How long does it take for...

How long does it take for wet food, new labeled Fancy Feast cans, to pass through a cat's system?

I just bought all old cans to see if his numbers are elevated because of changes in the ingredients in the newly labeled cans...

 

I can't imagine it would take more then a few days at most, food is metabolized pretty quickly.

 

Felines have a short digestive tract so food should transit in a day.

 

I did a quick search and found 20 hours is typical.

 

This link says about 6 hours for an older cat:

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/128/12/2632S

The reasons why clinically healthy cats should display such a marked reduction in their ability to digest dietary macronutrients is unclear. There is virtually no information on the effect of age on feline GIT morphology, transit times or secretory capacities. One study has been reported on aging and orocecal transit time in cats (Papasouliotis et al. 1996). In that study, a comparison of orocecal transit time, as measured by breath hydrogen output, was made in young adult cats (n = 9; age range, 3-5 y) and old adult cats (n = 9; age range, 12-15 y). The values for orocecal transit time in the young group ranged from 180 to 345 min compared with 225-375 min in the older cats. This study demonstrated no significant difference in the median transit times between the two groups.

 

Thanks everyone