My cat (male) has a urinary problem.

(snip)


Bob, just a question, I usually feed my cats a mix of dry and wet
(tinned)
food. Lately, they've been ignoring the wet and prefer the dry. It's
fine
with me, it's cheaper, but do you believe they will still be as healthy?

kilikini

Giving some dry doesn't hurt and does help to exercise their
jaws/teeth (but as cats cannot chew it has little if any cleaning
effect on their teeth). Mine has a small portion of dry if I'm home
around lunchtime, which I usually am if there are any rescue cats
here.

Best recommendation is not to allow the dry food to form more than 30%
of their diet. As for their preference for dry, this is often down to
the fat they coat dry food in to stop it oxidizing in storage. Over
the years I've had a few guest cats that have been fed on dry food and
it has been a problem to get them switched to a proper diet, but when
you compare like with like the cost is not an issue - even the
cheapest tinned food is better than the most expensive dry.

--
Bob.

The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The
distinction is yours to draw...

Okay, thanks. I wondered if they were getting enough nutrition with only
the dry so I've been supplementing their diet with whatever meat I make for
dinner. Yesterday my girls had shredded cooked chicken. Today they'll have
finely chopped up steak. Just asking your opinion, do you think this is
healthy for them? They also just *adore* ham and every time I cook that I
finely cube some up for them. I know ham is very salty, but I've heard that
canned cat food is salty too, so I don't know how bad ham is for them.
There isn't any in canned food on the shelves which makes me wonder.........
Back to the canned food question, why would they just stop eating it? They
completely ignore the plate when I set it down in front of them, but their
weight is good, their coats are shiny. But, if I make chicken, boy, are
they at my feet literally *screaming* for it! I just need to know that
feeding them bland people food is okay...

kilikini