Please help!Healthy Cat Food Recipes?
Hi Abigail...ideally, cats should be fed a diet designed for their needs as they require special nutrients to maintain excellent feline health such as a taurine (found in most cat food products).
There are many human foods which can be very toxic to our pet cats and should be avoided. Here is a list of some of those foods: http://www.peteducation.com:80/article.c鈥?/a>
By offering a variety of foods some cats can become extremely finicky eaters and contribute to feline diseases/disorders: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?鈥?/a>
Please consider reading the following articles by Cornell University College for Feline Health on feeding cats:
http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures鈥?/a>
http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/news/feed鈥?/a>Healthy Cat Food Recipes?
Don't cook for your cat. You can certainly prepare his food, but cooking shouldn't be involved. Cats do best eating raw meat. Things like bread and pasta are going to add unnecessary carbs which may lead to weight gain. Not only that, but they contain things that many cats are allergic to. Allergies in cats often turn up in the litter box which doesn't make anyone happy!
You don't need to worry too much about your cat getting bored with their food. They don't have very many taste buds so it's not a big deal. However, according to my new vet (and others) variety is a good thing because that'll ensure that they're getting a good variety of bacteria and nutrient sources.
Also, it's good to offer variety to young cats because that will help prevent them from imprinting on a particular food. If you need to change their diet down the road, it's more difficult if there's only one thing they're willing to eat!
It's best to feed wet food - that can be either a properly balanced raw meat diet or a good quality canned food.
Sounds like a thoughtful idea, but it's soooo easy to get the diet wrong doing this yourself. My best advice is to stick with commercial foods. Cats require a high protein diet, and if you guess wrong playing around with the balance yourself, your cat will become painfully ill and die. A cat's dietary needs are quite a bit more complex than that of a dog's, for example. If that doesn't put you off your home-cooking for cats plan, I would say to Google Dr. Michael Fox, a veterinarian, who does have a recipe for something like this. He does know what he's doing. I would trust his recipe.
As far as your cat possibly getting ';bored'; with her diet. This is an unnecessary concern, honestly. Your cat's place on the food chain has predisposed it to certain kinds of foods, and left to its own, it will eat the same thing (mice? birds? rabbits?) over and over and over, without giving it a thought, much less being bored, because the environment provides a narrow range of choices in the food chain. Your cat is far more likely to become a finiciky eater if you feed it a continuous variety of foods; it will decide it likes one, over the others, and you won't know which. It won't eat unless you serve it, and you will go nuts trying to find what the cat is holding out for. It won't necessarily be something that's the best thing to feed your cat. You could load it up with unnecessary calories and give it diabetes. (Yes, cats get diabetes, if they get too fat.)
Also, you could get bored with this idea, if your life becomes busy in ways that it isn't now. You will have set up your cat for a big disappoinment, if you decide you don't want to be tied to cooking for your cat every day.
I would strongly discourage you from doing this with your cat. Feed it a good commercial food, and indulge your love of cooking for yourself!
Hope that helps.
No bread no noodles no sauces no grain. Your cat is a carnivore which means it needs meat . Want your kitten healthy? Do NOT feed dry food. Yo9u can give chicken, deli meats ect as a snack. Want to prepare something? Cats can eat a specially prepared raw food diet
http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm
Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat鈥檚 health
Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?
http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea鈥?/a>
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i鈥檚 and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms
The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process them. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in
Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp鈥?/a>
Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics鈥?/a>
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht鈥?/a>
http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht鈥?/a>
Your safest amd healthiest option is to keep your kitten on KITTEN food until he is ATLEAST 6 months old.
Kitten food is specially formulated, so that the kittens get the exact type of nutrients needed to help them gorw healthily.
Super premium pet food diets are best for young animals....
Your kitten won't get bored with her diet if she is offered a selection of dry food (I always keep dry biscuits down for my kitten) and wet food a couple of times a day.
When it's a bit older, then you can consider giving it mince meat, cooked chicken, etc.
Taking your kitten off of kitten food so early can cause calcium deficiencies, and a whole range of other problems.
If you're really concerned about her diet, perhaps speak with your vet.
Goodluck
P.S. In addition to what ';Ken'; has written -dry food is healthy for cats, particularly if it is a HIGH quality food, such as those purchased from a Vet clinic (not the commercial supermarket foods).
My mum is a vet nurse, and all of her colleagues (vets and nurses) recommend dry food.
Dry food is good for keeping teeth strong and clean.
It is true that some brands don't use proper meats in their products- however, if you read the ingredient labels - choose the product that lists a protein (beef, chicken, lamb, pork etc) first. Ingredient labels usually list the product that is used the most first..... Please email me if you'd like to discuss this further, or would like more information.
www.nutrience.com is a good site for information too......
No comments:
Post a Comment