Cats: Dry vs. Wet - or both?

Which do you feed your pets? I've been noticing that Amadeus has overeating issues and when the food is on the floor after he's eaten it, it isn't doing him much good.
I want to leave a little kibble out for them all the time, but I'm starting to consider if I should have a set breakfast and dinner time for them with wet food?

Most people can just leave dry catfood in their dishes as needed, but some cats will over eat. I had one that actually was getting overweight. We recently adopted 2 brothers 3 months ago and now they're adjusted ,I noticed they're eating more and a couple times ate too fast and threw up. So now I feel them a little in the morning then after dinner. I give them some canned food as a treat a couple times a week

If you feel like reading, here is a thread on pet food that might have some comments you can get info from, (a lot being me writing super long comments because as some ofyou may know, I have a bit of a, uh, pet food obsession).

http://forums.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=137841

This is the brand that I've been looking at: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...51&pcatid=8951
I'm pretty familiar with Drs. Foster and Smith having ordered from them many times, and there's no by-products in it.

I've been looking at their wet, as well. It looks good, too.

I'm just not exactly sure how to proceed...
What I've been thinking is 6am, put out the daily amount of dry food and then when 6pm rolls around, feed them some of the wet.
... what amount, I'm not sure yet... I'm probably going to ask their vet what he thinks. I'm just worried about that, in controlling Amadeus, I might deprive Edgeworth of food or something.

Worrying when it comes to my kitties is pretty normal for me, though. xD

I feed my cats dry food only. There have been studies that suggest that a dry food only diet can increase crystals in the urine giving them more infections, but I have never seen this happen with my cats. I found that on the wet diet they gained weight faster and gained a lot.

This is mainly common in male cats. All the male cats I have had, have had problems when only fed dry food. (I think due to the ash content of the dry food.) Male cats need wet food or a mixture of the 2 so this will not be an issue. My best friend's cat was in the kitty hospital last week, because this happened to him. It ended up costing $1,500 to get him better. One way to avoid this, aside from feeding your cat wet food, is to feed them raw pumpkin. I'm not sure why this works, but it does.

Back to the topic:
In the morning, I feed The Wendy, Dax, & Kara 1/3 a can of wet food each. During the day, I put dry food in these little food balls that have holes in them. It allows you to adjust the size of the hole that the food will come out of. Then to get the food out the cat has to play with it and it will only give them 1-3 pieces at a time. I have 4 that I fill with 1/4 c. of dry food in the morning. When I get home, 5:00pm, everyone gets a handful of dry food in their bowls. Sometimes I give them treats, but I try to limit them. When I go to bed, if their acting like they're hungry, I'll give them all a small handful of food. If I don't they wake me up at 5:00 am. The main thing is that they need clean water. I have a Drinkwell fountain so they have fresh water whenever they want. Currently for dry food, I feed The Wendy Iams hairball and weight control and the kittens get the Iams kitten formula. For wet food, they're not that picky, so they get Friskey's.

My darlings have a Drinkwell fountain and they adore it. I have the 360 one.
My cats are male and the one has had a(an?) urinary infection before, but he's only had it once.

Since there's more water content in the wet food, I'm wondering if perhaps it will satiate Amadeus quicker than the dry will.

Yes it will, because wet food contains 70-80% water. Wet food is especially good for animals that need to lose weight because they feel as though they have eaten more than they actually have.

That would be good for him, he's a bit chunky... the vet or vet tech haven't called him fat yet, though. I think he might just be short? He weighs 12 lbs last checked.
Edgeworth is long and sleek and weighs around 8lbs (and acts like he knows he's a sexy kitty, just the way he walks is so vain, I swear).

Right now I'm just torn between whether I should do dry in the morning and then wet at night... or split the wet between morning and night and leave the dry out while I'm at work.

Cats like to eat, so if he is getting chunky I would start working on it now. There is a scale of 1-5 that can be used to determine what range your cat is in, 1 being the most emaciated and 5 being absolutely obese, the preferred weight is 3. If I knew where my study notes were I'd find a copy of the chart and put it up for you to work out where he is at. But if you think he could lose a bit of weight, even if he's not FAT, now would be a great time. Choose a better diet, limit the feeding intake, etc. Indoor cats tend to gain weight more than outdoor cats too. As for his weight now, I'm from Australia so I only know kilograms!

