Cats drink a lot of water

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  • #811118
    Melissa
    Participant

    Hey all, so since we got our new kitten Alice about a month ago I’ve noticed that all the water bowls in the house are actually empty every couple days. We have a 12 yr old overweight cat Kitty that I’ve never noticed drink that much water but we changed her food about 3 weeks before we got Alice from meow mix to blue buffalo. They both eat wet food and dry food. Alice gets wet food about 3 times a day and free feeds dry food blue buffalo kitten food. Kitty has her blue buffalo dry food and each morning gets about 1/3 of a large can of wet food. I don’t know which cat is drinking all the water. I’m worried bc my grandma just had to put down a senior cat that developed diabetes and I’m worried that with kitty’s weight she might have it as well. Kitty is my boyfriends baby and after we lost sunshine our tiny kitten last month we can’t go through that again any time soon. I don’t have money to just take kitty to the vet and my boyfriend doesn’t believe me when I tell him that she needs to go. I’m hoping that it’s bc of the food change but actually it could be Alice the 11 1/2 week old kitten. Any ideas? Sorry for the long post

    #811188
    Kittyzee
    Participant

    If I were you, try switching Kitty over to wet food only. There is no reason really to free feed dry when they get 3 to 4 meals of wet a day. She will probably drop some weight if you do this. I would get her to the vet though because excessive thirst is a sign of diabetes. Here is a link that is long, but full of good information about cat nutrition: http://www.catinfo.org

    #811190
    Buttons
    Moderator

    Kittyzee is right Mellisa free feeding dry food is not a good idea and if you stop that then kitty will loose weight and that will dramatically reduce the risk of developing diabetes .. With any dry food in a cats diet there will be a lot of water consumption.. Try wet only with water added and you’ll see a reduction in the use of the water bowls .. Also Dry food has been know to cause kidney issues so if you can I would try switching to wet only weither they like it or not at least for a month maybe to see how they get on..

    #811199
    ecbrown
    Participant

    Increased thirst and urination are, as you seem to already know, big red flags for cats…especially senior cats like your older one. Is there any way you could separate them for a day or two to dry and see who is drinking the water so much? Any idea if the senior kitty is urinating more? I know it is hard to figure out in a multi cat household. Maybe on the weekends when you are home more, you could see who is visiting the water bowls so much. If it is the kitten, probably nothing to worry about. But if the senior cat is suddenly drinking more, definitely worthy of a trip to the vet. If I understand correctly, her dry/wet food ratio didn’t change, just the brand of dry food, so water intake really shouldn’t change in that case.

    #811203
    JerseyJoan
    Moderator

    Excessive water drinking is also a marker for hyperthyroidism. Blood work is needed to diagnose it. My Shaddo lived for many years with it.

    #811207
    Melissa
    Participant

    Thanks everyone. Today I tried to pay attention more to their habits (I work retail so I have weird days off) and I noticed the kitten eating and drinking more. I never even saw kitty drink or use the liter box but she’s a lot quieter than Alice is (Alice plays a little in the liter boxes still) looking at kitty’s liter box it doesn’t look like much more urine than usual. And for Alice she poops a lot more than she pees. Don’t know if this is normal or not but I think that it’s Alice (the kitten) that’s drinking more. I see her at the water bowl a lot and the last couple days she’s been eating more dry food than her wet food. I’m gonna talk to my bf about getting kitty to the vet at least for a checkup. Right now I don’t want to take all dry food away from both cats bc when I’m not home I want Alice to get as much as she needs since she’s almost 12 weeks old. I fear that if I take away kitty’s dry food then she’ll eat Alice’s food that has a lot more calories. In a few weeks when I set a true feeding schedule for Alice then I’ll try taking away dry food

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