[SRB644]

My parents currently have six cats, three male and three female. The females are the eldest. The folks have had many, many cats and are deathly afraid of losing male cats to a urinary tract infection as quite a few have been lost that way. Their solution over the years is to feed all their cats cat food with urinary tract formula and, on the advice of a veterinarian, pour a little tomato juice on the food to stimulate a thirst so the cats will drink more water and help with digestion. As far as I know, it works.
The problem, as I see it, is the eldest female cats puke all the time, and not hairballs and the like, but visibly what they just ate out of the cat bowls. The folks' solution has been to cut down on the tomato juice. My solution/suggestion has been to mix two bags of urinary tract cat food with a bag of high quality adult/senior cat food so the females will stop throwing up all the time but this is met every time with a wall of resistance followed with horror stories about male cats dying in agony from a urinary infection. I'm stymied.
To me, the female cats aren't getting any nutrition at the expense of an overreaction. I could use some advice and other ideas and if I even have a legitimate concern as my experience with cats is limited.

 

[spirite]

Wish I could help, but I don't know anything about this. Has cutting down on the tomato juice helped? I'd suggest that you repost this in the health & nutrition thread once you've posted your required posts here - more people will see it, and lots of people here are really knowledgeable.

PS - welcome!

 

[minikin44]

Perhaps they should feed the males and females in separate rooms so that the females can have food that appeals more to their digestive tracts? The female urethra is long enough that I am pretty sure it's rare for a female cat to die from a blockage. That being said, male cats can definitely die from a blockage and it's not uncommon. My male Tugs was blocked but I got him to the e-vet early and he suffered no lasting damage, thankfully. I think the tomato juice thing is unnecessary on top of the special food (and they'd be better off feeding wet food to the cats to get water in them than feeding them dry food).

 

[rightsaidfed]

is wet food an option?

Cat's just plain don't drink much. They seem to understand that the cats need more moisture (which is why they're adding tomato juice...not sure why tomato, but whatever). Just cut out the middleman and feed wet food!

The main cause of urinary issues is probably dry food to begin with. If they fed all of the cats wet food, they wouldn't have to worry about urinary issues and the older ones might be able to keep it down.

 

[Leivies_Lavish_Cat_Lounge]

is wet food an option?

Cat's just plain don't drink much. They seem to understand that the cats need more moisture (which is why they're adding tomato juice...not sure why tomato, but whatever). Just cut out the middleman and feed wet food!

The main cause of urinary issues is probably dry food to begin with. If they fed all of the cats wet food, they wouldn't have to worry about urinary issues and the older ones might be able to keep it down.

I agree... I have been asking around trying to find solutions to incorporate more canned food for my cats.. Cats are desert creatures by origin and in the wild get there hydration via the prey they eat... So dry kibble sucks for this and I dont think any amount of urinary tract dry food will really help :/ I would at least aim for 1/2 a can of the 5.5 oz wet food a day if nothing else.

I hope you find a possible solution and your kitties get better!