I know wet food is better than dry, but would it be ok to offer one bowl of dry food and one bowl of dry food softend with water? Would that suffice?
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Moisting food with water?
- Thread starter sunshine'skid
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Please avoid putting water on dry food, since it allows bacteria to grow quickly. You can mix a little dry in with wet (canned) food but you should not leave it out all day.
I think that a good quality dry food and lots of water is as good as a wet food, In any case dry is all that Gizmo will eat.
It's the quality tha tmatters.
I think that a good quality dry food and lots of water is as good as a wet food, In any case dry is all that Gizmo will eat.
It's the quality tha tmatters.
When I first got Hershey I put KMR on it .. Though what he didn't eat I threw out.
Cats often do not drink enough water even if it's available. Feeding a wet diet is much better for your cat if you can do it. If you have a cat that will only eat dry, then you do what you have to do. Sometimes it can be difficult to get a cat to eat wet if it's been used to only dry. Then you can try mixing some of the wet with some dry and try changing over gradually.
An all-dry diet often is the cause of crystals in neutered males. A good quality food is important whether it's dry or wet.
How long is it safe to leave wet food out? I have been leaving mine out several hours as he only eats a little at once and comes back several times during the day. Do you think I should I train him to only eat twice a day?
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i would put just one bowl of moistened dry food out. i think the cat would just choose the dry otherwise.
i feed my kittens 1/3cup each of innova evo dry, and i pour 1/2cup of warm water on it. i think a calorie restricted diet can really help as well because cats are more willing to eat different things when they're so hungry.
i leave it out for 1/2 hour, but they lick the bowls dry in about 10-15 mins.
i like the idea of giving them dry with water mixed in. then i can know exactly how much water they're consuming... they pee like crazy too
anyways, thats just how i do it. whatever works for you.
Why? I only add warm water to dry when kittens are first learning to eat.
Either give dry with a bowl of water, or give a canned food meal. I don't see the point in having 2 bowls of the same food (water/no water).
Either give dry with a bowl of water, or give a canned food meal. I don't see the point in having 2 bowls of the same food (water/no water).
I have to agree with this. I put out wet food before I leave in the morning so I have no idea how long it takes for them to eat it but our house is not overly warm and neither of the cats have been sick so I'm assuming they consume it before it has any chance to go bad. In the evening the wet food will be mostly eaten when put down, but some may remain which they finish off over the next couple hours. Unless your house is extremely hot, I very much doubt the food will spoil in a couple of hours. That's just my personal feelings on the matter of wet food and spoilage. I think we should be careful but not to the point of paranoia IMO.
If we have a party and a buffet lunch, the human food will often be out a couple hours and nobody has had to be taken to a hospital yet. Now if the food was outside in the hot sun/summer heat, I'd be more concerned.
T
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Thanx for all the info. I'll just stick to dry then and occasional canned.
i wouldnt train them to only eat twice a day, its unnatural and hard on their tummies, its good for them to eat a little at a time.
http://www.aniwa.com/en/general/Gran...2605/index.htm
here is an informative site about dry food, wet food, and water. at the bottom it states that most cats fed an all dry diet will sufficiently compensate by drinking enough water. it goes on to state specific situations that you might need to encourage your cat to drink more.
in humans, it is possible to drink too much water, i dont know if thats true in cats but although its good to make sure your cat gets plenty of water, its probably wise to not overdo it either.
here is an informative site about dry food, wet food, and water. at the bottom it states that most cats fed an all dry diet will sufficiently compensate by drinking enough water. it goes on to state specific situations that you might need to encourage your cat to drink more.
in humans, it is possible to drink too much water, i dont know if thats true in cats but although its good to make sure your cat gets plenty of water, its probably wise to not overdo it either.
