High meat wet food, what is the output like with your cat?

[RestingCatsArseFace]

If you feed quality wet food (and your cat uses a litter tray) do you find the resulting output is a lot smaller and firmer, any constipation?

As opposed to the logs that are produced with the stuff that is full of maize, sugar, carageenan and various fillers that pass through quickly?

I don't mean a smallish change, I mean really tiny turds that hide in the litter.

I know good food is denser and takes longer to process and to expect a smaller output, just interested in other experiences and if you have a rounder cat with high meat or a cat shaped one. (Mine is rotund and football shaped).

OK, never mind then.

Well, mine (small with some winter weight that she'll lose come spring) only eats mid-range dry (Purina One, her choice, she's super fussy) and does tiny firm non-smelly poos.

My last cat was on grain free wet and dry and did giant stinky poos.

Not sure that actually answers your question though

Our cat eats wet food, he is long and lean with zero fat and his poos are small but potent. I have to scoop them out straightaway

Thank you. I don't feed dry due to the grain content and it actually goes off once opened (sniff test). It is basically a lot of little grain pellets with some low grade slurry which is sprayed with a greasy substance to make it appealing to cats. There are some that are better but generally it isn't great for them. Melamine poisoning happens from time to time. Around 2005/6 there was a lawsuit in the US because cats were dying from a particular dry food which I had been using due to it being advertised as good, healthy, high in chicken. I have many reasons for not using dry food...

There is no stink with high meat wet (no grain at all, no jelly or gravy). However there are only tiny little poos. With grain free chunks in jelly or gravy it can be a bit niffy and bigger poo so although grain free I assume it is the jelly content that bulks it out.

Do you feed high meat content or just wet in general?

I am thinking of Animonda, Macs, Bozita, Feringa, Thrive, Blink, Rosie's Farm kind of wet, not Felix (full of fillers and sugar) Whiskas, etc.

I noticed that jelly can cause a bit of a pong, especially the vegetable based jelly.

Mine has a mixture of Yarrah Salmon Pate and Feringa Classic meat, around 150g per day, then I supplement with dry food, I tend to buy stuff like Feringa, Purizon, whatever is on offer at the time. He's had to slim down a bit.

He usually goes outside but if he needs to use the litter tray overnight, I can usually smell it before I open the door where he sleeps. Usually fairly healthy looking but pretty stinky.

Well all I can say is, all three of my rescues go mad for Purina dry food!!! In my experience, dry food is also beneficial for their teeth (my two 17 year olds RIP never needed a dental).

I could do with some food to prevent the vomit-inducing stench of my recent rescue boy's poos though! My two rescue girls of nearly two years do girl-sized dainty poos that don't smell unduly (one not at all) and they are eating the same food as rescue boy (well they were until I changed boy onto a different dry).

After having had to wet wipe his long-haired arse and clean shit off my 6 month old sofa today, I am at my wit's end!!!

BTW my two girls have Purina dry/Iams dry with either Purina Gourmet tins or Sheba gravy trays, and there's hardly any smell - and their poo isn't the least bit loose!!!

Mine has animonda wet food and her poos are usually small and firm.
We found with the trays of pate-style animonda she did get constipated but animonda carny (more texture, comes in tins) doesn't cause that problem.

Mine have Amazon lifelong dry food. The smell has improved massively since starting it.

Mine eat whatever is on offer at the time, and their poos don't change either way. All three of them do small, fairly inoffensive solid poos regardless of what they're fed.

Their food ranges from things like Sheba and Whiskas to Feringa and Animonda Carny.

Like a PP, my cats get fed the same thing but have different outcomes. I assume they must have different gut biomes like we do. I think the amount of water they drink, in addition to how much moisture is in the food itself, has an impact on how much is output as I can see that with my non smelly, prone to borderline constipation, girl. If she’s having more trips to the water bowl, her poo is much softer.

Well I feed high meat, no grain dry food (thrive dry and Vets choice dry) and give wet food a couple of times a day. Wet can be applaws, encore or sheba, gourmet perle, etc

The only time my cat has poos as you describe he is getting constipated and I up his wet food because he is combi fed

Most cats swallow the dry whole, if they crunch it the bits shatter and bounce off the teeth apparently. I used to feed dry but a combination of constipated cat and then a diabetic one stopped that. Too much carb/maize/potato. One of mine had been on Purina when rescued, and I kept him on it until he got bunged up and had to be washed out, then was transitioned to wet only. His teeth were good and he had wet for the 10 years I had him.

