Cats are carnivores. I know that there are a few vegan cat food products that have Taurine and vitamin D that come from vegan sources but until I can find someone that can really show me that cats can thrive on a plant based diet, it seems way too risky to me. Plus as anyone with cats knows.... how picky they can be to the point of enormous aggravation on the part of their humans. How the hell do you get a cat to eat a plant based diet anyway?
Since my last post on trying to figure out a raw meat based diet for the cats, I read a book called "Your Cat" by Elizabeth Hodgkins DVM which is a really good book if you are interested in cat nutrition. She suggests a product called Platinum Performance to be mixed with meat and bone to round out all the vitamins and minerals that they need and we have been trying this for the past few months and I believe it has been going very well. The cats don't mind the mix and they all seem to be doing well on it so far and it is economical, especially now that we bought the big bucket. Our main cat meal consists of the Platinum Performance added to Oma's Pride ground chicken necks with some Oma's Pride ground beef organ mix mixed in. It is the most economical and well liked meal for all the cats. (Some are more picky than the others) We also give them whole chicken necks cut in half or thirds about once a week to chew on for their teeth and gums. It's pretty gross that I have all these animal parts in the fridge, probably even more than meat eating humans with no pets to feed, but I do believe it is best for them. The fact that everything is basically bi-product from animals slaughtered for their more desirable parts like chicken breasts is a small consolation. (for me, not for the animals slaughtered of course....) We also go all the way in to Massachusetts about once a month to buy Hare-Today products that have little packages of ground meats and organs all mixed into one. Their products contain more variety of organs in their mixes (brains, kidney, and tripe anyone?) and since it's all mixed with the meat and bone, much easier for me. Plus the grounds are very fine so the cats ingest all the bone they are supposed to eat without eating around the small bone shards in the Oma's. The cats that had a little bit of "chub" have thinned out and they are not as "addicted" to the food as they were when were were giving them a larger portion of canned food. We still use canned food to put medication in and as a back up for when we forget to defrost a pack of meat but we use it sparingly. What do you feed your cat?
5 comments:
Hanna -- I'd love to take a look at the book sometime when you can spare it for a few days. Sounds like you've found a great diet for the kitties. :-)
do you have ant concerns about all the anti-biotics and
other chemicals found in poultry or beef? I agree that carnivores need meat, it's just finding uncontaminated stuff. Thanks for the book reference, all ready on my wish list
Hi Jeff
Yes I do have concerns about antibiotic and hormones and try to buy as much without that stuff as I can. Kara who posted above you has a store where I buy most of the animals' food and they sell this one brand called Primal which I really like and is both antibiotic and hormone free. I bet in Japan it must be really expensive to find something like that since just regular meat is more expensive than over here.
have you seen http://www.catinfo.org
Hi Connie
Yes I have. It was one of the ones I studied to learn more about raw food recipes. One thing that I just can't do is do the grinding myself though.... I really like that the author of that site added updates recently and tells about how she is tweaking the original recipe etc.
Do you feed your animals raw too? What recipe do you use?
Hanna
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