Holistic cat food, for cat with urinary problems?

Question

Does anyone know of a 'holistic brand' cat food that cats with urinary problems would do good on?

RuneAmok, good answer. Makes alot of sense,
and I've heard before about the moisture intake.
I'm more of a dog person, even though I've only got 2 dogs and SIX cats.
I'm a sucker for homeless animals...

It would be so hard to feed 6 cats can food but I think its probably coming down to the only solution..

They are on purina urinary health dry food.
I know thats a sucky brand, thats why I was looking for a better one.
Each time I try to switch them to a better dry food though, the problems start again.
I'll check out the sites you gave.
Thankyou!

Answer 1

Are you feeding dry food? Because that will often lead to or exacerbate urinary issues. The reason is because cats eating kibble don't get enough water. They're forced to drink water which is not what nature intended...they're meant to get water IN their food (think nice juicy mouse meat and guts!). Obviously they DO drink, even in the wild, but they don't usually take in as much as they should.

Which means that their urine is rather concentrated.

Cats on a raw or canned diet get adequate moisture and rarely resort to drinking water. As a result, their urine is less intense and urinary issues are less common.

I know this from personal experience. When I converted to an all canned food diet, water intake dropped off and within a week or two, I noticed that the litter box wasn't smelling as bad! I freaked a bit, but posted the question about it out here and was reassured.

So...if you are feeding kibble, I recommend looking into switching them to canned. I'll post in a bunch of links that helped me get started.

If you don't want to do that, I can't personally recommend a good brand....when I was feeding dry I gave Poppy Purina One's Urinary Tract Health food. She only had the one UTI, but I really wouldn't recommend that brand.

If you're going to feed dry you should get a better brand. I don't know what dry food is good for UTI's in particular.....

If you look at the brands in the What to feed link below, you could check their websites to see if they offer dry food. Many of them do.

Answer 2

First, you should keep the cat on a canned food. This gives the cat more moisture which will help the problem.

Second, the food alone won't solve the problem. I don't know what type of problem your cat has but you can use this product for crystals http://www.belfield.com/products7.html#carpon It's a mix of berries that raise the ph level to dissolve crystals.

You can also get many urinary care products at http://www.onlynaturalpet.com One product they have that you need is the ph test strips. This way you can monitor the cats progress. They also have a huge supply of natural cat foods.

I just went through all this with my female cat and all is well. Good luck!

Answer 3

im not quite certain i think that thats a question for a vet.
my cat has urinary track problems. he also gets crystels that block this path so he cant go pee so we rush him to the vet and the vet does surgery and other things then puts him on meds then gives prescription cat food and my dad nearly faits at the medical bills.