My cats will only eat dry food

I'm a little new to raising cats so this may seem like a stupid question but...Do cats need to eat wet food to stay healthy?

I have a 14 month old who was raised until about 6 months ago around a cat that would basically make us give her fresh tuna every day. Chloe picked up that habit, or so I thought. When they got seperated, I continued the process and realized that Chloe never really ate it. She licked it and sometimes would nibble but she basically didn't seem to like it. Since then I tried several other wet foods, but all she does is lick it a little. A few weeks ago I adopted Samantha to give Chloe a play friend. She also doesn't seem to like wet food. I just want to make sure I'm not depriving them of something they need because at this point they are more than happy to eat the dry food and treats we give them.

 

i think the jury is out on that one. and...it depends on the cat. my otis who died in march was almost twenty. he switched to canned food the last three years of his life, because he vomited alot. less on the wet food.

i am currently in the process of trying to switch. i have read alot...and all the articles i read say wet food is better. a high quality wet food, like wellness, natures variety, wysong, felidae, nutro. some of the store brands have inferior ingredients. wet food has less carbohydrate usually. i have two cats that have bowel issues, so i dont think dry is the best idea for them.

hope that helps. if you do use dry, use a premium brand like nutro, wellness, chicken soup for cat lovers, innova...

here is a link to a good web site

http://cats.about.com/od/catfoodandnutrition/

welcome... :wink:

 

:m23: and welcome! Don't forget to post pics! :mrgreen: Lynn, good info! :y_the_best: My vet says give your kitties whatever they can tolerate. Some cats do well with high quality foods like Wellness and California Natural and some won't. Some cats live to be 21 or 22 years on dry 9 lives and some are purely allergic (diarrhea) to fish canned foods like my Bengal Rene. Sounds like you are doing a terrific job on your little ones!

 

im no expert so i have no advice i wanted to say its odd coz ollie luvs hes wet food n its hard to get him to eat alot of dry food (fuss pot that he is) mayb wen she was younger no wet food was given n thats y she dont want it? sum ppl say dry is best sum wet i give both jus to be sure

 

you could always try mixing a tad bit of wet food in with the dry. A steady diet of canned tuna isn't very good for cats so doing away with that is a good thing. The logic behind wet food being good for cats is cats, being carnivores, need more than just the grains in dry food. Many vets now believe that dry food can cause cavities in cats cause it tends to stick to the teeth, although I find my cats simply swallow it whole rather than bite it (also tossing the theory of dry being better for teeth cause it takes tartar off the teeth into the toilet if they don't actually chew it).

There's more of a meat content in wet food (a good quality one) than in dry food - along with moisture.

 

I have a tiny kitty that doesn't like to eat a lot in one sitting. I free feed her the Wellness dry food 24/7 and then a few times a week i offer her about a tablespoon of wet food. She definitely prefers the dry food and crunchy cat treats but i have also read that they need more moisture in their diet. Usually what i do is add water to the wet food and heat it up like a soup(not too hot, just warm) because she mostly just likes to lick the gravy and leave any chunks. Occasionally i will give her little tidbits of tuna as a treat if i am making myself a sandwhich, she loves that, but i try to limit it because the tuna she actually will sit there and eat a good deal of, but since it doesn't have a lot of the nutrients she needs, i don't want it to replace other act food that she would have eaten that day. She also gets a kitty multivitamin and a garlic and brewer's yeast tablet everyday as a treat. Occasionally i also give her Benebac since she has had some tummy issues in the past. I do the best i can with her nutrition-wise, but sometimes she's just too darn picky when it comes to her wet food! Also, i wanted to add...if your kitty doesn't like the wet food, it could be the brand. My kitty really likes junky brands like Friskies cuz it's sweeter, but i rarely let her have that. A good wet food that tastes like real tuna is the Solid Gold canned food and I never had any complaints with that, it's expensive tho. But i guess that doesn't matter if they aren't eating much of it. One 3oz can of cat food usually lasts me about 4 days in the fridge.

 

Hi and welcome. There is a lot of good advice here. :y_the_best: I just wanted to add that you could always get a bunch of different small cans of soft food and see if they like any of the brands/flavors. I feed both of my kitties soft and dry Wellness. Good luck.

 

Copper swallows his food whole too! I thought maybe it was because I raised him and he didn't have a role model...well not a proper one! Miss Brina chews, but won't touch the wet food.

 

after i had my boys fixed my vet told me to take away their wet food..but i still give it to them..my older cat Jazz wont eat anything but fresh food..only chicken and fish..

 

forgot to add - it's been determined that many cats actually develop spinal problems after a declaw as they have to learn to walk in a manner that isn't natural affecting their spine. And, as we all know, cats do not show their discomfort so they keep this hidden. Another "lovely" aspect to declawing and protecting one's stuff

 

Booger perfers dry food too. But she'll bite and chew it which means that half the piece goes flying across the kitchen floor and is painful to step upon LOL But I got a mat last week with raised trim so now the pieces stay on the mat

I give her wet food now and then but all she does is lick the gravey off.

If your cat will only eat dry, be sure to keep a freash bowl of water going 24/7 so she'll stay hydrated.

NOw....onto the pics! Bring on the pics!

 

i feed my cats wet and dry, mostly dry. to make sure they eat the wet i fill the bowls up with dry food right after they have eaten the wet food at night and i dont refill their dry bowls during the day. the dry food runs out by about 4 in the afternoon so they are hungry by 8ish and so they gobble down the wet food with no problems.

 

I like to give my cat a small amount of wet food each night. I believe the extra moistre content is good for their system. Mine was very picky too. Here are three that I found she likes. I even gave a can to my neighbor for her picky cat and she said her cat loved it too. Try: Fancy Feast Beef Feast in Gravy and Chicken Feast in Gravy. Also, Wellness Chicken and Lobster.

 

I only feed my cat dry food: Hill's Sience Plan (?) for kittens, and he seem very content (sp?) with that brand. Ever since I started feeding him that (I bought IAMS before) he hasn't begged for human food one single time... And I'm not too worried about him dehydrating, he uses every opportunity he gets to drink from the sink, lol! :mrgreen:

 

Thank you everyone for your help, I'm going to educate myself on the different types of wet food and buy several different kinds to see if they can settle on one or in a perfect world they each would take to a different one so I can monitor their eating habits.

I would post pics, unfortunately I don't have any scanned and to be honest my ex has most of them anyway. She has all of Chloes 'baby' pictures. I figured I was the one that got to keep her, I wasn't going to take the pictures away. Plus, her cat was in most of them anyway. But, I'll try get some good ones of Sammie harassing Chloe and hopefully they will contiune to cuddle and I can get one of that too. Unless youwere asking for pictures of me, in that case it could take awhile.