Hill's Science Plan Sterilised Cat Adult Wet Cat Food with Salmon Pouches - 12x85g

Sterilised Cat Adult Wet Cat Food with Salmon Pouches is a complete wet food for adult cats, made with salmon. Neutering genuinely changes what a cat needs, and this recipe is built around that.

Key Features

• Weight Control: L-carnitine with a low fat level, around 2.8 per cent.
• Urinary Health: Controlled minerals.
• Texture: Tender chunks in gravy.
• Moisture: Around 80 per cent, useful for a cat that does not drink much.
• Pack Size: 12x85g.

Why Neutered Cats Need Different Food

• Neutering lowers a cat's energy requirement by roughly a fifth while often increasing appetite. That combination is why so many cats put on weight in the year after the operation, and it is not the owner being careless.
• A sterilised recipe responds with lower fat, higher protein to protect lean muscle, L-carnitine to help the body use fat, and controlled minerals, since neutered cats are also at higher risk of urinary problems.
• The food helps; the portion decides. Weigh it, count treats, and weigh your cat every month or two for the first year after neutering. Catching half a kilo early is much easier than taking a kilo off later.

When To See Your Vet Instead

• A cat straining in the litter tray, going in and out repeatedly, producing only drops, crying while trying, passing blood, or urinating outside the tray needs a vet straight away. In male cats a blocked urethra can be fatal within a day or two, and the early signs look exactly like constipation.
• No everyday food treats that. This is maintenance for a healthy cat, and the time spent hoping a food will fix symptoms is the thing that does the damage.
• Water intake does most of the real work: wet food, several bowls away from the food, a wide shallow bowl or a fountain, and one litter tray per cat plus a spare, scooped daily.

Why Cat Food Looks Like This

• Cats are obligate carnivores: they cannot make enough taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A or vitamin D for themselves and have to take them in ready-made from food. That is why a complete cat food is not just a dog food with a different picture on the bag, and why cats should never be fed a vegetarian diet.
• Taurine is the one most people have heard of. Without enough of it cats develop heart muscle disease and go blind, which is why it appears on the front of every bag. Any complete cat food supplies enough, so this is a reassurance rather than a differentiator.
• The balanced minerals Hill's mention are about keeping magnesium, phosphorus and calcium in proportion rather than simply low, because both too much and too little cause problems.

Cats And Water

• Cats evolved to get most of their water from prey and have a weak thirst drive, so a cat on dry food alone often runs mildly short of water. That matters for the urinary tract and the kidneys, which are the two things most likely to shorten a cat's life.
• Practical fixes: more bowls than you think you need, away from the food and the litter tray; a wide shallow bowl so the whiskers stay dry; and a fountain, since many cats drink more from moving water. Adding some wet food to the day is the single most effective change.
• In UAE heat and air conditioning, check the bowls twice a day. Cats drink less from water that has sat out and gone warm and dusty.

Feeding, Storage And The Range

• How much: start from the chart on the pack by weight, then adjust to what you can feel. If you feed wet and dry together, count both halves towards the daily total rather than treating the wet as an extra.
• Changing over: move across gradually over about seven days rather than switching in one go.
• Storage and serving: refrigerate once opened, use within about two days and serve at room temperature, since cold food smells of much less. In UAE summer take it up after about twenty minutes.
• Who makes it: Hill's was founded by an American vet, Mark Morris Senior, who formulated a kidney diet for a guide dog in the 1940s. They run feeding trials on their recipes, which is why they can say clinically proven where most brands cannot.
• Science Plan is not Prescription Diet: this is the everyday range for healthy pets. Prescription Diet is the separate therapeutic range for diagnosed conditions, sold on a vet's recommendation, and the two are not interchangeable.

Good To Know

• This listing is the 12x85g pack.
• Complete wet food. Can be fed alone or alongside a dry food from the same range.
• Refrigerate once opened, use within about two days and serve at room temperature.
• Keep fresh water available at all times.
• Science Plan is a non-prescription everyday food, not a veterinary therapeutic diet.
• Made by Hill's Pet Nutrition, part of Colgate-Palmolive.