Dry or Wet Food For Kittens?

Question

I'm looking into getting a kitten. Please don't hate me for not adopting a cat from a shelter. It's too expensive, but I really wish I could earn the extra $145. :(

Anyways, I don't know how old the kitten will be, likely 2 months or so. At what age would it be appropriate to wean the kitten off of canned food? Or should I just start with dry food from the beginning?

Also, which brand is good? I'm most likely going to go with Nutro Max Gourmet for canned food. I read the ingredients and it is pretty darn good. It lists /over/ 3 types of meat. (chicken liver, beef liver, turkey, and cod.) It has ground rice instead of corn products, and has taurine(necessary amino acid for cats.)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Wet food please. This should be a cat's primary diet because they don't drink up tons of water from the water bowl like dogs will. In the wild cats get their water from the prey they eat and don't go over to the streams to lap up a bunch of water. I recommend Natural Balance. When looking for a cat food you need to make sure the primary (FIRST INGREDIENT LISTED!) is the actual meat.. It must say chicken, rabbit, or duck. Do not take chicken liver, chicken broth, or chicken by-products for an answer! It also doesn't matter what grains are in the food you buy for your cat because grains don't belong in there period. Rice is not better than corn.. A cat's diet should be grain free as these extra carbs contribute to obesity, fatty liver disease, etc. I recommend a grain free cat food but the price is going to go up. To me it is worth it. By the way, when looking at the meat source.. go for animals with feathers and long ears (ducks, chicken, rabbits) Avoid beef and fish as no cats except lions can take down cows in the wild. fish is also not very nutritious for cats..  

Answer 2

my cats eats wet food becase it is easier to chew becase it has very little teeth

Answer 3

well, Kittens should probably start off on wet food because it is softer for their teeth as it gets older mabe 9 months to a year is when you can start on the dry food because its teeth will be more developed. The brand i choose for my cats is Fancy feast but I'm not sure what brands they use around your area but fancy feast is a commen cat food in Irving. It really depends on what kind of food they like. My cats hate seafood and they love meaty foods. You will have to try out different kind of foods and see how much it eats and try your best not to over feed it or the litter box will smell!!

Answer 4

A mix is best 2 feedings a day,one dry one wet feeding however you can get two feeding out of one small can of wet unless you buy those tiny ones,as long as you have some dry too.Cats really need both to stay healthy.

Answer 5

Dry. Wet makes stinky waste. :)

Answer 6

For cats to derive any supposed abrasive benefit from dry foods to be seen, they would have to actually chew their dry food. Since dry food shatters in their mouths and they then swallow the pieces, there's no abrasive action from chewing something hard.

Cats who eat dry food often have very severe dental problems. Many factors contribute to dental health, but it is clear that a high-carbohydrate diet is not beneficial!

The Solution: An Appropriate Diet for the Species

It's simple: Cats need to eat a diet that is high in protein and water, with a moderate amount of fat, and almost no carbohydrate.

Most of the health problems we've discussed here are either radically improved or eliminated by eating a diet that meets the needs of a carnivore -- one which closely resembles the nutritional balance provided by a mouse. For example, many veterinarians now treat diabetes in cats with a meat-based canned diet.

We'd like to go a step further, and prevent these diseases.

Feed your cat a meat-based diet!

Answer 7

If you can't afford a kitten from a shelter, how are you going to afford it's care and vet bills? Kittens from a shelter are usually cheaper than elsewhere and come already vaccinated and fixed.

You should feed the kitten wet food for it's entire life. Wet food is better for cats. The reason is, in the wild, cats normally get most of their water content directly from their prey items and drink very little. Domestic cats are no different, and because of the fact that they are designed to take in water with their meal, they have a very low thirst drive. Cats often just don't drink enough. This leads to urinary tract infections and crystals. The bit about dry food being better for teeth is a myth and has not been proven in the least. Canned/wet food is better because it more closely mimics the cat's natural diet. More on why canned food is best:

http://www.catinfo.org/  (Excellent cat nutrition information by a vet)

http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/canne...

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac...

Nutro is a low medium end food and Nutro Max is their lowest quality diet. I'd go with something higher quality.

Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Whiskas, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Meow Mix.

Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Felidae, Fromm, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety, Nature's Logic.

Answer 8

More than likely at 2 months of age it will already be eating dry food. Many dry foods already provide the nutriants a kitten needs. If you switch it over to wet food it may get diarreah at first untill it gets used to it. It is also cheaper to just buy dry food and you get more of it. I think the best thing to do is keep it on dry food and give a treat of wet food once a week. Good Luck.

Answer 9

Wet food is best for kittens. If you switch to dry try putting some water or kitten milk replacement on it to soften it up. I started putting a little bit of some dry food in his wet food every time until it was mostly dry food and now he eats dry and wet as a little treat.  

Answer 10

Glad you are going with canned. You would prefer a muscle meat over an organ meat at least for the first ingrediant. Here is some more info





Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health

Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.

Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?

http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea...

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with grains and carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process.  Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in

Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.

http://www.catinfo.org/#My_Cat_is_Doing_...

You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all.    The best food for cats does not contain any grains at all.

Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies  whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. I would rather feed a middle grade canned food then the top of the line dry food.

Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

Please read about cat nutrition.

                               http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics...

                               http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht...

      http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...

