I haven't taken the time to look at the math, and I am good at that. But I do know that one cat (at least one of mine) doesn't eat 1.25 cups of wet food a day (on an all wet diet), so they can't possibly need 1.25 cups of water.
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I'm wondering about replies here towards dry food
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I free feed the kibble, but it works for me. The autofeeders are an excellent tool to use and will also control how much your cat eats on a daily basis. If you've got cats that tend to overeat; I highly recommend them. I use the water fountains and my cats love them. I like the mixed diet of dry and wet because I know I've got the moisture issue covered AND my cats love their wet food "snacks" twice a day.Originally Posted by Ducman69
The one thing I do agree on is that its better to schedule feed dry than to free feed.
Dry can very easily be put in an autofeeder though, and remain perfectly fresh and sanitary, with nothing more needed than to wash the bowl once a day or every other day which just lifts right in and snaps into place. The Petmate I purchased allows you to control varying amounts of kibble released up to three times a day, and it exactly holds a 10lb bag of Wilderness kibble in the container. The container is not airtight, but reasonably close to it.
Wet does have a moisture advantage, but IMO a mixed diet with attractive water fountains easily meets a cat's required moisture needs. The studies regarding mild dehydration is typically done with simple bowls of water next to the food, which many cats are somewhat disinterested in, and an exclusive dry diet w/ no wet meals whatsoever.
In the US, the standard cup is 8oz, so you are talking about 10fl oz.
All the information I have read before, is that a cat need 5.5oz a day of water - that includes the water it consumes in the food, plus what it drinks. That is why, when you feed a mostly wet diet, which is up to 80% water, he will barely need any extra water if all.
Question for those who keep referencing the cat's digestive system. Cats have been domesticated for what... 9,000 years+? For the truly 'domestic' cat who is a mutt, that has been coming from generations and generations of kibble eating cats, are their digestive systems really set up the way they used to be, before cats started eating kibble?
This is actually a question that comes up a lot. I'm not anti raw food or anything. But it is a question I've always wondered. Our cats and our dogs are not wild, they live in houses, they don't roam [or for those who do, they don't roam like wild animals do]. I'm not saying that kibble was a good invention or anything but for the generations of animals being fed and raised on kibble can we really say their digestive systems are the same as they used to be?
I'm also not trying to take this off topic, but the argument for wet food [which I am a wet feeder btw] seems to be based off of what a cat would eat in the wild - even though our cats no longer live in the wild.
This is actually a question that comes up a lot. I'm not anti raw food or anything. But it is a question I've always wondered. Our cats and our dogs are not wild, they live in houses, they don't roam [or for those who do, they don't roam like wild animals do]. I'm not saying that kibble was a good invention or anything but for the generations of animals being fed and raised on kibble can we really say their digestive systems are the same as they used to be?
I'm also not trying to take this off topic, but the argument for wet food [which I am a wet feeder btw] seems to be based off of what a cat would eat in the wild - even though our cats no longer live in the wild.
Pet food has been around for all of ~100 years. In the same time, cats are getting way more diseases...
It takes a LONG time for them to change. Wolves and dogs differ by all of 0.2% of their DNA. In other words, they are almost the exact same, and wolves are obviously carnivores.
http://rawfed.com/myths/cooked.html is a link you may want to check out.
For me, dry food is too fattening. Bijou was 24.6 lbs so I took away all dry food and went strictly to wet. Since last June when he was weighed by the vet at 24.6 lbs, he has lost weight on wet food only and is now 19.2 lbs.
Some folks believe that dry food helps clean the teeth - nonsense! Cats do not chew (i.e., their jaws only move up and down, not side to side to chew), they break large pieces of kibble with the tip of the tooth and swallow which does nothing to help plaque. If I eat a mouthful of beef stew (wet food) it would leave little residue on my teeth but if I ate a dry cracker (kibble), when it mixed with my saliva it would get all mucky and stay in all the crevices in my teeth.
And that is my reasoning for feeding wet food.
Some folks believe that dry food helps clean the teeth - nonsense! Cats do not chew (i.e., their jaws only move up and down, not side to side to chew), they break large pieces of kibble with the tip of the tooth and swallow which does nothing to help plaque. If I eat a mouthful of beef stew (wet food) it would leave little residue on my teeth but if I ate a dry cracker (kibble), when it mixed with my saliva it would get all mucky and stay in all the crevices in my teeth.
And that is my reasoning for feeding wet food.
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I want to see the proof that pet and farm cats were regularly vetted 100 years ago, let alone that the disease counter parts that have only been understood the last 20-30 years in humans absolutely were not around back then. I also want to know how pet food has caused the rise of FeLV in all cat populations - including wild big cats.
