Kitten on Royal Canin dried food - should I be giving wet food as well for variety?

[hulahoopsilove]

kitten is on Royal Canin and seem to like it and does drink alot of water - however I wondering not much variety having this everyday should I give him something else as well?

There's certainly no harm in trying something else. It must be terribly boring to always eat the same food all the time. And dried food only makes the cats more prone to urinary tract problems (particularly male cats).

does it really? Gosh I hadnt realised he does drink alot but Im putting that down to dried food. What age can you introduce abit of cooked chicken or fish I dont really want to do smelly cat food

I'm not an expert but our vet told us dry food alone is fine as long as they have easy access to water. Ginfo cats were getting bad teeth from wet food and I didn't fancy my chances at cleaning them regularly so now they just have Iams for fat big boned cats. They do supplement their diet with tasty rodent tidbits from the garden.

If they can eat dried food they're old enough to try a bit of chicken or fish. And lots of the better quality wet food (think Sheba's sachets for example) really aren't that smelly.

Oh, and Dreamies which according to Ginfo cats is an essential part of any cat's diet.

There is debate about whether dried food alone is fine. It is certainly only ok if it's quality dried food (ie not Wiskas/ Go Cat etc), but there is evidence (which I can't quote) that it does make cats more prone to urinary tract problems, even with constant access to water.

Ooh, catneuterer, are there any wet foods which minimise tooth probs? ? Would be v interested as we only tried felix I think.

Canned food which has been shown to be helpful with gum (not specifically tooth though) problems is Butchers Classic. And I'm not convinced that dried food does help with tooth problems anyway.

The only absolutely hard and fast rule that all vets can agree on is do not feed cheap dried food ever.

Although of course I think we have to make a special dispensation for Dreamies. Otherwise cats will revolt, gang up and kill us all :)

What's a good dry food? Mine is on wiskas (as that's what she had when we adopted her). She also has a Felix pouch a day.

Thanks. Sorry for the hijack op

I do believe Dreamies to be cat crack.

Our vet recommended a totally dry diet. I don't think cats need variety.
Dry food is much better for their teeth, although the vet didn't discuss the UTI issue with us.

Decent dry brands are Royal Canin and James Wellbeloved.

My cat won't eat Dreamies! She's such a contrary thing. The only treat she'll take is the dehydrated chicken from a tube - I can't remember the brand but it's really really expensive. She used to like those meaty stick things but not any more.

My cats have totally dry food, vet recommended it. They provide variety themselves in the form of mice.

When they were little they created an enormous fuss claiming they didn't like various cat foods and I was spending a fortune switching foods and ensuring they were having different flavours.

Eventually it dawned on me that I was being manipulated by two creatures who in the wild would have been eating mouse every day. I stopped and just bought one giant bag of dry food. The fuss disappeared in about 2 days when they realised nothing else was on offer.

They are much much happier since the 'variety' was abolished.

Our older cat won't eat anything other than dried food and fluff. Vet is fine with this. We only use Royal Canin.

The kitten gets dried food plus a hefty teaspoon of good quality wet (tuna) food for breakfast just because he loves it. The shelter were giving him this at 12 weeks, mashed up a bit for his little mouth.

I was told by a Royal Canin food rep that they don't need variety like humans - they're not bothered if they get the same thing day, in day out...

not sure how she knows this though

Hmm. I can't imagine how that study would have been conducted. May be it's true though, may be cats aren't bothered about variety.

It definitely seems to be the case though that a lot of cats that are mainly dry-food fed get terribly excited when offered wet food. And if a cat goes off it's food it's much easier to tempt them to eat with nice wet food than with dry. So it's undeniable that a lot of cats prefer wet to dry, so it seems a shame to deny it.

Mine goes nuts for a pouch in a way she doesn't for dry - she goes all quivery and archy backed. So I just like to give her that pleasure! I think she would manage fine on just dry but I'd worry she wasn't getting enough fluid.

dried food causes problems for cats.

they cant digest cereal very easily so shouldn't have it ... they are obligate carnivores, they need meat. this pish about biscuits being good for their teeth is rubbish - what little tooth good they might do is negated by the damage they do to their insides.

I am pretty horrified at the number if vets who still stock cereal based food for cats despite all the evidence that it does them harm because they are in the pockets of the cat food industry.

look for a good quality wet food with a high protein percentage. zooplus website do a good variety online; goid prices; check their 'recommendeds'
I think the better quality food doesn't smell bad , only the cack - and Im a vegetarian (I would never feed my cats whiskas for example, its the cat equivalent of turkey twizzlers)

crap wet cat food makes me gag, so ours is lucky and only gets the good stuff. You could make a sandwich with the tuna stuff we get and no-one would question it

one flavour even has teeny whole prawns in