I’m completely giving up on this thread, because there are just way too many zany zealots here for my comfort.
Out of the 27 cats I’ve owned over the years, not one - NOT ONE - hasn’t lived into it’s late teens/mid 20’s.
So all the more power to you folks who feel the need to try to make the rest of the world feel guilty, cruel, ingnorant, & incompetent for feeding wet & dry food. OH THE HUMANITY!!! LOL!!!
I’ll continue with what works for my cats, with my vets’ blessings. 
Shrugs
I have 6 cats right now, 4 at the house and 2 at the barn. All get dry and canned food. I limit the dry food and they get measured amounts of wet in the morning. They all hunt, that’s their job. My last two old cats were 16 when they were PTS. Harley had been a wanderer and while his health was good, he was simply older than his years. He was even stolen one spring and it took him 4 months to find his way home (old neighbor lady liked to live trap cats in town and take them to her ranch, and she trapped him. He was very indignant about it).
Beamer had a host of health issues from the moment we brought her home as a tiny kitten. She was a puker and when she was young was prone to infections and fevers. The fact that she lived to be 16 was considered a minor miracle by my vet. I’m pretty sure her kidneys shut down and that’s what killed her. She was fine one day and began a sudden decline the next. We were taking her to the vet and she died in the car.
I have spent more time researching dog food information than cat, so i’m a little behind, but one thing i do know: there is no one single diet that works with every cat out there. And no matter what, i have to consider cost when it comes to feeding my cats. I can see me feeding more wet and less dry food but i don’t see me dumping the dry all together.
Not all dry food is created equal. Feeding high quality, high protein, grain free is different from feeding Friskies any day of the week.
I feed half wet/half dry (Wellness and Earthborn respectively), and it works well for my kitties. I make sure to keep a water fountain out and I don’t free feed. I find that cuts down on most problems. Kitties are fit, trim, teeth are clean, fur is fantastic. There is no one size fits all.
I feed wet and dry too, for my sanity and honestly for the cats’ benefit too. The fat boy actually got TOO thin on wet alone, and his previously always slim sister got a little chunky, as their positions were switched and she started eating all of his food that he didn’t want.
I’m rather off the higher priced wet foods as at least one or all of the cats hate all of the brands that I’ve tried and they are quite fatty – and not a good kind of fatty either. The oldest cat is now 18 and her kidneys are in decline, and after having done some research Friskies Special Diet is actually the best for such cats as far as electrolytes. I switched her from flax to Metamucil as well and she’s looking good. I imagine either her kidneys or her back (I suspect degenerative disc disease) is going to get her in the end. Overall she looks pretty good though. Just to look at her you’d never guess she was 18.
The dry they get is grain free. Currently they are eating Before Grain and love it – although they hate the wet food by the same company. Go figure!
We have one cat who won’t, no matter what, eat wet food. She’s the barn kitty, came from the shelter where she was eating whatever crappy dry food they can get their hands on (not complaining, they’re being fed!) and simply will not touch wet food. She won’t eat cooked chicken, eggs, none of the usual “people” food that cats normally kill you for. There are very, very few cat treats she will eat as well.
However, she does eat mice and chipmunks, so I don’t worry about her
Agree that there is no one answer that would cover all cats.
Have an older cat now with vomit issues that, according to the vet, is probably allergic to most grains. So that one gets a grain-free diet. It took a while to figure that one out. Puking with hairballs- normal but it doesn’t happen every day or even every week. Allergies might be one reason to go to a grain-free diet.
Since the above cat is also prone to eating too fast and gorging food, the second cat is also on grain-free and have seen that one get sleeker as a result, just an observation.
But, the second cat gets a grain-free kibble twice a day while we try to restrict the other to canned food only. If the older cat gets hold of kibble, it will come back up as a general rule. So, for whatever reason, kibble will cause puke in the one cat. We feed the other cat only the amount of kibble it will clean up, so we don’t have to stand guard while they are eating to make sure the gorge monster doesn’t get hold of it.
Both cats get a canned food “snack” at lunch time and before bedtime. That’s also because we don’t want the older cat to try to eat too much at once- because that one sees it as their duty to clean up every little bit it can find. 
