Water is an extremely important nutrient that contributes to overall health in every living creature. Couple this with the fact that cats do not have a very strong thirst drive when compared to other species, and you will understand why it is critical for them to ingest a water-rich diet. The cat's lack of a strong thirst drive can lead to low-level, chronic dehydration when dry food makes up the bulk of their diet.
A cat's normal prey contains approximately 70 - 75 percent water. Dry foods only contain 7-10 percent water whereas canned foods contain approximately 78 percent water. Canned foods therefore more closely approximate the natural diet of the cat and are better suited to meet the cat’s water needs.
I hear the reader saying: "But my cat drinks a lot of water so he must be getting enough!"
A cat consuming a predominantly dry food diet does drink more water than a cat consuming a canned food diet, but in the end, when water from all sources is added together (what’s in their diet plus what they drink), the cat on dry food consumes approximately half the amount of water compared with a cat eating canned food.
Put another way, a cat on a canned food diet consumes approximately double the amount of water consumed by a cat eating dry food.
This is a crucial point when one considers how common kidney and bladder problems are in the cat.
Think of canned food as 'flushing out' your cat's bladder several times each day.
No comments:
Post a Comment