How to feed your Cat
A cat is a carnivorous animal, which means that he/she naturally eats meat. Plant material is of little use in the daily diet of your cat. In fact your cat requires no vegetables in its diet.
Dry Cat Food
at all. Offal is also unsuitable for cats. All a cat really needs is a lot of high-quality animal proteins which can be found primarily in muscle meat. Muscle meat has the highest protein content and any commercial cat food that contains high muscle meat content will be great for your cat.
Cat Teeth
Your cat’s teeth are intended for cutting and tearing meat, and as such your cats dental health is really important. Poor dental health can lead to your cat not wanting to eat which of course leads to health problems. There is a good article HERE all about Cat Dental Care.
How Often Should I Feed My Cat?
By nature cats eat small prey such as mice. A cat in its natural surroundings, in the wild, would eat 10 to 20 small meals throughout the day. Your cats stomach has only a small capacity and cannot increase in volume like a dogs can. Therefore it is often better to feed a cat little and often as opposed to 2 or 3 large meals. This also makes a difference to the acidity of the cats urine. The pH of a cats urine will remain pretty stable if feeding takes place throughout the day, but if 2 to 3 large meals are eaten then the pH of the urine initially decreases right after the meal but will rise sharply during the longer periods between meals. Of course if you work all day then feeding your cat 20 times a day just isn’t an option.
Cat Food
A cat has very specific nutritional needs and a nutritional deficiency (or an excess) of certain nutrients can quickly lead to problems. One of the most important things your cat needs from its food is Taurine.
Amino acids make up the main part of all types of protein and Taurine is a type of amino acid. Taurine is not just essential for your cat, it’s critical. Your cats vision, heart function, digestion and immune system depend on it. You should note that dog food is therefore totally unsuitable for cats.
This is also why vegetables and other plant matter are of no use in your cats food. They contain ZERO taurine.
What cat food should you choose?
The three main choices are usually: Dry food (like kibble)Wet food (canned or pouches usually)Raw (prepared by you)
Dry cat food
There are advantages and disadvantages to all of the above, but my main concern with dry food is the water content, or lack of it to be more precise. Water intake is one of the most important factors for your cats health, take a look at the following link for more information regarding this topic to save me duplicating it here.
Cat food nutrition diet and diseases
Although I’m not a fan of dry cat food, I should point out one advantage of giving your cat dry food. Dry kibble has to be chewed and therefore helps reduce tartar and plaque build-up on teeth although there are dental products that you can buy to help maintain your cats dental health. A combination of wet and dry food may work for you. The other consideration to what type of food you choose is your lifestyle. By that I mean how much of the day you are at home. Dry food can be left out all day and your cat can feed as often as it needs to, but it’s not really hygienic to leave wet food (or raw meat) out all day, especially in summer months. The food would go bad pretty quickly.
Wet cat food
As I mentioned above the main advantage is the high water content which is great for your cat. Where dry foods often contain plant and vegetable materials and proteins of little use, wet foods tend to have a much higher content of the protein types your cat really does need.
Raw food
The best thing about preparing your own cat food from raw meat is that you are giving your cat a much more natural diet. It will have the right proteins and be better for its teeth.
The big disadvantage is raw food is highly perishable and also takes time to prepare. As I said above, your own lifestyle will ultimately have an impact on how, and what you feed your cat.
How Much Cat Food Should I Feed My Cat?
The packaging will usually have guidelines on the amount food to feed your cat daily. Some cats have a more active lifestyle or faster metabolism than other cats, so the nutritional requirements between different cats can vary widely.
Strict adherence to the packaging guidelines may result in inactive cats or cats with a slower metabolism becoming obese over time. It is therefore generally better to keep an eye on your cats weight and activity levels and on the basis of that you can determine how much to feed daily.
As long as the body weight of your cat remains as it should be (depending on factors such as age and breed), it is not that important if the cat eats less or more than is recommended on the packaging.
Cat Milk
An adult cat has no need to drink milk, in fact cow’s milk is not great for cats as some cats are intolerant to the lactose in the milk and it can cause diarrhea.