Although the vet recommended a presription diet for the one cat, no grain, with some not-so-common protein- duck, rabbit, venison- we’re currently feeding the Wellness grain free canned and actually having better luck with it. The kibble for the other cat is From the Wilderness grain free. It’s more expensive but I’ve found we feed a lot less of it, plus it’s not all of the diet for that one.
YMMV. For us, it was issues with allergies to any grain, and the older cat’s attitude about cleaning up any food it can find. (The other stuff in grain-free will be vegetable based, usually) Obviously, we don’t leave out food for them and they seem to do just fine. You might also consider smaller feedings and more of them, if you have the time. Right now we have enough people in the house with enough different, odd work schedules, that getting that “lunch” treat in is not an issue.
Both cats are indoors only cats.
Call me pompous and zany, or whatever, but the main reason dry is inappropriate for cats is because they don’t naturally drink enough. Adding in wet or mice and birds they catch on their own helps, but they are still probably only getting enough fluids to negate the dry. Whether they have organ failure at 10 or 20, it’s usually due to lack of fluids so why not just provide that as much as you can?
As for mice in a can… That’s not going to work because canned food is deboned and cooked with the calcium added back in. Who is going to debone the mice and can you imagine how much it would cost? :lol: I have used the whole mice and occasional (raw) ground mice through Hare Today, though.
If I were going to manufacture the stuff, I would not debone the mice–just cook and grind them.
why even grind them…aside from he ICK factor you get opening a can of mice packed like Sardines. :lol:
I feed mine a combo of wet and dry. She gets one 3oz can Nutro Naturals split between two meals (the chunks kind… she will not eat the pâté varieties). Then she gets about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of dry ToTW. I too feed wet just to get that little extra moisture into her, but not everyone can do it. I see plenty of cats come into the clinic that have lived long healthy lives on dry food alone.
[QUOTE=Ghazzu;6049884]
The cat is God’s own carnivore.
They have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates.
Wet food is closer to what they should be eating than dry.
If it weren’t for the utter impossibility of marketing it, I’d create a line of canned cat food based on ground whole mice.:D[/QUOTE]
And I would buy it!
My Mighty Hunting Cat does a good job of rodents that come across the Fully Enclosed Cat Patio, but there are long dry spells with out. The Fluffy Cat would rather chase birds.
After research, I feed Wellness Grain Free wet. There has been less barf and better poop with this and much better weight control.
And having said that, my sister, who is the family cat fanatic, feeds dry feed only, free choice. It seems to work for her.
I too would totally buy canned mice, ground or not, assuming it was good quality, ie no ethoxyquin, bha, etc, added.
I think if you ask pet owners to make an extreme change in their routine they are more likely to ignore all advice and stick to what has not really been working to avoid the hassle of big changes. There are many higher quality dry foods that could work. So, I will ignore the “who’s a better cat person” posts and ask the OP what kind of dry food they have fed.
I had problems with my female cat barfing up friskies and then science diet until I switched brands.
Right now I’m feeding the petsmart brand Authority Sensitive Solutions. Turkey is the first ingredient and it is made without beef, corn, or wheat which some cats have trouble eating. It does still contain some grains.
If that doesn’t work you can look at a grain free dry food such as Wellness CORE or EVO cat.
I will also say that I had zero luck leaving dry food out all day long. I ended up with really fat cats. I feed 2 - 3 times a day so I can control how much they eat.
Our cats adored the left-over post-Christmas turkey; the greediest one, he who is a major fusspot about his diet, looked GREAT on it. :rolleyes:
Generally they’re fed free-choice dry Costco stuff, with cans of Friskies for variety once a day. I shall now research alternatives to Friskies - thanks for the info!
Oh yeah - whenever I roast or poach poultry or fish, kitties definitely get their share (so does the Cockatoo, believe it or not).
And since my husband doesn’t eat any red-meat products - poultry, seafood, & vegetarian meals are our mainstays.
[QUOTE=Bacardi1;6070154]
Oh yeah - whenever I roast or poach poultry or fish, kitties definitely get their share (so does the Cockatoo, believe it or not).
And since my husband doesn’t eat any red-meat products - poultry, seafood, & vegetarian meals are our mainstays.[/QUOTE]
Cannibal cockatoo! :eek:
I know. My husband likes to emulate the voice of the cockatoo going “I do love this so, but it seems strangely surreal” - lol!!!
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