The dry food/wet food debate - cats

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Our cats have settled well, 9 months and 19months age male neutered cats.
The previous owner who raised them very well has said that they ate GoCat adult dry food.
However, the older cat is constantly turning his nose up at that.
We made what might have been a mistake by succombing to the whines of the older cat by buying Felix pouches (which both cats loved).

The younger cat will eat dry or wet food.
The older cat will go hungry rather than touch the dry food.

I am reading a lot of conflicting info on the web regarding best option for feeding these cats.
At the moment it seems the only way we will get the old fellow to take dry food will be to make him absolutely suffer withdrawal.
I've started giving him some sliced turkey as a treat because he whinges so much even when the dry food is full.

Vet in town reckons he is pulling me around his little paw.

Really reaching out for advice on this?
How common is it that a cat will just really avoid dry food at all costs?
Am I making a big mistake to deprive them of wet food ?

—Ian

Cherry Blossom

Wouldn't feed either go-cat or felix tbh. Our cat gets a high quality dry food left out all day to eat or not as he chooses, one meal a day of good quality wet food and one of raw meat, usually chicken or fish or a slice of whatever is for dinner that day.

Taltos

Our cat can only take wet food - and we even add water to that as otherwise his urethra gets blocked by crystals - last time resulting in an emergency trip to UCD vetinary clinic.

Would love if he could eat dry food for his teeth - but being now 8 and being liable to develop crystals we have no choice in the matter.

Might I suggest you get another opinion on the food?

Zapperzy

Mine gets a high quality wet food, there's a few foods I feed on rotation so she doesn't get bored, most can be gotten on zooplus (bozita, animonda carny, smilla and grau, also the black feline fayre tins from asda as a treat). She also the odd time gets some high quality dry food, literally <20 pieces a day which is maybe 5g, should be getting about 55g a day according to the bag. I'm using one now I think called vets kitchen but I was using orijen up to this. She also gets the odd bits of raw meat too, I buy whole quails (well whole minus the feathers) and chop them into various parts, wings, legs etc. and bag them so she might get a wing, heart and breast meat today and the neck, ribs and lungs tomorrow. She also gets chicken breast raw and she goes mad for mackerel both raw and tinned.

I know plenty of cats that have lived on the likes of go cat and whiskas all their lives but I can't bear the thought of feeding cereals, meat & animal derivatives (minimal 4% named meat) and vegetable derivatives to her when I can be feeding her foods that they actually tell you what goes into them and even better the meat itself! I think the cats that live happy healthy lives on whiskas possibly do so because they also hunt birds, mice and other various small animals.

Dry food is said to be better for teeth but really I don't believe that unless it's a specific dental diet like hills t/d, I know my cat anyways was on dry food the first few years of her life and she now has manky teeth that had to be cleaned last year and 3 weeks ago, she also had to have a big molar taken out and will likely need another tooth out next year. She's now on wet food because of urinary issues for the past year nearly two years. I think the key to preventing dental problems is brushing, and if that's not possible then there's various toothpastes, water additives and food additives. If I was to start out again with another kitten I would be brushing its teeth every day from day 1 and have it on wet food.

If you really want to stick to dry food then it's just tough love with a little persuasion I'm afraid. I get treats from zooplus called thrive, their basically just dried chicken (and they come in other flavours) but they can be crumbled over food like a powder, mine goes mad for them, I sprinkle some over her food when I'm hiding some of her various not too tasty food additives into her food as a little enticement.

There's a person on another forum I use and they'd be what I consider an expert on cat nutrition, basically knows the ins and outs and ups and downs of every brand of food out there plus all about raw feeding, she once said that the crappiest of brands of wet food is better than the highest quality dry food.

General Zod

Taltos wrote: »

Our cat can only take wet food - and we even add water to that as otherwise his urethra gets blocked by crystals - last time resulting in an emergency trip to UCD vetinary clinic.

Would love if he could eat dry food for his teeth - but being now 8 and being liable to develop crystals we have no choice in the matter.

Might I suggest you get another opinion on the food?

Is the cat on Hill's Prescription? If there's crystals forming he should permanently be on treatment food.

BengaLover

NO NO NO to pouches!
They get utterly addicted, give em a pouch and they will hang about and whine and refuse their dried food.
I learnt this the hard way..but if cat is having urinary probs there is a prescription plan dried food it should be having.

General Zod

just to second this, the pouches are full of sugar and poor value in the long run.

Zapperzy

General Zod wrote: »

just to second this, the pouches are full of sugar and poor value in the long run.

Not the high quality ones the likes of bozita, grau, etc.

Bozita ingredients: Rabbit:
Chicken, rabbit (at least 4%), pork, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, yeast (ß - 1.3/1.6-glucan).

Grau grain-free ingredients: Turkey & Lamb: Meat and innards (at least 40% turkey, at least 28% lamb), meat stock, calcium carbonate.

Felix ingredients: Tasty Meat Selection:
Meat & meat by-products (min. 4% of each listed variety), fish & fish by-products, vegetable protein extract, minerals, sugar

I know which I'd prefer to eat! I call whiskas kitty crack because it turns her into a whiskas junkie.

If I feed bozita it costs €1.27 a pack, each pack lasts her 3 days if she gets dry food with it, 2.5 days if just wet food on it's own. That's 42c a day or 51c a day. Grau tins are 94c each, each tin lasts 1.5 days, that's 63c a day.

If I were to feed whiskas or felix pouches I would go through at least 2 or 3 pouches a day, at 42c a pouch for felix or 54c a pouch for whiskas (which contains just 85g as opposed to 100g of felix), that's €1.05 a day for felix or €1.35 a day for whiskas.

Now those are just quick calculations going by prices taken from zooplus.ie, obviously buying in bulk would make it cheaper, also my cat practically lives on fresh air going by the recommended daily amounts. But I know which is the better value for me.

hairyprincess

An hour ago I fed my two 8 month old kittens some sardines; they lapped them up and are still busy licking their lips!

lubie76

I might be corrected but I don't think tinned like fish like tuna or sardines is good for cats at all due to addition of salts and stuff although they love the taste.

I have started feeding my two males raw chicken wings on the advice of my vet and they look great and seem to be less hungry than when they were on the dry food. Have had issues with crystals in the urine before from dry food so I feel much happier knowing they are getting real meat diet now. I buy pack of about 18 in tesco for €2.50 and they also share a pouch of whiskas a day. I leave acana dry food down for snacking in day bit they have lost all interest in it.

I also tried my female cat on the raw chicken....not impressed! She looked at me like I was trying to poison her. She's overweight from the dry food but I don't know what else to give her. She will eat chicken breast raw but vet said this too high in fat.