Vetinarian diets  The reason your vet thinks so highly of the pet food they sell probably has more to do with money than nutrition. In vet school, the only classes offered on nutrition usually last a few weeks, and are taught by representatives from the pet food companies. Vet students may also receive free food for their own dogs and cats at home. They could get an Iams notebook, a Purina purse and some free pizza.  http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Answer 11

There's no need to stop the canned food completely. It provides a lot of the moisture that cats need in their diet. Nutro Max is fine

Answer 12

Wet is always better.  I'd go with Natural Balance..

Answer 13

The question of what to feed your cat is one of those questions that give rise to intense enthusiasm from cat lovers. Many of us has a lot to say and a lot to offer, so I am glad that you have gotten so many excellent answers so far. Being a cat lover and cat food enthusiasts myself, I would love to include myself in answering your question too. :)

Kittens and adult cat does not need dry food. Dry food is only convenient for the owner but detrimental to your cats. I will explain more on this subject as I go on.

What you need to do is to do your research and weigh each argument as to which one you are more comfortable with and what makes the most sense. You need to understand what motivates the pet food industry, (profit!), and what motivates pet parents to buy their product (price/cost, advertisement, vet advice, self research, cat's health while being on the product, etc)

When you are well informed, you will ultimately make the right decision on what is best.

The best tool you can equip yourself with is to learning how to read ingredient labels. By learning how to read a label, you can learn a great deal of information about the food you are feeding your pets. You can even learn how to compare one food to another and choose the one best suited for your cat.

When you are choosing food, it is important for you to learn how to read ingredient labels. They tell you a lot about what kind of meat is being used and whether the food has any cheap fillers which does not benefit your cat/kitten.

You want to feed a food which is high protein - meaning the meat source must come from wholesome muscle meat. Make sure to select only food that list chicken, lamb, rabbit, beef, turkey, venison, salmon, whitefish, herring or a combination or those and not one that says by-products (chicken by product, meat by product, fish by product)

Stay away from too much fillers like corn, corn gluten meal, wheat, wheat gluten, soy, oatbrans, etc. These are all cheap filler which help reduce the cost of manufacturing but brings little to no benefit to your kitten.

You would also want to stay away from preservatives like BHA/BHT and Ethoxyquin which are proven to be harmful to your kitten. Also you do not want other artifical preservatives such as propylene glycol and propolyneglycol .You need natural preservatives such as Vitamin C, Vitamin A or Rosemary.

Your cat need an essential amino acid called Taurine. Cats can only receive this from eating wholesome meat. Choose a food that contains ample amount of Omega 3 sources - Salmon Oil, Flaxseed Oil or Canola Oil.

When you are well educated in learning how to read pet food ingredients, shopping for the best food for your kitten would be easier.

I only feed 100% wet. I came to this conclusion after doing my own research and getting to know pets that suffer dire consequences as a result of being fed exclusively dry. These websites has great information if you are interested in learning more about feline nutrition and the proper diet for a cat.

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac...

http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/canne...

http://cats.about.com/od/catfoo1/tp/tpca...

http://www.catinfo.org/

http://www.naturalmatters.net/article.as...

http://www.traciehotchner.com/cb/QandA.h...

As for feeding human food, you can offer your kitten a boiled piece of chicken breast but refrain from feeding fish such as salmon or tuna. Many people have the wrong conception that cats love to eat fish but that is not the case. Cats are descendant of the desert wild cat and where their ancestors come from, fish is not an option. The notion that cats love fish comes from the old time where fish are abundant and they becomes cheap feed. Commercial fish contains an alarming level of mercury which should be avoided as much as possible.

Here are some great recommended brands of cat food that you can look into :-

By Nature Organics

California Natural

Eagle Pack

Evanger's

EVO

Felidae

Merricks

Natural Balance

Nature's Logic

Nature's Variety

Wellness

Weruva

Wysong

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For a smaller budget, this mid range food is just as good!

Chicken Soup for the Cat's Lover Soul

Authority® Premium Adult Formula In Cans

Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care

Hope I've help and thanks for taking a pro active approach in trying to feed your kitten the best food possible.

Answer 14

I  give  my  kitty  both.

Answer 15

Despite all the information you are getting about what to feed or not to feed. Never give you cat people food. Your cat will tell you what they like. You being the parent must read labels and make sure to make sure they are getting proper nutrition. I have a cat that will not eat wet food, another that won't eat dry, and another who eats both. Kittens need a different diet than adults cats because they are still growing. There are some great kitten foods. To look at a variety of what is available and whats in them go to one of the larger pet stores in your area and check them out.

Answer 16

It is preferred that kittens have dry food to help with teething and to have more fiber since feeding only canned food can cause diarrhea and accidents, since kittens have to learn how to use the litter box and what with leaving mama and brothers and sisters that is stressfull enough.

Then the baby has to learn where to go to potty and top that with canned food that makes the stools looser then the beautiful start of a companionship between owner becomes frustrating and messy.It is ok to give your kitten maybe a table spoon twice a day mixed with the dryfood.Any good quality dry food would work  but you can get a better sense if you visit one of the larger pet stores and speak with the staff. Hope you have a long loving relationship and remember to be a responsible pet owner.Get your kitten spayed or neutered and vaccinated and de wormed,so that your baby will grow to a beautiful healthy pet.

Answer 17

The best diet to keep her on is probably both dry and canned food. Canned food provides moisture and is generally more palatable to cats, and dry food helps prevent tartar buildup on her teeth. As far as brand goes, you get what you pay for. You should ask the cat's vet for a reccomendation.