Here's a good article by a vet, re why cats need canned food as opposed to a totally dry food:
http://www.littlebigcat.com/?action=...needcannedfood
http://www.littlebigcat.com/?action=...needcannedfood
Likewise, we should feed our cats a variety of foods. Variety keeps cats from becoming finicky and food-addicted....
this is kind of off topic but thats a line from the article you gave, i have always heard the opposite of this, that cats unlike people do not crave a varitey of foods and a cat fed a variety will become finicky
Funny! I've always heard the opposite. A cat breeder friend used to deliberately mix flavors and rotate foods...as she found cats could become bored with one flavor. I've also found that to be the case over the years.Originally Posted by jaycee
Likewise, we should feed our cats a variety of foods. Variety keeps cats from becoming finicky and food-addicted....
this is kind of off topic but thats a line from the article you gave, i have always heard the opposite of this, that cats unlike people do not crave a varitey of foods and a cat fed a variety will become finicky
That's what is nice with a forum, folks can share notes and experiences and compare
do you know, how did she go about rotating the different foods?Originally Posted by Pat & Alix
Funny! I've always heard the opposite. A cat breeder friend used to deliberately mix flavors and rotate foods...as she found cats could become bored with one flavor. I've also found that to be the case over the years.
That's what is nice with a forum, folks can share notes and experiences and compare
I've always heard that the less variety cats get the more finicky they get. That's how cats become "addicted" to a particular flavor/brand of food. I've read a bunch of kitten/cat care books from the library now, and they all said that variety can help prevent finickyness.
I rotate canned food every day, except for when I feed Chicken Soup. That lasts two days because it's a bigger can. I have a short list of canned food that is both healthy and popular with them and I occasionally throw something in that they don't care for quite as much, usually a chunky food, just to be different. But except for the CS they don't get the same flavor/brand of canned two days in a row. I'm also switching to a different dry food after two months both because I don't want them to get stuck on one dry brand and because I'd like to try a food that's pretty popular here (CS dry).
My other reason for rotating is because each company has different quality ingredients and different nutrition levels, even within the loosely regulated standards. This is especially true because the labels only say how much nutrients are in the food, not how much is actually biologically available. I doubt that any one brand is perfect, but feeding multiple types and brands might help make up any deficiencies.
As to the original topic, in my few months here I've seen quite a few discussions about cats having mild dehydration problems or UTI problems from dry-only diets. Not to mention that the nutrition in canned food is usually much better than in dry because a lot of grains and other fillers are needed to produce that hard dry form.
I rotate canned food every day, except for when I feed Chicken Soup. That lasts two days because it's a bigger can. I have a short list of canned food that is both healthy and popular with them and I occasionally throw something in that they don't care for quite as much, usually a chunky food, just to be different. But except for the CS they don't get the same flavor/brand of canned two days in a row. I'm also switching to a different dry food after two months both because I don't want them to get stuck on one dry brand and because I'd like to try a food that's pretty popular here (CS dry).
My other reason for rotating is because each company has different quality ingredients and different nutrition levels, even within the loosely regulated standards. This is especially true because the labels only say how much nutrients are in the food, not how much is actually biologically available. I doubt that any one brand is perfect, but feeding multiple types and brands might help make up any deficiencies.
As to the original topic, in my few months here I've seen quite a few discussions about cats having mild dehydration problems or UTI problems from dry-only diets. Not to mention that the nutrition in canned food is usually much better than in dry because a lot of grains and other fillers are needed to produce that hard dry form.
No, because cats prefer to eat smaller, more frequent mouse-sized meals throughout the day. I've read in my Cat Encyclopedia that a typical cat food meal that people put out for their cats out of convenience is equivalent to about 5 mice and it's way too much for a cat to digest in one sitting. Most people don't have time to feed frequent mouse-sized meals throughout the day but this explains your cat's eating behavior and my cats do the same thing. I think most cats do. It is quite normal for a cat to eat a mouse sized portion, walk away to digest it and come back later to eat some more. You can leave wet food out for a couple of hours, even for a few hours but you should toss it as soon as you can see that it's starting to dry up and go rancid. Or just feed spoonfuls of wet food more frequently, if you're uncomfortable leaving it out.
Also keep in mind that wet food will spoil faster in hotter weather. Fortunately Winter will be coming up soon.
Note that it's healthier for people and most mammals in general to eat smaller, more frequent meals. Imagine if we only ate twice a day, what a load a large amount of food would do to our systems. It's too much for the body to handle. In the wild cats are opportunistic but they will eat as many mice as they can catch and sometimes they eat more and sometimes less.
Honestly, no. This is a discussion from about 15 years ago, forget about me remembering all the details!
Gizmo eats mouse-sized meals. A 3 ounce can of tuna and crab will last her all day. Unfortunately she won't eat any other type of canned food--not even the rabbit--and she loves eating the same dry food every day. Rotating brands was a failure with this cat.