In the rural area I live in current beliefs and values of animals are about 50-60 years behind, most non-house cats are left unspay, unneutered, and die early on from diseases that no one knows they have because they get no vet care. The excuse is "he was healthy, I don't know why he died" and when asked if taken to a vet, ever, they always answer no.
Just look at what processed food has done for people...this is just from the FIRST page of a google search.
Elizabeth Hodgkins DVM, JD
"Feline diabetes is not the natural fate of hundreds of thousands of pet cats world-wide. It is, rather, a human-created disease that is reaching epidemic proportions because of the highly artificial foods that we have been feeding our feline companions for the past few decades. Without the constant feeding of highly processed, high carbohydrate dry foods, better suited to cattle than cats, adult-onset feline diabetes would be a rare disease, if it occured at all."
Elizabeth Hodgkins DVM, JD
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So whole wheat is always good for all people and so is a low salt diet because someone said so online? Both can put me in the hospital.
How many people do you think vetted their cats during the Depression? Have you even seen the "medications" used before then?
The thing is so many of you raw feeders push it as the only way to feed a cat and it's simply not feasible for everyone to do this. I can't be the only one that feels like we're being attacked for feeding wet and a little dry.
It's not a matter of convenience, either. Not everyone has sources for the meat and a spare freezer for it. Of course there's grocery store/walmart quality meat full of chemicals... Yet others couldn't do it right and would cause major nutritional deficiencies.
But please do continue to tell all the rest of us how much we're mistreating our cats and abusing them. Maybe you'll convince some people who rescue and foster to stop since they're just abusing cats.
How many people do you think vetted their cats during the Depression? Have you even seen the "medications" used before then?
The thing is so many of you raw feeders push it as the only way to feed a cat and it's simply not feasible for everyone to do this. I can't be the only one that feels like we're being attacked for feeding wet and a little dry.
It's not a matter of convenience, either. Not everyone has sources for the meat and a spare freezer for it. Of course there's grocery store/walmart quality meat full of chemicals... Yet others couldn't do it right and would cause major nutritional deficiencies.
But please do continue to tell all the rest of us how much we're mistreating our cats and abusing them. Maybe you'll convince some people who rescue and foster to stop since they're just abusing cats.
What do you know, you hate raw feeders. So typicalOriginally Posted by strange_wings
The thing is so many of you raw feeders push it as the only way to feed a cat and it's simply not feasible for everyone to do this. I can't be the only one that feels like we're being attacked for feeding wet and a little dry.
It's not a matter of convenience, either. Not everyone has sources for the meat and a spare freezer for it. Of course there's grocery store/walmart quality meat full of chemicals... Yet others couldn't do it right and would cause major nutritional deficiencies.
But please do continue to tell all the rest of us how much we're mistreating our cats and abusing them. Maybe you'll convince some people who rescue and foster to stop since they're just abusing cats.
I rescue, foster, and if you paid attention to my posts, you may realize I do feed commercial food.
Rajah - a rescue cat. He died a few months ago, from a sudden heart attack, at age sixteen.
Wayward - a rescue cat. Euthanized a few weeks after I got him because he had stomach cancer.
Matilda - rescue cat. Her brother and her were tossed out of a car window. Brother died of internal injuries from that, but Matilda is thriving.
Allie and Aimee - rescue cats. Were going to be shot by landlord...left behind when their owner moved. Adopted a few months ago.
"The foursome" - rescue cats. Recently they were all adopted.
Morey, Mitch, and siblings - rescue cats. I'm a failed foster mom to Morey and Mitch (aka they stayed here) but all their siblings were adopted.
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What do I feed?
20 of mine eat an all raw diet.
8 eat half raw/half canned. The canned is grain free, though low quality, and I wish I could afford to feed them better canned!
One (Nightmare) eats all grain free canned - 1/2 high quality, 1/2 low quality.
Where do I get meat from?
I have become friends with people that work in the meat department, of two differant grocery stores. They special order things for me, like hearts, gizzards, kidney, and liver.
Some of what I get is freezer burnt meat, for free, from friends/family.
Some I buy directly from the chicken processing plant.
Some I get from the butcher.
My freezer? I bought it new from Costco. Now I'm watching for another one on craigslist, to hopefully get a cheap/good working one, because I need more room.
You may be amazed at how EASY it is to do raw right...I was!
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Why could animals die suddenly, when they appeared healthy before?
Look at them. Inbreeding, for example, obviously not a good thing.
