect.

This could just a few vets/"experts" putting forth an opposing opinion. Or it could be that these vets are trying not to totally discount the helping effects of dry food, but to urge people to use other dental care on their cats as well, as dry food can't do it all.

Personally, I can hear my cat crunching the dry food. Even if he only crunches once or twice on each piece, and even if that effect is mostly on the teeth toward the front of his mouth, it's a positive effect. Also consider the cumulative effect of several pieces of dry per day. My excellent vet recommended that my cat have both wet and dry food, and I trust the vet.

Originally Posted by emmylou

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Personally, I can hear my cat crunching the dry food. Even if he only crunches once or twice on each piece, and even if that effect is mostly on the teeth toward the front of his mouth, it's a positive effect. Also consider the cumulative effect of several pieces of dry per day. My excellent vet recommended that my cat have both wet and dry food, and I trust the vet.

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I agree with you on both wet/dry diet. I also agree with following the vet's advice too. So far Max & Sarah love the new food. So that must good , plus I discovered something else with Max (he doesn't like the wet as much as Sarah), but I tried mixing the two flavors (I like that Nutro offers 2 kitten wet) together and he loved it!!! He ate all I put out for dinner last night and what I put out for breakfast this morning.