Cat Water Consumption

[VinceL]

I wasn't sure if this is the correct forum for my question. It is about nutrition, but water intake not food.

We have a Catit Flower Water Fountain. If you are familiar with them, you will notice that I have extended the stem of the flower so that the water travels further. Our 2 girls who drink from the fountain refused to drink from it with the flower very low (as supplied by Catit). It makes it more like our kitchen faucet where they really like to drink.


Lexi (6 lbs) and Bonnie (7.5 lbs) are the only 2 of our cats who drink from the fountain. I don't see either one of them spending lots of time drinking from the fountain. But, I am adding about 1.5 cups of water to the fountain each day. Seems like a lot of water intake for just the 2 of them. I'm sure I lose a little water to evaporation and splashing.

I'm wondering how much do other peoples' cats drink.

 

[Purrrfectttales]

I think that sounds about right for what I'm adding to my cats' water bowl. Of course my one cat doubles it as a bird bath. Cats also get moisture from food too so if you are feeding wet food then that helps with water consumption. I would probably be more concerned if there was a significant sudden change in the amount of water being consumed.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

I don't have an answer regarding the 1.5 cups of apparent water loss... but I do want to say I admire your "hacking" of the Catit fountain to make it taller! Pure awesomeness. I might do that to my Catit fountain.

 

[LTS3]

There are so many variables to how much a cat drinks: age, activity level, breed, health status, diet (dry only? wet / canned only? dry and canned? raw?), the climate where you live, etc. There isn't a average or typical amount of water a cat drinks daily. Just know what's normal for your cat and whatever seems unusual (excessive drinking and a urine output to match or not drinking at all and acting lethargic) warrants a trip to the vet.

 

[orange&white]

As Purrrfectttales and LTS3 said, watching for changes in the amount they drink is the most important things to do.

Generally, cats eating dry food drink a lot more than cats on a wet diet, but that is in "general"...not every cat. My cats eat a very moist raw diet and the 2 youngest hardly drink any additional water. My senior cat drinks up to a cup a day of extra water and pees huge "lakes" in the box. I took him for a blood panel recently, worried about kidney issues, but all results were in the normal range. I asked the vet tech why he would drink so much water and she said, "Maybe he's just thirsty."

 

[vince]

Mine get a mix of wet and dry and the three of them drink perhaps two cups daily from the bowls. One of them also drinks frequently from the bathroom sink faucet, so the OP's numbers correspond fairly well with mine.

They have one of their boxes in the upstairs bathroom and sometimes we both do our business simultaneously. They have good urine output. It sounds like a little faucet running when they urinate and there are a goodly quantity of clumps in the litter when I clean the boxes (maybe TMI, but I guess it's as good a qualitative analysis as any without taking any measurements)!