Dairy farms, for example, are very careful to not inbreed. Some calves are still borned somewhat deformed.
I worked for a dairy farm that always wanted to know the exact cause of death. I fed calves there for two years, until the dairy farm went into a buyout, last year.
The calves that died suddenly - they appeared healthy. Lots of grain/milk reps told us we had THE healthiest calves in the three state area they worked in. The vet couldn't believe the incredibly low mortality rate we had (less than 0.5% over a two year period) for calves that got sick/died but weren't in some way deformed.
There were three calves, if I remember right, that died because they had holes in their heart. Two of them, quite literally, just collapsed while standing. Their back feet were collapsed below their bodies, front feet straight out in front, and head between the front feet. The vet was called, they did a necropsy on them, and they both had holes in their hearts. The third with that problem couldn't ever get over pneumonia...but she wasn't lagging behind in size compared to others her age...only sign was she kept breathing a bit to hard. She died, again the vet was called, and it was a hole in the heart.
The fourth calf that we had - well, that was actually quite strange (yet really fun to see inside of her). She was a really nice calf, never sick, and always finished her milk. Then, sometime overnight, her stomach exploded. Of course, you couldn't tell anything was wrong with her from the outside, except for the obvious thing of her being dead. So the vet came and did a necropsy on her...and, it turned out, her stomach literally exploded. There was a basketball size hole inside of her...which was actually quite cool/gross to see. There was nothing that we could have done to cause that..the chunks in the milk replacer theory comes up...but she wasn't given milk replacer the night she died.
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A puppy came into the vet on Friday, who had eaten some snail bait. The poor thing was having seizures, and would have easily died, if she hadn't been rushed in. All the things meant to kill rodents/slugs/ants etc can, especially if left untreated, kill an animal fast.
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I don't hate raw feeders.
I just dislike that people get jumped on when they say they feed dry and wet. The OP wouldn't have started a thread like this unless posts on here made her feel that her diet was somehow inadequate.
I'm glad you have space for extra freezers. Meanwhile some of us do not, many even live in appartments or smaller spaces.
Not everyone has a butcher in their area. Thank walmart for that.
My comment about healthy cats suddenly dying was meant to mean people here don't take cats to the vet. Would you believe that I had to explain that a 13 year old cat suddenly not using the litter box and sometimes having problems peeing meant the cat needed a vet to a person? Or why an unspay female cat could suddenly died? (The person though I was making up pyometra)
But to balance that out there's us cat owners who do provide vet cat and now screen for diseases. Of course there will be more found now, people are looking and more people are keeping cats alive into their late teens. Petfood isn't the soul cause. Heck, the brand new carpet in ones house could cause disease. Poor water quality certainly isn't healthy. Maybe the flea topicals contribute. We're polluting everything and there's going to be consequences for that.
I'm glad you have space for extra freezers. Meanwhile some of us do not, many even live in appartments or smaller spaces.
Not everyone has a butcher in their area. Thank walmart for that.
My comment about healthy cats suddenly dying was meant to mean people here don't take cats to the vet. Would you believe that I had to explain that a 13 year old cat suddenly not using the litter box and sometimes having problems peeing meant the cat needed a vet to a person? Or why an unspay female cat could suddenly died? (The person though I was making up pyometra)
But to balance that out there's us cat owners who do provide vet cat and now screen for diseases. Of course there will be more found now, people are looking and more people are keeping cats alive into their late teens. Petfood isn't the soul cause. Heck, the brand new carpet in ones house could cause disease. Poor water quality certainly isn't healthy. Maybe the flea topicals contribute. We're polluting everything and there's going to be consequences for that.
100 years ago there was next to no emphasis on cat health whatsoever. They weren't even kept as close pets in Western culture the way dogs are until fairly recently, and even in much of Europe today close monitoring of your cat via an indoor only environment is not that widespread. My British friends all let their cats come and go as they please.
With my grandmother for example, you kept cats around to eat mice around the barn and fields, and you gave them a little additional food or treats at times (often milk which we know gives cats the runs but you wouldn't notice with an outdoor cat) and occasionally paid a little attention to them. By and far though, you didn't know if your cat had a UTI or any type of ailment throwing up or otherwise, you really just noticed if one of the cats was limping or missing if you didn't see it for a long time.
Twenty year old indoor cats are also a relatively modern phenomenon, and in the wild ferals have a life expectancy median of only four years eating raw food, hardly a model of ideal health.
So while i have nothing against a properly executed raw diet, the idea that it is the only way to go is IMO bogus.
