Should I Cut The Dry Food Completely?

[Tashanasha]

So my little guy is now 8 months old and for the past 5 months he has been eating mostly wet food and I always left him some dry out which he ate a bit, but not much (roughly 10-20g per day).

He is not really a big eater. There's only one specific kind if tuna food which he eats in one sitting, everything else he will nibble a bit then go away then come back...

Anyway, I have noticed that he's eating more and more of the dry food (probably around 50g per day now). I feed him a variety of wet foods (I think we tried most of the non-tuna wet foods available in China). The Animonda cans were kind of his favorite, but it seems he's tired of them as well. He used to live pates, but does no longer. Now when I give him the wet, he eats a bit, then goes to the bowl with the dry.

So I'm thinking, should I take away his dry completely? I tried to not leave it out for a couple of days, just to motivate him to eat the wet more, but he didn't really eat more of it (I usually feed him 200g per day split into two meals - which is less than a kitten should be eating according to the label - and most of the time he eats just half the portion I give him and that is the case with every wet so far except for the tuna one).

The perplexing thing is that he's pretty chubby being a BSH and all. So should I take the dry away and "force" him to eat the wet or keep it? Also, he's still getting the kitten dry food, so if I keep it, should I be switching to an adult one?

Thanks for sticking until the end of this awfully long post

 

[Norachan]

My cats will quite happily gorge on dry food if I let them. Like you I'm concerned about them getting enough protein rather than carbs and taking in plenty of water too.

You could try giving him just his wet food at meal times and only leaving the dry food out over night, in case he gets hungry.

Another thing you could do is grinding up the dry food and sprinkling a little over his wet food. This will mean he'll get the taste of the dry, so will be encouraged to eat the wet food. Just don't mix a lot of the dry in with the wet. The dry food will become soggy and bloated and bacteria can multiply quickly in soggy kibble.

Heating the wet food up makes it smell stronger and appear more appetizing too. When do you feed him? Do you have set meal times? Cats are programmed to hunt-kill-eat so if you feed him right after a play session he may eat a bit more.

 

[Tashanasha]

In the beginning he had 3 set meal times: 8AM, 4PM and 9PM. For the past 2 months I feed him at 8AM (he then grazes on it for 2-3hours), the second meal he gets at 5 or 6 PM and most of that food is usually thrown away in the morning.

I'll try crushing up some dry food and mixing it (or even the Greenies treats - he's crazy about them). It actually worked with catnip, but I can't really drug him daily

Do you think that I should switch him to an adult dry? I'm thinking, if I'm gonna keep giving him some it might as well be less dense in calories.

 

[duckpond]

My cats get really fussy about their wet food as well. I feed wet twice a day, and put dry out at night, whats left i leave out during the day for them to nibble. I found a really good dry, they all like it, but they dont eat it like little pigs, if i put out one of the purina dry foods i would need to measure and restrict them on how much, they will eat that stuff like its Kitty crack. Works for us, best dry i can find, that they like, but dont LOVE to the exclusion of all wet.

I am right now using a freeze dried chicken, Life Essentials, that i crumble on top of the wet, it really helps getting them going on the wet. Any treat he likes would i think work the same.

 

[maggiedemi]

My cats get their wet food at 7am, then they don't get their dry food until an hour later when they have (hopefully) eaten their wet food. Then I repeat that again at 7pm.

 

[daftcat75]

If you want to transition to wet food, you’ll need to transition him to scheduled feedings. And you’ll need to understand that it’s okay for cats to be hungry. In fact, hunger contractions are what help ingested hair move through their gut. For scheduled feedings, pick your times and be consistent. Put the food down at that time and take it up 30 minutes later. No leaving food out. He’ll learn that he needs to eat when the food is put out and that’s all he gets until the next meal time. You can make this transition more gentle on your cat by sprinkling ground kibble into his wet to make his wet more enjoyable but pick it up after 30 minutes. For his dry, shrink his portion so it lasts only a certain amount of time, e.g. it leaves a window of hunger between when he finishes it and his next scheduled feeding. Slowly increase that hunger window by shrinking his dry portion over days or weeks until you can stop his dry portion altogether. Let him meow his hungry head off until he learns that meowing for food doesn’t work. If you don’t teach him this lesson, you’ll never get any sleep again. That’s where many give up and leave the kibble out overnight. This just teaches him that he can get kibble if he cries loud enough for it. You’ll have to be more determined than he is.

 

[2BSH]

I have two British shorthairs who are big eaters. I feed them wet food only. In my humble opinion most dry food is way too high in carbs and has no moisture and isn’t really great to feed to any cat especially a BSH who are so prone to getting chubby. My two get 3 meals a day all wet (mostly low carb). I’d love to see some pictures of your BSH.

 

[Tashanasha]

I definitely want to put him on a feeding schedule, it's just that he's technically still a kitten and I thought he should still be on the "give him as much as he want's to eat" diet

For the first couple of months I was worried that he didn't eat enough (I read here that kittens his age would eat up to 400g of wet food and he would barely eat 200g), that's why I always left the dry out just to be sure that he isn't hungry.

So should I start with the scheduled feeding now or wait until he's fully grown?

2BSH that's my little troublemaker

 

[daftcat75]

I don’t know about kitten care. Mine was two when I rescued her. A dozen years ago.

 

[maggiedemi]

He's so cute. I love British Shorthairs. I always did measured feedings, that way I know how much my cats eat and I can maintain their weight.

 

[Tashanasha]

Update: so I stopped completely giving him dry food and just make sure he has wet always available and he eats now all of it! Even the ones he didn't like earlier, after a couple of hours his bowl is empty.

Had I known it would be this easy to make him eat his wet...

 

[Norachan]

Oh wow, that worked well!

 

[Erin80]

That's great!! My two are on all wet now too (unless we are going out for the whole day....). Glad the transition was easy!