I often heard cat owners complaining that their cats don’t drink enough water and that they rarely see their cats going to drink from their bowl. So how much water should a cat drink?

In the wild cats obtain most if not all of their water from their prey. Domesticated cats mentioned these habits, they take a big necessary of water from their food. But this applies to cats who eat wet food as those who are fed dry food only they don’t have what water to take from the dry food. If cats are given dry food only, they will require significantly more supplemental water to stay acceptably hydrated.

Cats can be fine for long periods without drinking any water as long as they receive canned food containing 67 to 73 percent water.

Still, they will become dehydrated when the water content of the food drops to less than 61 percent. This can for example contains 79 percent water so this should keep the cats well hydrated. The amount of water that a cat should drink depends on a variety of factors, including the size of the cat, her activity, the whether, the cat’s diet – wet food or dry food only . Factors such as high heat, exercise, or lactation can double or triple the amount a cat drinks.

Of course, diseases like hyperthyroidism, kidney disease, and diabetes will all greatly increase the cat’s daily requirement of water.

So how much should our cats drink? A normal cat’s daily water requirement ranges from 5 to 10 fluid ounces per day (an average of 60 ml/kg/day). Cats eating wet food will receive much of their daily water requirement from the food, since wet food is about 70 to 80 percent water. In contrast, dry food is only 7 to 10 percent water.

Cats eating canned food may need to drink less than 1 ounce of additional water per day, cats eating only dry food may need to drink over 7 ounces per day to be enough hydrated. This big amount of water can be sometimes difficult to achieve because cats are not prone by nature to drink large amounts of water.