Can my cats eat it?

June 11, 2019 4:23 PM

I am a bad pet parent and left a brand new bag of cat food in the car for three or four days. It got into the 80s a couple of days. It is royal canin urinary so if that matters. Will this make kitties sick? It smells gross but it always smells gross.

Cat tax.

posted by misanthropicsarah to Pets & Animals (12 answers total)

This is dry food? What harm could be done? That food traveled by truck or train for longer, and probably hotter periods of time. It's fine.
posted by hydra77 at 4:26 PM on June 11, 2019 [10 favorites]

It’s shipped to the pet store in similar conditions, so I wouldn’t think twice about it.
posted by advicepig at 4:27 PM on June 11, 2019 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: It is dry cat kibble.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 4:27 PM on June 11, 2019

Eat and enjoy. Share some with the cats too if you want.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:29 PM on June 11, 2019 [48 favorites]

I wouldn't worry about dry cat food stored in those conditions. I'm sure I've fed my cats dry food that's been stored the same way with no I'll effects.
posted by jzb at 5:03 PM on June 11, 2019

I will amiably disagree with prior answers only because it is food, food can go bad, the conditions you left it in were ideal for growing bacteria and fungus, and my cat developed an allergy to what was probably fungal growth due to a bag of dry cat food that was stored too long. Took her months to lose the rash she developed, even though we stopped feeding her dry cat food entirely.
posted by Peach at 5:32 PM on June 11, 2019

Dry pet kibble isn't transported from manufacturer to store in refrigerated trucks, and it's not expedited. Not even the premium brands.

Is it possible that it went bad? Sure. Is it probable? No.
posted by cooker girl at 6:12 PM on June 11, 2019 [6 favorites]

I'd imagine that the fats in it could go rancid in the heat, but if they had, you'd be able to tell by smelling it (and the cats would probably not eat it).
posted by easy, lucky, free at 7:02 PM on June 11, 2019 [3 favorites]

Does it smell a different sort of gross than it normally does?
posted by stormyteal at 7:03 PM on June 11, 2019

Dry cat food has a water activity level that is low enough to stop growth of anything harmful. Fats can certainly go rancid. However, that mostly is a sensory issue. If your cat doesn't reject it, feed the heck out of it.
posted by Foam Pants at 9:30 PM on June 11, 2019 [2 favorites]

The chemistry by which fats go rancid both requires and consumes oxygen and Royal Canin bags are pretty well sealed and pretty well filled. I would expect that at least some of their characteristic gross reek reflects the normal degree of rancidification that happens inside the bag during shipping and storage, that the oxygen content of the air inside the bag once this has happened would be relatively low, and that a few extra days stored in a hot car wouldn't make them noticeably worse. At the outside it might take a month or two off their Best Before date.
posted by flabdablet at 6:11 AM on June 12, 2019 [2 favorites]

*deposits cat tax in cat jar*

It got way above 80 in the car, but yes, dry cat food should be fine. I wouldn't be opposed to tossing it just so you feel comfortable though. My cat food is out in a garage at the farm store where I buy it and I bet it gets hot during the summer months. Hasn't ever been a problem.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:57 AM on June 12, 2019 [1 favorite]