from a wet to mainly dry diet - is this okay?!

[jadrebskitty]

Hi! I’m looking for some advice on how much to feed my cats - it’s a long post so if you just want to skip to the question at the end that’s fine!

So I currently have 8 cats all ranging from 8months - 8 years of age. I’ve only just recently started looking into better nutrition for the cats. My budget hasn’t allowed me to feed them what brands I’d prefer to. They were originally on 3 x tinned meat a day & unlimited biscuits which states they are complete however they were just cheap biscuits. They’ve always been fussy with the tinned meat so we were looking into changing to a complete dry diet however a few of our cats would really miss the meat.

So now we have got good quality complete dry food down 24/7 & then two tins of meat that gets put down, but is just grazed upon throughout the day. This does get wasted often, when I was searching the internet about the complete dry food I couldn’t find any information on how much I should be feeding for a mixed complete dry & wet diet. Just recommendations for the dry alone. No cats are overweight or underweight or ever have been.

But now, the vets have told me one of my cats needs a prescribed hypoallergenic complete dry food diet. The issue is, he can’t eat the meat but my other cats are grazers and need access to the meat. The only solution we have thought of is buying sachets of meat (my cats go absolutely crazy for sachets) - which is obviously not cost effective as I have so many cats but it’s the only way they will eat their meat up at set times throughout the day.

So sorry for the rambling (it’s a lot of information)

The question is, how many sachets per day is enough? I was thinking 1 sachet per cat a day (8 sachets in total) & access to the complete biscuits all day but as I’ve always fed my cats meat I worry they’ll go hungry! Has anybody else taken their cat off meat & gone completely dry and their weight is fine? I think if being fed purely on the meat sachets it’s recommended that a 4KG cat has 4 sachets per day. But that’s not taking into account the complete biscuits!

 

[maggie101]

Why does your vet want one of your cats to only eat dry? For 8 cats I would cook ground meat and add ez complete. Fancy feast classics or sheba roasted chicken or turkey perfect portions. is ok to try for low cost. Can they be on timed eating schedule instead of grazing? 8 cats is a lot of work. Glad they have you to take care of them.

 

[jadrebskitty]

we recently got a BSH and he has been having some tummy problems & the vet says a hypoallergenic diet is a good first step. So we are going to just get the hypoallergenic dry food for all our cats going forward.

I have actually thought of making my own cat food it’s just the space to store it I’d struggle with! It’s the portion size of the meat alongside the biscuits I struggle to work out! The internet is a real minefield haha!

for timed eating it would have to be food that they really like and want to eat straight away!

Thank you!!

 

[Cat McCannon]

Free feeding (grazing) and switching to dry food is going backwards. Canned gives your cat better nutrition with reduced carbohydrates. Cats get no nutrition from carbs, but their bodies turn carbs into body fat. Good, clean raw meat is good for cats, but if you feed them only muscle meat, they don't get all the nutrients they need. They also need organ meat (such as liver) and a source of calcium plus other nutrients. (I don't know what sachets of meat are.) There are wet hypoallergenic cat foods available.

Scheduled feedings is a cat parent's Super Power. When your cats see you put a dish of food before them, they know you are the Keeper of Tinned Mice, a very important person in their lives. Feed them regularly and they'll know they can trust you to take care of them. Cats on a regular feeding schedule are less likely to be picky eaters, in my experience.

If you underfeed your cats a bit, you can make it up with treats given for good behavior and for training.

 

[jadrebskitty]

I do plan on still giving them meat alongside the biscuits it’s just not as much. Sachets are the same food they get from a tin, just packaged smaller and in little foiled sachets. They’re ideal for a 1 or 2 cat household but for some reason my cats prefer the food served from them and switching to them I would then be able to feed them at set times, as they all can’t wait to eat it! Whereas I’m throwing a lot of the tinned meat away as they’re just not that interested.

I just can’t find any info on how much they should have of the sachet meat alongside the complete dry food as the recommendations are entirely based on a fully dry diet.

I’m not sure if I’m even making any sense at this point! Thank you for your help!

 

[Cat McCannon]

I don't know what brand the sachets are, but most cat foods have a suggested feeding by weight, either on the package (sometimes printed really tiny) or on the website.

I judge how much to feed our cat by her body condition. Your cat should have just a bit of padding you can easily feel the ribs & backbone through. If the cat feels bony, it's under weight. If you have to press firmly to feel the ribs, the cat is probably overweight. If you can't feel the ribs at all, kitty needs to go on a diet!

Monitor the body condition of your cat and adjust as needed. It won't hurt if kitty goes a little hungry. In fact, a hungry kitty responds to treats better than one that's full- and let's face it. We use treats to bribe our cats to behave!

 

[maggie101]

Many people on here are more know more about switching canned to dry and how much. Good luck!