According to Google, he's about 5.44kgs.

Oddly enough, he's the big eater. Edgeworth seems to only eat when he's hungry (unlike everyone else in the house... xD he's the odd one out).
I just worry about accidentally starving Edgeworth, but though he's a bit dense, I'm sure he'd pester me if he was starving, I suppose (dense as in: one time he was laying on the filing cabinet and he rolled around and fell on the desk).

Have not read all the thread (being lazy I know) however our cat had to have a tooth out and the vet told us that dry food is best for animals as its healthier for their teeth !

So the cat and the two dogs have dried complete food.

I can see that. Speaking of which, I need to start taking better care of my kitties' teeth.
I need to figure out some way to spend separate time with each one every day. It's difficult because if Amadeus is away from me too long and knows that I'm still in the house, he starts scratching at the door where he thinks I am... meowing pathetically, all sorts of things.

hahaha my mamma had a cat once and he was sitting on the bed, then suddenly he rolled and fell off the edge, it was about 5 years ago but I still remember the look on his face as he realised and frantically tried to grab the bed.

But aaanyway, your average kitty usually weights between 3 and 7 kilos (females being less, and some large breeds such as Maine Coons and Norwegian Forests weighing up to 9 or 10 kilos). So 5 and a half doesn't sound too bad, definitely not obese. if you have any concerns about his weight get your vet to look at him, and if you put him on a diet to make him lose weight I would also recommend discussing that with your vet.
In other posts I have talked a LOT about pet foods, so I don't want to repeat myself for everyone to have to listen to again, but there are premium foods made for weight control. If he is a shorthair, try running your hands down his body. If you can still feel some rids, then his weight should be okay. If you have difficulty feeling them, then he may need to lose a few.

Dry food definitely has is benefits over wet food, in the pet food thread I talked about that a lot. Wet food is better in certain situations, including weight loss and sick animals. But dry food has a denser nutritional value (only 20% water in comparison to 80%), and is better for dental health, it also promotes chewing food which can reduce bloating in larger breeds of dogs that eat too quickly.

Edgeworth has an epic level of fail when it comes to falling off things. xD
I don't know if he doesn't have a sense of space or what... he'll often plop down to cuddle right at the edge of the bed and nearly fall off (he only doesn't because I catch him).
I kind of think that maybe he knows, but he just trusts me enough that I'll catch him? He's a crazy one.

If you were going to do both, would you recommend doing the wet once a day or splitting the servings between morning and evening? That's where I'm still not sure what I want to do, yet.
I know that I'll leave out some dry food because I've never considered it fair that humans can get food whenever they way, but if you're away for 8 hours... your animal can't get food even if he's starving.

If you plan to use both then it won't really matter how you do it.
Animals eat differently to the way we do, dogs go better with one or 2 meals a day and cats are more ad lib throughout the day.
If you are feeding him to lose weight then controlling the meals is better, one or 2 meals a day in measured amounts and taking the food away if he doesn't eat it all at once. Dry food is better to leave out all day than wet food as wet food goes off quicker, but you can still leave wet food out as long as it's changed each day. You could give him a small serve of wet food in the mornings and leave some dry food out for him to come back to throughout the day. But always make sure there is water available with the dry food.

Evening & sub of pet feed>>>><<<<<<

I love it, though...don't know of anyone else who's not only knowledgeable enough but also, willing to share that knowledge.

Blah blah blah away...

Shangrala

I definitely plan to leave dry out while I'm at work and if I do wet, I'd probably do it in the evening. I'm just worried about choosing the right amount. I think that maybe Edgeworth should get more because Amadeus might dip in to his food during the day? But I'm not sure...
And I've also heard that they may start refusing to eat dry food when given wet, is that true or would you say they would likely still graze (or snort like Amadeus) throughout the day?

I guess my biggest concern is them going hungry and me not knowing it... because I can feed myself at any time, but they can't.