Special food for my kitty?

Question

The vet said that my cat has significant pebbles and stones in his urine. They gave him shots, and gave him special foods for 30 days.. what is supposed to happen after that? What kind of food should I feed him after this to never let it happen again?

Answer 1

Go with a high quality wet food.

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your cat? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent cat foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

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 Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix, Timber Wolf Organics.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less p**p!

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Diets high in grain have been attributed to problems with diabetes in cats. Cats are obligate carnivores, so why should there be grain in their diet? Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diets include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Horizon Legacy, Merrick Before Grain, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now!, and Sold Gold Indigo Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Some pretty decent foods can even be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, Eagle Pack Holistic, Blue Buffalo, Castor & Pollux Organix, Pinnacle, and Halo. If you can't find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.

Another option for feeding cats is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:

http://www.barfworld.com/

http://www.rawfedcats.org/

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawm...

Now the question is, do you feed wet or dry? Wet is the correct answer. 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...

http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

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

Another option to get cats to drink more would be a cat fountain. Cats tend to like to drink from running water and cat fountains see to that need, encouraging cats to take in more water.

More:

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_... (Dog food reviews. It's for dogs, but most of the high quality brands also put out excellent cat foods. Four stars is a decent food, five stars is a great food, and six stars is an excellent food.)

Answer 2

Male cats are prone to this and it is caused by dry food.  You should give your cat moist food from now on.

Answer 3

Make sure your cat has significant water intake. Feed him moist foods, ones that are considered "premium" cat foods because most stones are caused by diet and lack of water.

They seem really silly but do actually work: a cat water fountain. It encourages them to drink water because it constantly is flowing, filtering and improving the taste and smell of the water. Since cats are very picky when it comes to their water smell, this is very important.

As for food, you will have to ask your vet, but I would recommend 50% moist food, 50% dry food, and make sure it is a good brand.

Stones are very painful! I've had about 10 myself... Good luck!

Answer 4

well, friskies has a "special diet: urinary tract" canned food....

it is hard to do, but if you can get your cat on dry food, that is ideal....

Natural Balance, Natures Best, and even Science Diet (though not my first pick) are good foods....you wanna look at the ingridients, which are listed in order of their consistency in the food.  you want to go for foods that have a solid food for first ingridient, like chicken, or lamb for example

if "by-product", "meal", or "gluten" are the first thing you see, i would avoid it.

i give my cat 1 can of friskies (she stopped accepting dry food) a day, and a handful of chopped and boiled chicken or turkey at night