Neutered cat nutrition advice pls!

JuanJose

Greetings all,

just had our adult male cat neutered yesterday. Thing is that the vet suggested that we should feed him a dried catfood product (Royal Canin) specifically produced for adult neutered cats under 7 years of age & sold exclusively through veterinary outlets (which by the way is more expensive than your run-of-the-mill brand available in the supermarket). The argument put forward was that tinned cat food have a high salt content which can create crystals in the urine and lead to urinary problems. Ordinary dried catfood is also now a no-no according to the vet.

Would a product such as Friskies Urban not suffice? ie. a product produced with neutered cats in mind who generally tend to stay indoors.

Has anyone else encountered this advice? What do folks out there feed their adult, neutered cats?

Thanks!

fits

I dont know much (or anything even) about cats, but most of the supermarket pet foods are all marketing and no quality. You're better off spending a bit more or going to the trouble of sourcing a recommended brand imo.
www.zooplus.ie have a good variety of foods, and they deliver.

Nala

Dont wanna sound like a sceptic but aren't vets on commission for the pet foods they sell?

All my cats ever get is normal supermarket cat food and they are fine.
All are neutered.

wexford12

Royal Canin is one of the best foods on the market well worth the money IMO,you use less off it so you will find the bag does go a long way.If you only have one cat to be honest the cost of it shouldnt be too much when you break it down weekly.As for vets been on commission no they are not what they do get is a mark up same as any shop,also they do give out free sample pouches that a lot of shops dont.

fits

Nala wrote:

Dont wanna sound like a sceptic but aren't vets on commission for the pet foods they sell?

yes they can be... most run vet supplies shops after all, they're not running a charity.

Nala wrote:

All my cats ever get is normal supermarket cat food and they are fine.
All are neutered.

Thats good for you, but personally I wouldnt feed my dogs Pedigree or any of the supermarket dog food brands, as I dont feel that they're of high enough quality. Pedigree and Whiskas are designed to appeal more to people than to be suitable for the animals. Pedigree use a lot of colouring in their foods for example... I feed Burns, which is expensive to buy, but works out cheaper than tins of Pedigree per day (1 euro per dog per day)
Tinned dog/cat food is 86% moisture. It doesnt leave a whole lot of room for nutrition does it?

Tabitharose

Firstly Royal Canin is sold in most pet shops - not only vets.
Secondly as Fits says alot of the supermarket foods aren't the best.

Royal Canin would definitely be preferable to most of the brand sold in the supermarket IMO as said by Wexford12 it may seem expensive but it lasts ages

2 of my cats are fed on Royal Canin & thrive on it - but when it comes time to buy more food I'm thinking of switching to Nutro which is what my dogs are fed on.

JuanJose

Thanks for all the info people.

wexford12 wrote:

Royal Canin is one of the best foods on the market well worth the money IMO,you use less off it so you will find the bag does go a long way.

So, if you had a 1.5kg bag of Royal Canin, and your cat weighed in at 4kg, how long would you expect it to last? (Sorry, as you can see I'm not much of an expert on cats.....that's more my girlfriends field! )

Tabitharose

I'm not going to try to answer that one as I've 3 cats & 2 dogs who manage to steall what's left every now & again - just wanted to add that if you are changing your cat's food do it gradually - over a week to 10 days - day one introduce a small amount of the new food mixed in with the old food, day 2 a little bit more of the new food and a little bit less of the old food, & continue on like that - this helps to prevent upset tummies that can sometimes be caused by a sudden change in diet

wexford12

So, if you had a 1.5kg bag of Royal Canin, and your cat weighed in at 4kg, how long would you expect it to last? (Sorry, as you can see I'm not much of an expert on cats.....that's more my girlfriends field! )



I havent a bag here at the moment i keep it in a sealed container to keep fresh, i dont weigh it but i think its about 80-100 grams a day.If you only have one cat try it but as last poster said mix it in with old food for a few days.Mind you i bet you will find the cat loves it and leaves old food to one side mine will not eat supermarket food iv tried the odd time when im stuck.It really is not a cost problem that i can see.I would think a bag should last a month or very near it i know it should work out less than a euro a day "how much is a can of cat food these days euro or more id say "

Fwaggle

JuanJose wrote:

just had our adult male cat neutered yesterday. Thing is that the vet suggested that we should feed him a dried catfood product (Royal Canin) specifically produced for adult neutered cats under 7 years of age & sold exclusively through veterinary outlets (which by the way is more expensive than your run-of-the-mill brand available in the supermarket). The argument put forward was that tinned cat food have a high salt content which can create crystals in the urine and lead to urinary problems. Ordinary dried catfood is also now a no-no according to the vet.

