I recently switched my cats over to an all canned diet. They were getting "high quality" dry kibble before. I have two neutered male cats so you can imagine what may have happened to one of them ... UTI right before Thanksgiving. I switched them over from regular cat food (Meow Mix, Purina, etc) years ago because of the huge pet food recall debacle so I researched for healthier dry food options. The grain-free and etc. Never realized that good quality dry food can still have negative side effects.
So I researched again and read so much that I can't get the information straight in my head. I would LOVE to switch over to raw food, but I don't know if I'm really up to doing that quite yet. I don't have the funds or the space for a deep freezer. I may bite the bullet and purchase a meat grinder soon... but I don't know if I'm going to try the frankenprey method or not. That's another topic for another day, lol.
They are doing 10% commercial raw food right now. And 90% wet food. I know with dry food, we stuck to one bag all the time and you're not supposed to switch bags right away, but slowly introduce. We ended up switching towards the end because one my males has alopecia. We were trying to figure out what he's allergic to. Of course, I believe the switching of the food is what caused the UTI in the OTHER male.
Isn't that how it goes though? Like feeding my cats two different foods and they go for each other's bowl instead. Cats = difficult little creatures.
I read that ANY wet food is better than the BEST dry food so I started with the "best & cheap" brands - Friskies, Sheba and Fancy Feast and I learned how to read the label with the ingredients and etc. I do buy Wellness, Tiki, Merrick, and Weruva as well.
I switch between all of these, ALL the time. I mean, every single feeding time even. I feed 3 times a day. In the beginning, they threw up a few times. I think it was because they went from free-feeding dry kibble to a timed-feeding schedule and I waited too long in between. Now they just have hairballs now and then, but no throwing up food anymore. And the saying goes, "if it's not broke, don't fix it." I'm wondering.. does it apply here? Is it okay for me to switch out brand and flavor of wet food all the time if they have NO reaction to it.
Stools seem fine.. and we moved the litter box so it's closer to living room where we spend all our time and honestly haven't noticed a difference in the air/smell. I don't know though... we ARE cat people and they say cat people can't tell the difference in litter box smell as much as other people, lol.
So I researched again and read so much that I can't get the information straight in my head. I would LOVE to switch over to raw food, but I don't know if I'm really up to doing that quite yet. I don't have the funds or the space for a deep freezer. I may bite the bullet and purchase a meat grinder soon... but I don't know if I'm going to try the frankenprey method or not. That's another topic for another day, lol.
They are doing 10% commercial raw food right now. And 90% wet food. I know with dry food, we stuck to one bag all the time and you're not supposed to switch bags right away, but slowly introduce. We ended up switching towards the end because one my males has alopecia. We were trying to figure out what he's allergic to. Of course, I believe the switching of the food is what caused the UTI in the OTHER male.
I read that ANY wet food is better than the BEST dry food so I started with the "best & cheap" brands - Friskies, Sheba and Fancy Feast and I learned how to read the label with the ingredients and etc. I do buy Wellness, Tiki, Merrick, and Weruva as well.
I switch between all of these, ALL the time. I mean, every single feeding time even. I feed 3 times a day. In the beginning, they threw up a few times. I think it was because they went from free-feeding dry kibble to a timed-feeding schedule and I waited too long in between. Now they just have hairballs now and then, but no throwing up food anymore. And the saying goes, "if it's not broke, don't fix it." I'm wondering.. does it apply here? Is it okay for me to switch out brand and flavor of wet food all the time if they have NO reaction to it.
Stools seem fine.. and we moved the litter box so it's closer to living room where we spend all our time and honestly haven't noticed a difference in the air/smell. I don't know though... we ARE cat people and they say cat people can't tell the difference in litter box smell as much as other people, lol.