Dry or Wet food?

[avy izabelle]

Hello. Good day! I would like to ask if what is the difference between wet and dry food? I am a first time cat owner. And actually I've been feeding my cat "Whiskas" isn't it that good for them?? I fed her Raw Chicken liver, Chicken breast and Dry cat food, which is recommended by some of the cat owners I've met in the social networking site. Can you please give me some advice on how to take good care of my baby boy. Any advice were politely accepted. Thank you! :-)

 

[lokhismom]

Wet food is much better.

This may be helpful

What's wrong with dry kibble

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Feeding Your Cat - 4 pages 11-13.pdf

 

[2cats4me]

If you cat will eat it  consistently , wet food is the best .. 

Unfortunately my cats do not care for wet food so their main diet is a high quality grain free kibble . 

They will occasionally eat some can food but not enough to be their main diet ..

 

[pinkdagger]

Most of The Cat Site community agrees that wet food is better. There are a few articles on choosing a good diet for your cat:

Choosing the Right Dry Cat Food

Choosing The Right Food for Your Cat

What Makes the Best Canned Cat Food?

How to Compare Cat Foods & Calculate Carbs: Dry Matter Basis

The tl;dr of it is basically that dry food is dehydrating, high in carbs, can contain questionable ingredients (not talking about the anti-byproduct movement, but things like soy, corn, wheat, and other things that obligate carnivores like cats can't efficiently digest and utilize), and tends to be lower in protein and moisture than wet food.

The entire Cat Info site is a great read, but it's also a long read so take it one page at a time because all the information can be quite overwhelming at once. It's written by a vet who has dealt with a lot of diet-related problems in cats and though she advocates for raw/BARF diets, it's very informative to highlight what is lacking in dry diets that wet foods have. If you are already feeding your cat bits of raw as well, her website will be very helpful if you want to continue and expand on feeding raw, because there are a lot of things to consider if you are going to exceed 15% of his diet using raw food. I think a lot of us took the general idea from her "I would much rather see a cat eat any canned food versus any dry food":

http://www.catinfo.org/

Anecdotally, I noticed when we switched our older cat from Whiskas dry to a higher quality dry, even that made a big difference with his litterbox output. When we switched to a 100% wet diet under the advice of his vet, scooping the litter became much more manageable and he had less bulky output, so it was easier on him and me, and it stank much less.

Get used to reading the ingredients labels of different foods - the red flags that make me put a food down are corn, soy, wheat, and any of those as glutens. If they do appear, you definitely want to see a meat or two come before them, meaning they're in higher concentration in the food.

 

[bonepicker]

Hello. Good day! I would like to ask if what is the difference between wet and dry food? I am a first time cat owner. And actually I've been feeding my cat "Whiskas" isn't it that good for them?? I fed her Raw Chicken liver, Chicken breast and Dry cat food, which is recommended by some of the cat owners I've met in the social networking site. Can you please give me some advice on how to take good care of my baby boy. Any advice were politely accepted. Thank you! :-)

Stop the dry that is the best thing you can do for a long happy cat life!

 

[LTS3]

 
Hello. Good day! I would like to ask if what is the difference between wet and dry food? I am a first time cat owner. And actually I've been feeding my cat "Whiskas" isn't it that good for them?? I fed her Raw Chicken liver, Chicken breast and Dry cat food, which is recommended by some of the cat owners I've met in the social networking site. Can you please give me some advice on how to take good care of my baby boy. Any advice were politely accepted. Thank you! :-)

My advice is to read the links to articles about food and nutrition that others have already given you and then make your own informed decision on what to feed.  Many members of this web site advocate a canned food diet, some also advocate for raw food. There are members here to do feed dry food, either a 100% dry food or some amount of dry with canned. Don't let anyone make you feel like a horrible pet owner for your choice on what to feed your cat

The difference between canned and dry are numerous: canned food has a higher moisture content which is essential for a healthy body, dry food lacks moisture which leads to a constantly dehydrated cat, a giant bag of dry food is cheap and easy to store while cans take up space and may cost under $1 to well over $2 a can depending on the brand, etc.

Whiskas is a decent brand. There are better brands out there if you are willing to take a look at what is available in the pet stores. Ideally you should choose a grain-free brand. Cats have no use for grains in the diet. Some cats are even sensitive to grains. Nature's Variety Instinct and Wellness are two good brands you can find at chain pet stores. The "best" brand to feed is the one that your cat will eat, you can afford, and can easily find in the local stores. For some people this is Fancy Feast and Friskies. For others, it's the premium brands that cost over $2 a can.

How much chicken breast are you feeding? Chicken and other meats (raw or cooked) on their own are not a complete diet so they need to be kept to less than 10% of the diet or fed as occasional treats. Raw liver is great as treats but keep in mind that too much liver (like a whole container every day)  can cause vitamin A toxicity.

 

[betsygee]

Here is some important information about recommending raw and cooked food diets:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/282314/recommending-a-homemade-diet-hold-your-horses

There's a link to our Raw Foods forum there.