My friend insists on feeding her cat on only dry food as he is less prone to hair balls and being sick. Is this a healthy diet?
Is a diet of dry cat food alone healthy?
Perfectly fine though water should always be left out as cats tend to get water from their 'wet food'.
Absolutely, in fact it's often better for cats that have hair all problems. My boy is on dry only because he doesn't like wet, never has. Similarly dogs don't need wet foods, soaked biscuits (good quality) are often better than a meat based diet, but humans think its mean and add meat. Which generally just makes them poo more.
My boy has dry food only (he won't eat wet, but he's allergic to most things anyway, and gets really scabby unless he has the most expensive dried food!) and he's fine. Round as a barrel because he eats like a pig, but perfectly healthy.
It's really good to read these replies as this is exactly what I've been thinking about recently! I adopted two 10 year old cats in February and initially fed them a mixture of wet and dry, just Felix as advised by the animal shelter. They were both fine eating this but then we found out that they have allergies causing scabs like Elanor's cat, so we had to switch them a special diet.
Now one of them will not touch the wet food on that diet and it's driving me mad deciding what to do! Read loads of stuff online that you should try to get the cat to eat wet as it's so much healthier. Tried various means such as mixing the wet with dry, crushed dry and tuna etc but he just won't fall for it and won't eat any food really when there's some wet food mixed in. Some websites recommend feeding wet by a syringe to encourage them to start eating it, but this seems extreme to me and likely to upset and traumatise him!
Has anyone successfully tried any methods to get cats to start eating wet after they refused? Or would you just be happy to feed him dry only? I always leave 4 bowls of water, changed daily out for two cats. He does seem to drink quite a bit compared to cats I’ve had in the past, but no way gets through all I leave out.
Now one of them will not touch the wet food on that diet and it's driving me mad deciding what to do! Read loads of stuff online that you should try to get the cat to eat wet as it's so much healthier. Tried various means such as mixing the wet with dry, crushed dry and tuna etc but he just won't fall for it and won't eat any food really when there's some wet food mixed in. Some websites recommend feeding wet by a syringe to encourage them to start eating it, but this seems extreme to me and likely to upset and traumatise him!
Has anyone successfully tried any methods to get cats to start eating wet after they refused? Or would you just be happy to feed him dry only? I always leave 4 bowls of water, changed daily out for two cats. He does seem to drink quite a bit compared to cats I’ve had in the past, but no way gets through all I leave out.
Dry only is absolutely fine as long as they have access to water and the quality of the dry food is good.
Yep, my cat's been on an exclusively dry diet for about seven years, pretty much since he was a kitten. (We got him from a rescue centre when he was about a year old, so I can't say from birth). He's susceptible to teeth problems, so grinding the dry food seems to help. I give him Hills. He is a maniac whenever I cook meat though. I'm not sure if that's because he doesn't get meat regularly, or he'd be like that anyway. I give him little slivers of it.
My mog is 14/15 (we got her as a stray so exact age unknown) now and been on dry food her entire life (including when she had and nursed her kittens). Never caused her any health problems.
90%+ of her diet is James Wellbeloved "senior" food now. Much as above, she does manage to scrounge odd small treats (fish, meat, cheese) but always seems happy enough to go back to her dry food.
90%+ of her diet is James Wellbeloved "senior" food now. Much as above, she does manage to scrounge odd small treats (fish, meat, cheese) but always seems happy enough to go back to her dry food.
the only time you really need wet food or something of that nature is to add weight. I feed my cat mostly dry as better for hairballs as she suffers and I aint shaving her
It's fine too feed soley on dry food. Plus there poops smell less too. If they have cystitas or struvite crystals you have too feed them on a food that I can't Remeber which way it is low or gig in ph levels,
We have fed our cat nothing but dry food with fresh water. She is now 15 and she is doing well. The vet told us that dry food is a lot better then the wet food due to dry food being healthier.
Hi all, Just butting in.
The Beast has a 'wet food' diet as far as commercial food goes, mixed with whatever leftover of chicken/fish/ham slices etc he grumbles for.
He rarely has dry food unless we are away overnight.
Reason being, and this has been clearly proven incorrect by you fellow posters, is that, as a teeny ball of fluff at his very first vist to the vet for his jabs, the vet recommended that, as a boy cat, a wet diet was better for his 'water works'
The Beast has a 'wet food' diet as far as commercial food goes, mixed with whatever leftover of chicken/fish/ham slices etc he grumbles for.
He rarely has dry food unless we are away overnight.
Reason being, and this has been clearly proven incorrect by you fellow posters, is that, as a teeny ball of fluff at his very first vist to the vet for his jabs, the vet recommended that, as a boy cat, a wet diet was better for his 'water works'