My little girl had wet and free fed dry as she wasn't a healthy cat, and her teeth weren't great. Some cats have good teeth, some don't.

Current cat was free fed dry at the rescue as she was underweight after kittens and in a bad way, plus 4 meals per day so was a bit porky when she came home. Been on good wet food and no dry since then but still too heavy, and reducing it slowly.

Yarrah seems to create softer, smelly poo, I did check the ingredients when I noticed bloating after I fed it, don't think it's as good as they say it is. I used to get the trays, easier to calculate the amount. I read ingredients lists on everything, cat food and mine.

Currently feeding Feringa, tiny, tiny poos, big belly.

If you want to feed high quality wet food, have you tried feeding fish? A bag of cheap frozen supermarket fish costs £2.50. I just microwave one fillet with some water and feed some of that each day. It's high quality food and extremely cheap. KardashianKat goes outside so I can't comment on that side of things, sorry.

Thank you. I think the dry helps prevent smell. Purina and Sheba have sugars added I believe, and the ones with the shreds and chunks aren't actually meat, they are a kind of rubbery stuff. As far as I recall the best ones might be Gourmet Gold as I think they were no added sugar.

I feed high meat content, min 80%, but mostly a lot higher. Most of the stuff we get here, Sheba, Gourmet, Felix, Whiskas etc. is low meat and high fillers. I know they can live well on it as I have used it, but the diabetic cat was the last one I will feed it to as he had a horrible death and when I took him in it was already too late. Mine has potential for bad health already.

Don't get me wrong, wet food is better than any dry, but the added sugar isn't needed, the vegetable content is usually maize and the meat content can be very low. Some cats are fine on it, overweight cats, not so much.

Mine eats dry purizon or dry applaws. It’s both grain free

Then applaws/ Miamor fillet type wet food once a day in evening (just one small
tin)

Inoffensive poops

Scaremongering about dry food isn't really helpful when some of us have cats who will only eat dry, and many of us have and have had cats who have lived long healthy lives on dry food. I would prefer mine to have a higher meat content food, but she won't eat it.

Yes! I used to give my boy fish, so easy to medicate him with it. He used to have it with his regular wet food. When I found he liked it I hid his meds in it and gave it to him before meals. He used to sit and wait for his 'starter'.

I have Animonda Ocean for this one, did buy her some frozen fish but my friend needed it for one of hers and it didn't get replaced. Fish is low/zero carb so a good choice. She does like fish, but seems to like anything.

Agreed. It's also not as though you can force cats to eat. It's all very well saying that Sheba is "rubbery stuff" or "full of maize" but if your cat won't touch anything else, well, you don't have much choice.

Most of us can't afford to buy wasting hundreds of pounds on food until we find something they like - especially when they'll inevitably go off it after a few months anyway!

The information is readily available... It's not scaremongering when it is actually something we need to be aware of, as pet owners.
One example: https://www.petforums.co.uk/threads/pancytopenia-outbreak-in-cats-food-recall.539015/

Some cats can live on dry food, mine have been less than healthy when adopted, my experiences with dry have not been good.

I have transitioned cats from a dry food diet, but I did have the time to do it, many people will continue dry because the cat refuses wet.

Dry is easy to put out and leave. People are busy. Cats like dry because of the coating/smell. I don't like dry for several reasons but have fed it when nothing else was acceptable to the cat.

My original post was about high quality wet food though.
If you have a dry fed cat, I wish you both well.

Edited to include @lifeispainauchocolat

There can be outbreaks of disease in any food on the market, though - it's certainly not something that's unique to dry cat biscuits.

Your post may be about high quality wet but your tone is quite judgemental of anyone who dares feed anything different.

I did ask about high meat content wet food BTW, not low meat or dry, and am giving my reasons for not using the ones I wasn't asking for opinions on.

I just had a question to ask of those who feed a similar diet to the one I use. Wet, high meat and the end result.

Like all of you, I want to do the best for my cat, in my own way. I have my reasons for not feeding certain things.

Thank you all for replying.

Ours eat raw and have no problems with constipation or diarrhoea and it never smells