Kitten has stopped eating wet food

[LavenderLxx]

Our kitten is 7 months old - when he came to us he was only eating Whiska and dry food. We gradually transitioned to a better quality cat food which he seemed to really enjoy and was licking his bowl clean.
However over the last few weeks he’s been eating less wet food and has been favouring his dry food which we leave down all day. The amount of wet food has now reduced to just a mouthful and then he leaves it.
Shoukd I be concerned? Is it ok for him just to eat dry food? He’s our first cat so I’m not sure if this is just normal fussiness?! Thank you

Dry food is coated in something called animal digest, its essentially irresistable. Cats have a poor thirst drive as they’re designed to get almost all of their fluids from their food, so dry food leads to low level dehydration (a drinking cat is already dehydrated), on top of that male cats are more prone to crystals in their urine, dehydration further increases the risk as does neutering. Personally if he was mine I would remove the dry food.

Thank you - that’s useful to know. I was of the opinion that it was better for him to eat the dry food rather than nothing, but I’ll take the dry food away for a bit and see if we can get him eating the wet food again

My cat won't touch wet food, she's 11 now and only eats James wellbeloved kibble, never had any issues with her health wise but she does drink well so maybe that helps.

I really wouldn't advise feeding an all dry diet to a male cat - it massively increases the risk of a urinary blockage which can be fatal if left untreated.

Even bad quality wet food is better than nothing for neutered males.

Our boy is two, and not a fan of wet food. We’ve been through every brand from cheap and nasty to fancy pants raw stuff. He now gets a pouch of Sheba morning and night, and most days will eat about 60% of it - he immediately licks off the gravy, eats up all his biscuits, then goes back to it if he’s desperate! Sheba isn’t great but it’s the one he seems to dislike least. He loves if I have tuna and give him a wee bit with some of the spring water, but only picked at the tins of tuna Encore and Untamed.

Our vet actually said it was fine as he drinks plenty. Our previous girl cat only drank water on the third Thursday after a full moon, and even then only if it was in a filthy puddle, but hoovered up wet food so it was quite a surprise to have a cat who is more of a grazer. (She absolutely loved cat milk but got chonky with that on a regular basis so the vet told us to only give her water.)