dry cat food

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terri1962

terri1962

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I want to know why its we should not be feeding dry cat food. I never understood that. I have a veterinary diet dry food its called EN Gastroenteric and it does not look to bad nutrition wise and Lilly used to eat it unitl I took her off it.
Having had problems lately with her pancreatitis and not wanting to eat but she does seems to like to eat this.
I know I will get crucified for this but at this point if I can get her to eat at all I am going to let her eat it. Here`s the analysis of it.

Crude protein 50%
Crude fat 16%
Crude Fiber 3%
moisture 12%
Carbohydrate 20%

and it has vitamins A, E,b-1, b-2, b-12

The only bad thing I see in it is corn gluten meal

But like I said at this point if I can get her to eat thats what counts.

Terri
 
Dry is much higher in carbs but......a cat needs to eat sooooooo.......feed her what she wants to eat and work insulin around it. Several years ago Hope went off canned food.....decided she was only going to eat dry DM.......then she eventually decided to go back to canned.
 
Here is how I understand it--others might chime in and offer a better explanation. I too have trouble understanding why some of the grain free, low-carb foods are bad purely from a diabetes standpoint. I always felt like carbs are carbs. However, I have seen folks say that their cats' BG goes up even on the low-carb dry foods, so there may be some intangible there that I don't understand.

Even the water issue I don't think is as major for some cats--although I know cats in general do not drink enough water, Saima always drank quite a bit (even before diabetes)--believe it or not, it was typically enough to make up the difference between dry and canned. Again, there may some other intangible I don't understand about this, though.

HOWEVER, my biggest concern with grain-free dry food is that it always seems to be sky-high in phosphorus, which is very hard on their kidneys. I don't think I could ever in good conscience feed this type of food based on that, even though the ingredient lists look impressive. My two new kitties (Hi, Hope! :smile: ) eat all canned food, and just based on the argument that they would eat "wet" food (i.e. 70% water prey) in the wild, I'm pretty convinced that's the best way to go. How I wish I'd known that when Saima was a kitten... who knows, she might still be here.

I agree with you though, that if Saima would have eaten donuts in the last week of her life, I'd have fed them to her. I would have done anything to see her appetite come back. :cry: And from a more objective standpoint, cats do need to eat so if they absolutely refuse canned and turn their noses up at all the little tricks we use to get them to try it, I'm not sure what else can be done than to feed dry. I do think a lot of people (myself included) probably don't persevere enough in trying to get them to eat canned, though.
 
Dr. Lisa explains it better than I ever could: www.catinfo.org (She also has info on specialized diets on her pages.)

Having said that, your kitty has to eat. Have you considered EVO? It is the lowest carb count which might help with the bg levels. Maybe a little wet with EVO crumbled over the top with hopes that someday it will be mostly wet?
 
In diabetes, either the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. Insulin is necessary for the body to be able to use glucose for energy. When you eat food, the body breaks down all of the sugars and starches into glucose, which is the basic fuel for the cells in the body. Insulin takes the sugar from the blood into the cells. When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into cells, it can lead to diabetes complications. Here is information about diabetes and carbs http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitnes ... betes.html. Though this is a site for people, the basic process is the same.

The more carbs, the harder diabetes is to control. The more spikes, the likely there will be complications. BUT some cats (including my GA Maggie) won't eat canned no matter what. If Lilly really won't, you feed what Lilly will eat and adjust the insulin if needed. You might try to find a lower carb dry, and keep trying to switch her if possible. But I think eating comes first.

Maggie only ate dry and I sure heard about it here! She viewed all wet and people food as disgusting and i think she would have starved before she would eat either. She would even leave the room when we were eating. But she honeymooned on it and didn't die from diabetes, it was her heart at 18. I know wet is better, and I feed wet to my young civies. But Maggie would have none of it.
 
Lilly`s BG have never been real high, but may go up as a result of feeding dry food, but lets see what happens. This poor cat is almost 13 years old. Pancreatitis is probably going to kill her before the diabetes does as the way it seems now. She did have a really bad bout about four years ago before becoming FD that almost did do her in. She has been in the hospital twice in the last week for it again.
Its the lesser of the two evils. I will put canned FF out for the cats as I always have. they always will have that choice. It just seems so limited as to what you are supposed to feed a FD, and then when you have one that won`t eat what do you do then?
What about the gravied FF varietys? Not the ones with the vegetable in them but the others like the grilled and flaked ones? We are not supposed to feed those either right?
I think she is just sick of FF and I do not have any pet stores on my side of town, would have to drive to another side of town to buy Evo or Wellness, etc

Terri
 
Terri, the grilled and flaked ones are fine. And there is nothing writen in stone about what to feed and what not to. A general rule is canned, with under 10% of the calories from carbs, and preferably not too much fish (mercury levels, phosphorous, etc). But you also have to make sure your cat eats, and you have to work around other medical conditions.

Read Dr Lisa's site, it will help a bit.

Jen
 
do you think she would try raw??? I know what it is like have a 'not eating nothing but one thing' kitty is like... my civvie slappy! Grrrrrrr!
since she quit eating at all, I had to dropper feed her and it was script a/d....NOW all she will touch is a/d! I want her to eat what the other 2 girls eat so that I do not have to worrie about the little sneekies, but she wont!
I do feed raw to my other 2 girls along with the ff & friskies... It has taken a while, I offer both and now they are eating alot of the raw. I bought the natural instincts raw and primal before I started grinding my own.
Just a thought, you can purchase a trial size of both for 5.00 each.
But, long story short, she has to eat even if you have to do like I did to Slappy and dropper feed her to perhaps jump start her again!
Good luck, many paw hugs to ya
 
ohbell

Right I have two fat sneaky males, they will lick all the gravy of the canned food then nobody else wants to eat. It does not matter if leave 5 bowls of FF around the house they will go lick the juice off every last bowl and leave it. Its a real problems when I am only trying to feed canned and not only that it gets expensive because I have to throw SO much food out. Lilly the FD is a grazer so I have to leave out food for her, she does not eat much but a little at a time, will not take treats, will not eat people food except tuna.

Terri
 
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