I had 3 male cats who were all neutered when they were about a year old. One died from this problem just before Christmas (they are 3 now). He was having surgery to remove the crystals but his bladder burst. Then a few weeks later we noticed his brother had a bloated stomach and we drove 50 miles to an emergency vet who drained his bladder and said we had got there just in time. Queue 9 days in the animal hospital, an operation, drips etc. The cost was €500 which is not an issue but I guess what I'm saying is that I lost one cat and nearly lost another so the €15 per bag for this stuff is well worth it.

BTW, the vet that saved our 2nd cat said that this was quite common in male house cats who have been neutered. Spend the money on the royal canin stuff - it's worth it.

fits

Wow, I'd never heard of that occurring before. Glad to hear your 2nd cat is ok.
Out of interest, what were you feeding before?
Yes these foods, as well as being cheaper on a daily basis, are well worth it from the point of view of animal health.
I'll also mention pet insurance here ... not too expensive and helps one deal with the 500 euro bills... http://www.allianz.ie/Personal-Insurance/Pet/index.html

JuanJose

Fwaggle wrote:

I had 3 male cats who were all neutered when they were about a year old. One died from this problem just before Christmas (they are 3 now). He was having surgery to remove the crystals but his bladder burst. Then a few weeks later we noticed his brother had a bloated stomach and we drove 50 miles to an emergency vet who drained his bladder and said we had got there just in time. Queue 9 days in the animal hospital, an operation, drips etc. The cost was €500 which is not an issue but I guess what I'm saying is that I lost one cat and nearly lost another so the €15 per bag for this stuff is well worth it.

BTW, the vet that saved our 2nd cat said that this was quite common in male house cats who have been neutered. Spend the money on the royal canin stuff - it's worth it.

Very sad story...sorry to hear that about your cats. Never thought the implications could be fatal So, not that I'm trying to send anyone on a guilt trip, do you think the problems those cats encountered was purely down to them continuing to eat their regular food after they had been neutered?

Garth

It's not the neutering that makes the difference, the "regular" food isn't any good even before. It's like feeding your kids cocoapuffs every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It might hit the "recommended vitamin intake" for the day but that doesn't mean it's healthy. And skip anything with coloured kibbles. That's nutritionally foul nonsense mean to appeal to you and me, and doesn't do anything for the cat.

On zooplus.ie there is a brand called Happy cat which we have switched to from Royal canin, and it's about half the price and from what we can tell, just as good. We have 6 cats to feed at the moment and we felt the need to trial something cheaper. We checked out the ingredients and everything and ultimately our cats are doing just as well on it as on the rc.

If you're looking for something easily available in Ireland, brands I'd trust include Hills, James Wellbeloved, Burns, and Royal Canin.

And if your cat weighs 4kg and is on Royal Canin light, he'd be fed 65g a day (I use scales) so the bag would last about 3 weeks.

Fwaggle

fits wrote:

Wow, I'd never heard of that occurring before. Glad to hear your 2nd cat is ok.
Out of interest, what were you feeding before?
Yes these foods, as well as being cheaper on a daily basis, are well worth it from the point of view of animal health.
I'll also mention pet insurance here ... not too expensive and helps one deal with the 500 euro bills... http://www.allianz.ie/Personal-Insurance/Pet/index.html

Thanks

They were on dry food but it was just stuff that I could pick up from the supermarket or pet shop, like Whiskas or Pedro (I think that's the name).

And I learned the hard way about having no insurance! We have our 2 cats and 2 german shepherds insured now for about €30 a month which is much better than €500 in one whack!

JuanJose, I thought the vet said something about him having been neutered but it was a stressful time ye know so I could have picked him up wrong. As he was neutered a full 2 years before he had problems, then I would go with what Garth said that the food, and not the neutering, was the problem.

fits

Fwaggle wrote:

And I learned the hard way about having no insurance! We have our 2 cats and 2 german shepherds insured now for about €30 a month which is much better than €500 in one whack!

Ditto:(
I'm still paying a 1000 euro bill after my dog broke his leg (open fracture) in February. He had a plate and pins put in, and then unfortunately he got an infection....
I reckon the vet didnt charge me near as much as she could have either.... She did the operation itself for cost.

The killer is, I'd tried to insure them online two weeks before, but didnt have the microchip numbers to hand at the time.
Now I'm paying 270 euro for the two dogs per year.

JuanJose

Another question while I'm on the subject of cats and neutering. The cat we`ve just had neutered is close to 4 years old (I know, I know...we've should've had it done much sooner). How long has it taken other peoples adult cats to "calm down" after the operation?
Our cat is still meowing a lot ( he has always liked to express himself! ), and still approaches the door regularly in an effort to get outdoors. I'm not expecting him to stay indoors 24/7, but I'm hoping we can keep him in most of the time. Am I expecting too much??

Cheers,

JuanJose

Just a suggestion - if anyone has any replies on my question, maybe post it under the thread started recently by spank inferno, titled "post-neutered cat".

Thanks.

Nala

fits wrote:

Tinned dog/cat food is 86% moisture. It doesnt leave a whole lot of room for nutrition does it?

The proof is in the pudding and I have 4 healthy cats.