[marwood71]

hi all! my boyfriend just adopted an adorable, 9-wk old brown tabby with neat orange spots. he named her sweetpea. anyway, the shelter told him to feed her dry food with a little water in it to soften it. in my experience with my two previous kittens, i free-fed dry and offered wet 3-4 times a day, which he is what he is doing. however, sweetpea has gas and soft stool because she isn't used to the wet yet. how long should we give it? he brought her home on tuesday. i ended up eliminating wet from my first kitten's diet because it just tore her up.

also, we'd like to let the kitten play with my 9-month old tabby, lola. sweetpea came from the shelter clean as a whistle and up to date on her shots and has tested neg. for FeLV, which i believe is luekemia. BUT i am wondering if i should wait to introduce the two of them. i am worried about FIP and other scarey cat diseases. i almost lost lola at 12 wks due to unexplained renal failure, so i am really overprotective...

advice, please! thanks...

 

[Newt]

Hey marwood,

We would only give wet 2 or 3 times a week with our cat. Too much dry is not good and neither is too much wet it would seem. As for playing with the other cat, as long as all the cats are up to date on their shots there should be no harm. Diseases like FIP are untraceable with today's test and there are no vaccines which means one could already have it and you wouldn't know. I would not be concerned though because it is very, very rare.

 

[Aonir]

Cats get water when they eat wet food, causing them to drink less. Wet food can/will cause teeth problems if teeth aren't brushed and/or given an alternative to clean teeth.

Dry food makes cats drink more water. It cleans cats teeth. You should still brush cats teeth.

Mixing dry food with water: put dry food in bowl, add as little or as much water as your specific cat likes.

Soaked dry food: put dry food in water and let it soak. After soaked, rinse water out and serve.


Personally, I have NOTHING wrong with feeding only dry-food as is. That's what I've done.
My grandmother gives dry food at day, and wet food at night.

There's many feeding patterns. You just have to find the one that best suits you and your kitten

 

[Raina_Stardust]

I personally don't feed my cats wet food except as an occasional treat,since a good quality dry food will meet all the nutritional needs of a healthy cat. If you do choose to wet feed about a 1/4 can 1-2 times a day is sufficient. You should also be feeding kitten food if you're not already doing so.It's fine if Lola eats it too since she is under a year old.As long as Sweetpea has been tested and vaccinated it should be fine to let them be together,just watch them to make sure Lola doesn't beat up your little one.