What You Will Find in This Section
- Diet can be a very useful way of managing CKD and helping your cat to cope better with the disease.
- Please ensure that your cat eats. Cats who don’t eat can develop a potentially lifethreatening condition called hepatic lipidosis. So eating is more important than what you feed.
This chapter contains information on the following:
Nutritional Requirements of CKD Cats
Cats have unique physiological needs. This page explains more about the nutritional requirements of CKD cats. It discusses the main components of food, such as protein, phosphorus, fibre, essential fatty acids, amino acids and vitamins, and includes a discussion of when to feed reduced protein food.
The B Vitamins
B vitamins can help CKD cats with appetite and other issues. Since they are water soluble, supplements are usually safe. This page explains more about the B vitamins, especially vitamin B12 (methylcobalamin).
What to Feed (and What to Avoid)
Choosing a food can be difficult and many people worry about which food to feed. This page explains the benefits of therapeutic kidney diets and what to do if your cat refuses to eat them. It discusses homemade foods and foods for cats with other health issues such as food allergies or IBD. It also covers other nutritional issues, such as raw food, feeding frequency and dry food versus wet food, and discusses which foods to avoid, such as garlic.
Persuading Your Cat to Eat
CKD cats often have a poor appetite, so I explain ways to encourage your CKD cat to eat. This page also has information on how to get additional nourishment into your cat.
UK Therapeutic Kidney Foods Data
This page contains the data for therapeutic kidney diets available in the UK. It provides the data in Dry Matter Analysis (DMA) format for phosphorus, protein, sodium, carbohydrates and fat, plus calorie content.
Assessing Cat Food Content
Since phosphorus control is an important part of managing CKD, I have created tables of many commercial cat foods available in the USA in order of phosphorus content. Please read this page before using the tables, it explains why I have created them, how to use them, and why the data in my tables differ from that provided on the brands’ websites or on the cans of food themselves.
USA Canned Food Data
This page contains the data for many US commercial canned foods. It provides the data in Dry Matter Analysis (DMA) format for phosphorus, protein, sodium, carbohydrates and fat, plus calorie content.
USA Dry Food Data
This page contains the data for many US commercial dry foods. It provides the data in Dry Matter Analysis (DMA) format for phosphorus, protein, sodium, carbohydrates and fat, plus calorie content.
USA Cat Food Brands: Helpfulness Ratings
Some cat food brands are very helpful and responsive to enquiries, others less so. This page (under construction) rates the various brands according to how helpful they have been to me regarding the food data tables.
USA Cat Food Brands: Contact Details
Contact details for the various cat food brands in the USA, including website addresses and phone numbers. You can use the links to their websites to check the ingredients of the food you are thinking of feeding, and contact the brands in case you have any further details.
This page last updated: 02 July 2025
Links on this page last checked: 02 July 2025