[poolboy]

When I first was abdopted by Skitter it was very cold outside and she was very hungry. I think she might have tired to eat anything that she could get down. She ate both the dry and the moist food I put out. Now that she has become a semi indoors cat, has taken over the house, has my wife and I as her personal care staff she seems to only enjoy the dry food. I think it might be the crunch of it.

Is it ok if a cat only eats the dry food with lots of water available for her to drink. Or should I keep trying different "can or moist foods" to see if I can find one she will eat?

When I buy something that she does not like, I donate it to the shelter in hopes that they might have a cat who does like it.

[Dave B]

Hi Poolboy

Our two cats wont eat wet food from a tin but will eat ti if it comes out of a sashet, maybe try one or two loose sachets before you go ahead and get a box full, expensive mistake I made first time around.

[Ninelivesrescue]

First off, congrats on adopting her And on working on keeping her indoors!

Ideally wet food is better for them nutrionally, cats as a whole, don't take in enough water when they consume primarily dry food. So if they do eat dry, like you said, be sure to keep plently of fresh cold water available. Just play with it until you find a food she likes. Try to stick to higher quality foods for her, like chicken soup, felidae, wellness, eagle pack, etc... Not friskies, nine lives, or whiskas type of grocery store brands.

You can always even just feed wet as a once a day feeding and dry for the second feeding as an option too. Some wet is better then no wet when it comes down to it.

Good luck!

[gtull1]

I know that wet food is better nutritionally, but my personal thoughts are to just do whatever makes you cat happy. My cats love dry Meow Mix, so that's what I give them. Does that make any sense?

[Ninelivesrescue]

Originally Posted by gtull1

I know that wet food is better nutritionally, but my personal thoughts are to just do whatever makes you cat happy. My cats love dry Meow Mix, so that's what I give them. Does that make any sense?

Yes and no actually....

Yes I understand what you are saying... but at the same time, (for example) my son loves ice cream w/chocolate sauce and chicken mcnuggets, they make him happy. But it isn't a healthy diet to let him grow up eating saturated fats and sugars. Our animals depend on us for their health and nutrition as do our children, and we are responsible for provided the best we can for them. ie, not ice cream with chocolate sauce every day for dinner.

Meow Mix Ingredients-- ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal, soybean meal, beef tallow with mixed tocopherols, turkey by product meal......

Just the first six ingredients, the two main ones aren't even meat, they are just corn fillers. So it's a safe guess about 75% of your cats dinner is corn. Now taking into consideration that cats are obligate carnivores, they have no use for corn. It is a filler that ends up in the litter box. So total waste. Next is chicken by product meal, and a little further down the ingredient list is turkey by-product meal -- by product meal is basically rendered product left overs, like feet, beaks, manure, feathers, intestines, etc....

So there is actually no real MEAT in your cat's food.

Now, don't take me as a total snot here, that is not what I'm getting at. Not everyone is in a position to feed the ultra premium foods for their pet's entire lives. But I do think they are better choices that financially you still can make to better your pet's diet.

For example--

Right now my foster cats are eating about a 50/50 mixture of purina and eukanubia. I don't think eukanubia is the best thing since sliced bread, but it's better then a ton of other foods out there, and the mix of purnia helps the food to go further. lol, and the day I don't ever eat another piece of candy again is the day that my cats will never have a bit of junk food mixed in now and then

I do recommend the good foods and the reasons for them to their new owners as they get adopted.

My cats eat canned food 95% of the time. Their dry at the moment is a mixture of eukanubia (lol can you tell that eukanuba was on sale??) and chicken soup. I'm on a bit of a budget right now b/c my work has cut hours and my husband's work is down at the moment too, so no Wellness canned at the moment But they still eat chicken soup, felidae, eagle pack, and an occasional nine lives thrown in there to stretch out the life of the premium foods. I find that chicken soup is VERY affordable and a very good food.

[kotarache]

I think that the best combination for feeding cats is combination of dry, wet and home made food. I am not an expert though.

[catlover83]

Cats should not eat dry. They are obligate carnivores. Eating canned or meat only is a better diet for any cat in the long run.

[buttercup]

I was told that cats shouldn't eat the canned stuff as it's mostly water and doesn't contain too much nutrition. Dry food is the preferred stuff as long as you spend the money for the good quality stuff you get from a pet store. If you have a male cat like I do then make sure it is as low in ash as possible so that the male doesn't get the calcium buildup in his bladder. We had to put a male cat down a number of years ago as he started getting blood in his urine and had problems passing his urine.The vet told us it was the food we gave him and they could operate but it wasn't guarenteed to work. He was in a lot of pain.