New meowing furball

[Gattopardo]

Forgot to say that the kittens have just had their first birthday.

[hellymedic]

Blackie is about a year old. We don't know exactly as she was one of a litter of 6 David discovered in the garden hedge early last September.

[ian]

get them started on dry cat food as soon as they are old enough - if you buy decent quality food it is graded by age. Make sure they always have access to clean water - change it often even if they haven't emptied the bowl.

I lost both our cats to kidney problems, and the vet attributed this to our use of dried cat food

That doesn't sound very likely.

The main failure modes for cats are (a) cars, (b) kidneys, and (c) thyroid. I don't think there's many cats beyond the age of 14 the don't have (b) and/or (c) to some degree. Kidney and thyroid issues are the curses of all obligate carnivores.

[TimO]

Kidney failure in cats, appears to at least be related to insufficient liquid in their diet.  Since cats derive most of their fluids from their food, rather than from explicit drinking, they have a low drive to drink water.

So, I think that whilst dry cat food arguably does increase the risk of kidney failure, it's not necessarily the direct cause, but a factor.  Mostly dry cat food and water, however well intended, is probably not a good approach.

A lot of relatively cheap dry cat food also seems to not be particularly healthy for cats anyway, having a large proportion of carbohydrates, which don't naturally exist in most cat's diets.

I've only ever fed dry cat food to my cats, as a small overall proportion of their diet, mostly when I can't avoid it.  If I leave Zev alone for a few days, I've got a programmable dried cat food dispenser.  I do leave her wet cat food, but in hot weather this is not going to stay palatable or healthy for very long, so dry cat food is the only reasonable approach.

I do aim for the premium dry cat food, in these situations, which explicitly details high and good quality protein as the majority of its constituents, and low carbohydrates.

[ian]

A decline in kidney function is common in any obligate carnivores that live to an old age – all that protein generates lot of urea that has to go through the kidneys. Wear and tear. Thyroid problems (hyperthyroidism is also common in older cats) conflate with this.

Less protein is probably a good thing on that basis, pet cats have longer lifespans than their wild brethren. Of course, we all have to die from something, pets included.

Cats can eat wet food that's been festering all day. They'd eat dead and decomposing stuff in the wild, so they have a strong constitution. Whether or not you want your kitchen to smell funky is another matter. Fortunately I cooked a fish curry last night and threw the packaging in the bin with only perfunctory rinse. Having just opened the bin, well let's just say that I'm not worried about this morning's cat food.

[TimO]

... Cats can eat wet food that's been festering all day. They'd eat dead and decomposing stuff in the wild, so they have a strong constitution. ...

Apparently, this is also why cats will sometimes turn their noses up at something which to us seems completely OK.  Their sense of smell can detect whether carrion is safe to eat, or not.  I guess the downside is that with somewhat less "naturally" occurring items (eg Kanga-Chunks ... ) it can sometimes trigger that warning, and a refusal to eat what appears to be entirely patable (for a cat!)