Wet food / dry food and teeth

[Ginflinger]

Hello all. I am wondering how best to feed our new kitten in the long run. I read that cats benefit from dry food because it helps their teeth. Is there any truth in this? And if any of you feed both wet and dry, how did you handle it - did you do wet one meal, dry the next?

Thank you.

Some wet foods can leave a sticky residue on the cat's teeth, which will (unless you clean kitty's teeth) harden into plaque, and may eventually progress into gum disease and tooth decay. This is painful for the cat, and the associated inflammation can cause other health problems.

Dry food (kibble) usually avoids these problems. However, there have been concerns that cats that only eat dry food (no wet food) don't always drink enough water. This can lead to kidney problems, and male cats in particular can suffer from.painful crystal formation in their urinary tracts, caused by their urine being too concentrated. In addition, there has recently been a large recall of several brands of dry cat foods, after hundreds of cats became ill and died, apparently after eating these foods.

The best solution (in my view) is to feed your cat a good quality wet food, but be sure to clean its teeth each day. You need a special xylitol-free toothpaste for cats, and a baby toothbrush. Your vet nurse can show you how. Start this habit while your kitten is small so it becomes used to it from an early age.

I feed wet and raw and clean his teeth.

I have two cats. One prefers (or did) wet food, the other dry. At a vets appointment she pointed out that the one who always ate wet food had worse teeth than the other one, so I put them both on dry food. Much less messy to dispense and clear up too. I buy a big bag and decant it into a nice tin with a scoop.

No more gravy covered pouches to dispose of, or flies buzzing around their bowl in summer.

One too many half-eaten bowls with fly eggs laid on it made me switch!

And best of all - less smelly poos!

I also sprinkle a pro-biotic on their food, along with some anti-cystitis tablets to make sure their urinary tract health is ok.

Lots of water bowls around the house, including a little filtered water fountain!

Dry food all the way.

This is really useful and interesting. Thank you. Our kitten is male. @ShitShop are the anti-cystitis tablets to prevent the build-up of the crystals that @WaltzingToWalsingham mentions?

Yes, although I originally bought them for my female cat who drinks A LOT and kept weeing in naughty places so I think she was possibly struggling with stress related cystitis. So it automatically went on the dry food for her already, which is now benefitting the male cat, who would be worse affected by the crystals apparently (can be fatal in male cats).

I just get them on Amazon and sprinkle one a day on the two bowls of food.

I do a mixture. A scoop of dry food in the bowl morning and evening which gets munched through the day and night, and a pouch of wet in the late afternoon. She's 14 now and no health issues. Being happy enough to have dry means we can do the odd overnight and leave her home with no sitter.

Our cat is really greedy and was a bit fat, so we now give her small portions of dry food at breakfast, lunch, and “supper”, plus half a pouch of wet for breakfast and dinner. Previously she rarely drank water, but upping the dry food means she drinks more. (Only from the bird bath though.)

I leave dry food out and feed ½ a pouch each (2 cats) twice a day

I feed both.

Male cats can be prone to cystitis and crystals on a dry-only diet. A previous cat of mine ended up with a severe blockage and was in the vet for several days - he nearly died. I would never feed a dry-only diet to male cats ever again.

Mine (two males and a female) have dry left down all the time and and they get 1/2 a pouch of wet food each twice a day.

@dementedpixie

I leave dry food out and feed ½ a pouch each (2 cats) twice a day

I do this but they are on a full pouch.

Sometimes they get chicken in place of pouch or fish

My last two cats both died wuite unpleasant deaths quite shortly after having extortionately expensive dentals. It still really upsets me even now. I'm "sure" it was coincidental but I'm taking no chances and really don't want to go through that again if it can be avoided. My current two have Royal Canin Fit dry food with half a pouch of wet food separately on the side (more as a treat). I have double bowls so the wet food doesn't touch and soften the dry food. They gobble the wet food immediately - obviously prefer it - and then graze on the dry food between meals.

(The only cat I've had that got cystitis was a male cat who'd only had wet food.)

I feed both, at alternating meals (now they are Big Cats who have 2 meals a day breakfast is dry & tea is wet).

Wet food helps with fluid intake; dry food helps with dental health - though I also put plaque-off powder on their wet food; give them logic oral hygiene gel (sometimes brushing for them, sometimes just letting them lick it up); & put Petkin liquid oral care stuff in their water. Oh & they have silver vine sticks to chew plus some of the netting-covered toys designed to help clean cats’ teeth.