Feline Diet

Diet is very important in the feline world.  One of the biggest problems is adequate hydration (water intake).

In the wild, cats do not drink that much water, so the source of their fluid intake is from their prey.  There is a high source of water in raw meat.  There are several good articles on the woes of an all dry kibble diet.

Only Natural Pets website has some good articles on feline diet authored by veterinarians.  The concensus

is that no cat should be allowed to free graze on an all dry diet.   It is important to introduce at a young age

raw meat/or moist canned food.   Some cats who have had only dry kibbles simply will not eat moist food.

A daily diet of dry kibbles throws a cat into a continous state of dehydration which presents a host of health 

issues including kidney disease, often resulting in renal failure.  Once a cat shows signs/symptoms of kidney failure, most of the functioning kidney is gone. We feed a combination of dry kibble, moist canned food and raw meat to our cats.  Raw meat is not hard to do but it must be handled very carefully, ie., use gloves when preparing and use clean utensils, use fresh meat, can be frozen and then thawed.  After it has thawed in the refrigerator don't keep it any longer than 24 hours in the refrigerator.   Food poisoning with E. Coli can make a cat deathly ill.   Raw chicken and turkey can be used but we prefer to use a good grade of very lean beef, ie., sirloin or even K.C. strip.  We first remove as much of the fat as possible, then grind it in a food processor.   Daily portions are prepared in snack size baggies and immediately placed in the freezer. We can place about 6 to 7 serving sizes in one quart freezer bag.  A word of warning.  You cannot feed an all raw diet unless you supplement with vitamins and minerals, like Fauve.   We feed raw meat in the AM and moist canned food in the evening. Limited amounts of kibbles are left out in bowls to snack on during the day.   Our goal is to leave out only  1/4 to 1/3 cup of dry kibbles per cat per day.  This doesn't sound like very much but the goal is to eliminate dry kibbles from the diet.

If you are one of those unfortunate owners who has a cat that will not eat moist food, then an automatic waterer may be an option to encourage your cat to drink more.  Cats tend to like running water because it is fresh.  In fact, our cats learned to drink right at the top of the water fountain where the water first comes out of the filter.  They "know" where the source of the freshest water is.

When purchasing our dry kibbles, we avoid kibbles that have grain in them.  Look for NO GRAIN or GRAIN FREE on the package label.   Cats do not digest grain and it is only a filler added to dry kibbles.   Grain was also the source (via the gluten) of the contamination of cat and dog food a few years ago from China.  If the kibble had been GRAIN FREE, there never would have been the problem with so many pets being infected and dying.  As  pet owners, it behooves us to educate ourselves about what is best and healthiest for our beloved animals.

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**BOTTOM LINE - STOP FEEDING DRY KIBBLES**

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