Same thing with humans - there is no question that life expectancy increased considerably from these 100 years furryfriends50 mentioned. Yep, with age comes disease... it is a give and take IMHO.
Because you cannot leave out wet food, and it is 80% water which contains no calories. You can calorie control dry just the same as wet though. The only real difference is that you can't free-feed wet for unlimited calories a day up to the cat's discretion, but you can with dry.
While most dry is of limited benefit, penetrating kibble with the teeth up and down is still chewing, and there are multiple studies that have shown that the light abrasive effect mimics brushing in removing plaque. Mastication by exercising the jaws and gums also is said to contribute to dental health over soup like wet food which is essentially just licked up. Kibble can also be coated in STPP, which disolves in the saliva and helps reduce tartar.
That is not to say that wet doesn't have inherent advantages as well, which is why I prefer to feed a mixed diet.
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No one escapes the ravages of time…
As for "feral diet". A domestic cat, even living as a feral, will always be a domestic cat given the chance. Meaning: they eat a lot of food refuse we humans create. If you want to talk about dangerous meals, there's one that can cut a life short pretty quickly.
Oh, I am sure there is...
Another thing I don't quite understand about the way people "raw" feed their cats and say it is imitating what they eat in the wild, and that it is balanced:
In the wild, when a cat kills its prey, usually the first thing it will eat is the stomach, which will consist of enzymes, partially digested grains (or naturally "cooked" if you will), greens, roots, vegetables... and whatever that animal has eaten. So, the true natural raw diet should consist of meat, cooked grains, and vegetables.
I do not see raw feeders feeding grains, and see them feeding very little vegetables. This is not what a cat in the wild will eat IMO.
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Well, how would they chew it up and halfway digest it for their cats? … err don't answer that.
Some cats eat stomachs, others leave the stomach, intestines, head, and even feet. It depends on the cat. And yes, I've cleaned up a lot of leftover from kills, ick.
Some cats eat stomachs, others leave the stomach, intestines, head, and even feet. It depends on the cat. And yes, I've cleaned up a lot of leftover from kills, ick.
You have taken away the best lesson which is not that wet food trumps dry food in all things (even though it's closer to a natural food supply than kibble), but rather taking care to feed your cats with as much nutritional value and least detriment as you should be feeding yourself.Originally Posted by lostmary
wow, so much information. I appreciate everyone who replied. I can see so many sides of feeding my kids that is could be hard to figure out. My outdoor only kids are going to stay on dry only, plus all the good things they get from nature. my indoor/outdoor cats get the normal outdoor cat food, plus I keep a bowl of premium dry food out for when they are in. For my inside girls, they are looking so smooth (actually all of them shine like glass), and have bright eyes, clear, normal smelling pee and solid poop, that I think I will keep them on the dry free feed, and a small can of wet every evening. Both of my indoor only girls drink a lot of water. I didn't know that it wasn't always the case for all cats. For as much as I know about my dogs and horses, I'm such a beginner when it comes to my cats. I haven't had a chance to research some of the links I was direct to, but I promise that I will. I want to do what is best for them, keeps them the healthiest and happiest that they can be.
thank you all
Mary
But a balanced, healthy diet of top-shelf wet food and dry food sounds like it is working well for your kitties.
I think if you really did some good research you would find that there are only a couple of dry foods that "claim" to help tartar and even then I am suspect. Common sense really does prevail in this instance for me and others since cats don't "penetrate" the kibble. They break the kibble with the TIP of the tooth which does nothing to help tartar at the gum line.Originally Posted by Ducman69
Because you cannot leave out wet food, and it is 80% water which contains no calories. You can calorie control dry just the same as wet though. The only real difference is that you can't free-feed wet for unlimited calories a day up to the cat's discretion, but you can with dry.
I don't have to leave it out. When I feed wet food he goes and eats it all just as we would a meal so it never stays around long enough to go stale. Free-feeding dry food was what got him fat in the first place.
While most dry is of limited benefit, penetrating kibble with the teeth up and down is still chewing, and there are multiple studies that have shown that the light abrasive effect mimics brushing in removing plaque. Mastication by exercising the jaws and gums also is said to contribute to dental health over soup like wet food which is essentially just licked up. Kibble can also be coated in STPP, which disolves in the saliva and helps reduce tartar.
That is not to say that wet doesn't have inherent advantages as well, which is why I prefer to feed a mixed diet.
As to raw feeding, we have one member whose cat died from eating a raw diet. One must be very disciplined and dedicated to feed raw safely so it's not for everyone and some cats won't eat it just as some won't eat dry or wet, whatever.
Bottom line is that the best food for your cat is the one they will eat and enjoy!
