this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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No bad intent here, just curious, how do cats eat after having their teeth removed?
Perfectly fine.
My cat had the same tooth removal surgery a couple years ago (he was adopted with a mouth full of teeth where most were about to fall out). He was on soft food for about 2-3 weeks before he started picking at his dry food again. Now he gets a portion of wet food every morning, and free feeds dry all day.
What I learned from the vet is that cats use their teeth mainly to rip meat off their prey so they can swallow it, and not really to chew. So if they're presented with food that's an appropriate size to swallow, they just swallow it.
Well that's certainly not the whole truth the way mine can be heard crushing on his dry food from multiple rooms way
They don't tend to crush too much with their teeth from what I've heard, they mostly lack the molars needed for that i think, instead the can use the top and bottom jaw usually.
Might be wrong been a while since I read that.
Mine is also toothless by now. You are correct, my vet told my they're using their upper denture / jaw to crush what needs to be crushed and swallow everything else.
I was told to be careful with wet food and meat because this kind of stuff can't be crushed so it should be "bite sized" to allow her to swallow her food easily. But I don't know if this is a general thing or if this was related to an incident when my cat nearly suffocated from a piece of sausage she greedily swallowed without chewing... She's never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but we love her (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)
My understanding is that if the food is easily swallow sized, they may unintentionally crunch as they maneuver the food around their mouths to position it to be swallowed, but not out of necessity. If the food is larger, sure they'll break it up so they can swallow it easier. But by nature, cats aren't animals that need to chew food for grinding and digestive purposes (like animals that have flat/grinding molars.) As long as they can swallow it, they don't need to chew.
I had taken care of a foster that had to have all his teeth removed. I am glad dry food is still an option, we opted for wet as he enjoyed it and the vet recommend us to feed any wet food over dry food for all our cats. Some cats just love dry food though and have little or no interest in wet, so like I said glad it's an option still