Cat feeding : introduction

This post is also available in : French German Italian

Two weeks ago, Claire followed a training about cat feeding. This training was given by Philippe Bocion again, a behavioristic veterinarian.

Feeding correctly a cat seems so easy, and nevertheless that can be so much complicated !
What's for dinner ?
Cats are strict carnivores. They need a lot of proteins, lipids, and little (even no) carbohydrates. It’s necessary to know that cats use first their proteins to produce the energy they need, while humans for example use first carbohydrates, then lipids.

Several nutriments that cats need are only in animal-derived food, food which have a digestibility and optimal biological values for them. These key nutriments must be brought by food in quantity and in proportion adequate according to the sex, the age, the activity, and the health of the cat.

How to read the label of a commercial food ?

etiquette

analyse

  1. Verify that it’s really complete food.
  2. Prefer a food which presents ingredients individually (chicken, lard, …) rather than by categories (meats, cereal, animal fats, …).
  3. Prefer a food which sources of nutriments are animal rather than vegetable.
  4. Prefer a food which additives are natural rather than synthetic materials.
  5. Don’t look at the price pro food kilo, but calculate the price of a daily ration for your cat.

Both the lack and the excess of a nutriment are extremely fatal in short, average, or long term !

The damage on the body already show after a few weeks, or on the contrary, declare themselves after several years, and are often irreversible.

As the majority of our meals are home-made (raw feeding), Claire was extremely attentive… and she did well : she discovered that our ration of calcium was a little bit insufficient, and that therefore, the ratio calcium / phosphor of our food was not optimal. Fortunately, the difference stayed in an “acceptable” zone, but it’s something she corrected at once to guarantee our good health on the long term : she uses now a complement to be added to some only meat for one of our meals, and slightly increased the proportion of bone in the others.

We’ll tell it you more about food balance in a next article !

Have you already entered our giveaway ?

20 thoughts on “Cat feeding : introduction

  1. Summer

    My human buys commercially prepared raw and canned food, mostly because she finds it so hard to keep track of everything we need – honestly, she also orders out or heats up frozen meals for herself, so you can see her problem right there!

  2. frimousse

    This is a message from my Master:
    Hi!
    Parents usually (!) have a few months to think and decide how they are going to feed their baby – and try to give their child good habits: not too much sugar, not too much fat, not too much salt… and a lot of vegetables.
    Of course some people have time before deciding to have a cat – or a dog. So that they give good habits right at the beginning of their common life.
    But some cats just pop into people’s lives and houses and they are to be fed right away! The question is not “What sort of food are we going to give her/him?” but “Shall we keep the intruder?”
    The Siamese cat that came into our lives 17 years ago, Minou, was really starving. His first meal with us was… bread! And he ate a slice straightaway.
    Minou; http://idata.over-blog.com/2/10/83/90/minou.jpg
    We try to feed Frimousse and RouXy as well as we can. But being respectively 17 and 16 year-old, it is very difficult, even impossible, to change their diet.
    Every reader should tell relatives and neighbours, planning to have a cat, to read carefully Claire’s posts.

    1. The Swiss Cats

      Your humans were perfectly right with Minou : the most important is that the cat does not stay without eating. And later, when we are not in emergency situation anymore, we do so that he eats correctly. You are 16 and 17 years old, it is already a beautiful age, and to arrive there, it is necessary to have eaten good things ! Purrs

  3. Mickey's Musings

    You provide lots of good information on nutrition.
    Claire will be keeping you two healthy 🙂
    Purrs Georgia,Julie and JJ

    Thank you for your kind thoughts for Treasure.
    We miss him.

  4. The Menagerie Mom

    This is such great information! You’d hope that feeding our furbabies would be an easy enough task, but you really do have to read those labels and do some research. Thank you for sharing this with us!

  5. mariodacat roever

    It’s all so very very confusing. M says her first cat lived to be 19 years old, and he got cheapo grocery store canned food because M didn’t know any better! Every cat thereafter has received food only sold in Pet Stores, but they all ended up with kidney problems or thyroid problems. She tries to watch what i eat, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. We wish Vets had to take a class in nutrition before they could go into practice as they are no help. .Thank you for sharing your research with us. Very kind of you.

  6. Little Binky and Granny

    That’s some real good information, Zorro, but it is not easy to keep balance in the system of food. Granny always checks out the labels since I was getting sick of the commercial food. The greatest problem was sugar! and ever since I only get natural food and I was not sick anymore 🙂 Pawkisses for a Happy Meal 🙂 <3

  7. da tabbies o trout towne

    pixie & zorro; my diet haz had a compleet tern a bout; when de food serviss
    gurl started reedin sum lablez she waz like…..whoa…R ya seer ee iz lee puttin
    that in thiz can……

    anyway, thanx for de grate post

    tuna of moon ~~~~~

  8. Raven

    This is such a complicated topic. I wish there were more reliable recipes for well balanced home made diets, but even some of the vet sites I’ve been reading warn that there are some very unbalanced diets being promoted. I’d be willing to prepare Raven’s food if I knew I had a balanced recipe that she would eat.

  9. Marg

    That was a great post with lots of great information. Good to know all those things. Very interesting and our Mom needs to pay more attention.

Comments are closed.