Thread: Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease

The issue of food has been discussed before on this forum if you do a bit of searching...

Dry cat foods vary greatly in their ingredients and nutritional composition. The cheapest contain relatively large percentages of grain ingredients and thus low protein. The best are primarily good quality meat and have protein percentages of 40% and up. You should read labels of ingredients and nutrition data. Be warned, though, the highest quality dry foods are much more expensive than cheap cat food. The ones we feed are around $25 US for a 7 lb bag.

The one thing that all dry cat foods have in common obviously is low moisture content, and there is no doubt that this could be a problem for some cats. Cats are descended from desert cats, so do not naturally drink as much water as dogs for example, and apparently do not become naturally thirsty just by eating something dry (cats often swallow dry food without chewing a lot of it too). This could clearly lead to more concentrated urine making crystal formation more likely, and it can also lead to constipation and serious problems like mega colon.

Suggestions? Obviously read nutrient labels to find lower magnesium foods. Feed a higher percentage of wet food and buy better quality, higher protein dry food. Encourage your cat to drink more water. Based on my experience and what others say, many MCs like to drink water if it is available in a fun form. Three of our four, for example, heavily use the two fountains we have. Each of them pees at least three times per day, which indicates that they are indeed ingesting good amounts of water. Keep track of yours. If he is peeing only once a day or leaving only small amounts, you should try to get more water into him. Like I said, we have two fountains, water dishes next to every dry food bowl, and bowls in a couple of the sinks (a couple of the cats seem to really like these). We also occasionally put out a large bowl in the kitchen and float ice in it, which attracts some of the cats for water play along with some drinking. The fountains are the most effective, but they are also a pain to keep clean. I would definitely try a fountain, though, because cleaning it will be much better in the end than having a sick cat.