Dry Food For Senior Cat

daftcat75

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Thank you! At this point, with incorporating wet food into her diet, I wanted to be sure she was still getting enough to eat. I'll see if that possibly helps in some weight loss at all just by giving her wet and dry food instead of just dry food like she was originally getting. I'm going to try to space out the dry and wet food instead of around 12 hours apart for both. Maybe give her 1/4 cup of dry and then an hour or two later I'll give her 1/2 can of wet. That may suffice seeing as she does try waking us up really early to be fed.
Wet and dry are very different on the gut (even if you managed to match brand and lines together.) Wet food is easier on the stomach and gut as it is closer to their natural prey. Dry food tends to be lower in animal protein, higher in plant protein which will make the stomach less acidic. The trigger to produce stomach acid is animal-based protein. It is probably a difference in amino acid compositions between plant and animal protein. A less acidic stomach also slows down digestion in the small intestine because digestive enzymes and bile release rely on a highly acidic environment. Some dry foods make up for this difference by adding chemicals to make the stomach more acidic. Now you can see where cats can get into trouble eating only dry food. It's not right for their gut and the add-ins/"corrections" can upset their stomach. In the Purina Cat Chow, there is phosphoric acid. Purina will tell you this is a phosphorous supplement but meat should have plenty of phosphorous already. That's another clue that there may not be enough animal-based protein in this food if they have to supplement phosphorous. And phosphorous acid is what it sounds like. It makes the dry food, which is mostly grains according to the top five ingredients, more acidic.

Fancy Feast does not require acidification. It has enough animal protein to strike the proper pH balance. If it does need additional phosphorous, that is provided by tricalcium phosphate which is the calcium supplement since there is no bone in this (or any cooked/canned food) recipe. This does not acidify the food like phosphoric acid does.

It's all mental that we even need to question cat food ingredients. Look for meat, moisture, organs (also called byproducts which are simply unnamed organs), and supplements and regard anything else with suspicion.

Long story short, I would space wet and dry meals at least two to four hours apart if you can.
 
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Beebster

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So for the last few minutes Eevee has decided she wants to play fight with Fluffy. Well Fluffy is not having it, so it's pretty much forcing her to run around the bedroom because Eevee keeps going after her. I'll take it for part of her exercise today!
 

daftcat75

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I just noticed something in the math. 1/4 cup of your dry is nearly the same as 1 can of wet (90 vs 99 calories.) For every can of wet you add, you can remove 1/4 cup of dry. An easy way to add another can is to give her a second breakfast and a second dinner before you go to sleep. Then you can split that remaining 1/4 cup of dry across daytime and nighttime to bridge the gap between her wet meals. I'm not suggesting you do this now. Give her a chance to adjust to the current ratios. But this is something you could aim for.
 
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Beebster

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Long story short, I would space wet and dry meals at least two to four hours apart if you can.
Okay, I should be able to work this out well then. Seeing as Fluffy likes to wake one of us up early to be fed, my boyfriend can feed her the dry food around 4am and then once I wake up around 6-6:30am I can feed her the wet food. Then I'll just do the same thing around 4-6pm.
 

daftcat75

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One simple idea for extra exercise is to walk her around the house with her meal in your hand before setting it down. When Krista was going through the worst of her IBD and pancreatitis, I used to make her follow me for a couple of laps around the living room before she could eat.

Or you can split her meals across several plates and put those plates at different levels assuming she can still jump or climb to those levels and that you can do this without Eevee or the dog eating her food.
 
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Beebster

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One simple idea for extra exercise is to walk her around the house with her meal in your hand before setting it down. When Krista was going through the worst of her IBD and pancreatitis, I used to make her follow me for a couple of laps around the living room before she could eat.

Or you can split her meals across several plates and put those plates at different levels assuming she can still jump or climb to those levels and that you can do this without Eevee or the dog eating her food.
Interesting idea! I kinda would make her beg for her dry food a bit, lifting the cup up and down so she would try reaching for it multiple times. I'll see if I can extend that as she's a scaredy cat with coming out of the room, lol.
 

Furballsmom

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Hi! You've gotten good advice, for example to weigh your furbaby is so helpful since every cat is different - a log helps you to really see what's going on.

To compliment and support the other posters' comments, maybe there's something here as well :)

How To Compare Cat Foods & Calculate Carbs: Dry Matter Basis

How Much Food Should I Feed My Cat?

https://www.petmd.com/sites/default/files/nestle_purina_cat_body_condition_chart_crop.jpg

Regarding exercise;

Do you have cat trees? Both upright and horizontal scratchers?

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Beebster

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Fluffy seems to be doing well with the routine meal feedings of dry and wet. This morning she actually was meowing for wet food!
1/4 cup dry twice daily
1/2 can wet twice daily
I've kept her routine of feeding roughly 12 hours apart, so dinner and breakfast. Although I wait at least 1-2 hours in between giving her the dry and wet.
 

kmoulus

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I'm getting into this thread a bit late, but FYI my little Speedy did very well on Science Diet Indoor Age Defying 11+ (along with mostly Weruva wet food). I know some people don't like Science but it was great for Speedy, she was on a mild sodium restriction and this food was great for her.
 
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