transitioning multi cat house from dry to wet foods

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sammiesmom

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I was wondering if anyone had experience transitioning a multi-cat home from dry- wet only food? My diabetic Sammie eats fancy feast 2-3 cans daily and nibbles on the dry food that I free feed my other cats. Some nights I lock him in the spare bedroom so he won't fight with one of my males and his sugar in the am is high 150- low 200s. Otherwise he is 300-380 in the am. I know he would be better regulated if he only ate wet but am concerned about feeding my other 10 kitties wet only. Right now, when Sammie eats, he poops immediately afterward anywhere but the boxes and it is quite smelly. I don't want to have 10 other kitties with soft stinky stool but I would like to get Sammie regulated. I would hate to lock him up all the time- he is a very social kitty. Plus I have several overwight cats and am not sure that wet food would be good for them. Any suggestions on a compromise would be much appreciated.
 
When Houdini was DX'd I had to take away the dry for all 9 since I was freefeeding dry and no way could Houdini have any of that....it sent his BG's soaring! At the time I had 4 that were overweight and within a year they were nice and slim by just removing the dry. I also feed 4 times a day to satisfy the lifelong grazers and keep Houdini with some food in his system.

I did the transition slowly so I wouldn't have a total rebellion by just putting a bowl of dry down for a little while after a meal of wet food....so they'd be full already. I varied the times because they caught on really fast and would ignore the wet food anticipating the bowl of dry. Gradually I jut stopped putting it out for them and just sprinkle a little on their food. It took about 6 months but it was worth it. Now I use the dry food as treats only.

I never noticed extra smelly cat poop as a result of all wet food but Houdini can sure clear out a room with his ..... pewwww! :shock: Maybe its a sugar cat thing......

It's the best thing for Sammie to get off the dry food and it wouldn't hurt the chubby ones either :-D

Good Luck......
 
Thanks for the reply. Im also concerned about the cost. Fancy Feast is 50 cents a can, 2 cans a day, 30 dollars a month for one cat x 11 cats- ouch! Do you feed all yours fancy Feast?
 
No....Houdini gets FF and some Wellness for variety but the rest get Friskies mostly with a little Wellness here and there or whatever I get coupons for. He gets Friskies once in awhile but I'm not all that comfortable with the quality of Friskies so I stick to FF. Besides it's easier to monitor what he is eating with the small can....he's a little overweight so I try to keep him on a set amount or less if I can get away with it.

The way I figure it is one cat on FF isn't that expensive compared to the cost of extra insulin, health problems and vet visits :-D
 
I had a nice long lovely response typed out. I also have a new, young, formerly feral cat who's clamboring around my desk loving on me. Say hello Kerry, tell the nice people you're sorry!

Anyway - we have 7 so I understand the problem.

We fed Yittle our diabetic primarily Fancy Feast or Whiskas moist food that was under 10% calories from carbs. He got fed as often as he wanted which ranged from 6-12 times a day depending on what point in his life as a unregulated diabetic, regulated diabetic or diet-controlled remission diabetic we're tallking about. The more in control his blood sugar was the less he needed. We'd feed him 1/2 can of FF each meal or 1/4 can Friskies/9lives.

The other 6 got fed 1/4 can Friskies or 9-lives twice a day, or sometimes some leftover Fancy Feast or Whiskas. They also got Iams Multi-cat with Chicken dry food which is 25% calories from carbs. We would feed them the moist, then after Yittle ate his and left the room we'd put down the dry and wait for them to eat. We then picked it up and kept it out of his reach. He of course found stray kibbles from time to time but thats pretty hard to avoid and it didn't stop him from ultimately going into diet-controlled remission (no insulin).

Now that Yittle has crossed the Rainbow Bridge due to cancer, we're feeding the 6 plus the new formerly feral cat the same Iams food plus their 2 meals of moist food a day. Getting some of ours to even eat moist food at all was a struggle and a half. Tailte in particular, she'd throw tantrums when we tried to wean them all off kibble... she'd slam doors, bang furniture, throw stuff it was like having a toddler in the house. She's the main reason we had to give in and work out a way to feed them kibble. I'm just happy she'll eat some moist, because she's my Zaftig girl and if anybody will go diabetic in the future its probably her. She's in for a rude awakening and kibble-less world if that happens. In fact we tell her - if you want to keep eating kibble you can't ever become diabetic, so she's been warned.

As for the whole quality of the food issue - the one rule we kept was that 1 ingredient of the first 3 ingredients in moist food MUST be a named protein. By that we mean - turkey, chicken, fish, salmon, liver, beef etc... with our finances there wasn't any way to avoid foods that use byproducts and so forth but we could at least insist that 1 of the first 3 ingredients not be byproducts, water or something else.

After that - the first rule of feeding cats is "It doesn't matter what the food is or isn't, IF THEY WON'T EAT IT". You can buy them the most expensive stuff, the best stuff - Lord knows we did for Yittle, he hated all of it. We gave up - Fancy Feast was the highest grade stuff he'd deign to eat. It did the job.
 
sammiesmom said:
Thanks for the reply. Im also concerned about the cost. Fancy Feast is 50 cents a can, 2 cans a day, 30 dollars a month for one cat x 11 cats- ouch! Do you feed all yours fancy Feast?
Click to expand...

Wellness is more economical for multi-cat households. It comes in larger 5oz and 13oz cans. Some pets store will let you buy an entire case. Other brands of food come in just the 5oz size.

You don't *have* to feed Fancy Feast. It's often suggested as a brand to try but those tiny cans don't last long. You can mix and match a few different brands of food to please any finicky cats.

Melissa (and Paul-Kyle) has 10 and a half cats. I think she feeds all her cats RAW. Some find RAW even more economical than canned food because, if you make it from scratch using a recipie, you can do a huge batch and freeze the food into serving size portions for later use.
 
Thanks all. My significant other is not yet sold on the idea on giving all the kids wet food. Taking care of the crew plus two senior dogs is a 45 minute job twice a day and he thinks it will just be more work. I took away the dry food last night and will try feeding the others twice daily and then picking up the dry food. BIg adjustment for them- they like the 24 hour access! Its funny- I always been told dry is best so its a completely different viewpoint to put wet first but Im a believer- just got to convince the boyfriend. Good news is that Sammie's blood sugar was 60 this am which tells me that I need to go down on the amount of insulin Im giving him since he's off dry food. I'd love to get that boy off insulin! And he's tired of the ear sticks!
 
I have one cat, Booboo the civvie, who refuses, and I mean REFUSES, to eat wet. She eats ONLY fancy feast dry foods. That's it. I tried all the ways offered to switch her; she chose to starve. And she does not weigh more than maybe 6lbs and is super scrawny. She gets dry, but when I am not around, it it picked up or covered with a bowl. She has learned that when I get up or come home, she races to the dry covered food to eat.
There is always wet down in bowls for the other 3 cats, 2 being diabetic, so it's not like she is being starved by me - it is her own choice to refuse to eat the food left out.

It may be something you could try - if you have a few that refuse to switch, then put the dry down at certain times then removed. If they get hungry, I am sure they may try some of the wet.
 
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