Happy Pets

The first thing to note is that a cat’s nutritional requirements will change throughout the course of its life. Their mother’s milk contains all of the nutrients that kittens need for the first month or two of their lives, after which, in the wild, they would be weaned on mice and other sources of fresh flesh. Your kitten should have been weaned before it moves in with you, but because its nose and stomach will probably have become accustomed to a particular diet, you will probably have to wean it off this gradually before switching to your preferred alternative full-time. Remember to ask its previous owner for details of what it’s been used to eating (this precaution also applies to older cats, who dislike change), and, if necessary, a diet sheet. Just like human babies, kittens have small stomachs and will therefore need to be fed more often than adult cats, so aim to give them four small meals a day. By the time that your cat is six months old, you should have reduced its meals to two a day (one in the morning and one in the evening), thereby instituting a feeding regime that will remain the same for the rest of its life, that is, as long as it remains healthy. Your vet will be able to advise you when, and What, to feed an ill, convalescent or old cat.

Gone are the days when domestic cats procured their own food, supplemented by a few scraps from their household’s kitchen. And although you can certainly give your cat the occasional treat of a morsel of cooked fish, meat or poultry or cheese to spice up its diet, providing it exclusively with home-cooked food, day in, day out, is not only extremely impractical, but could also result in your cat’s body becoming deficient in some of the essential nutrients that are vital for the maintenance of feline health. Just as the makeup of a cat’s body is specific to a cat, so its body needs the correct balance of feline- fuelling nutrients to avoid malnourishment and to enable every part of its body to function efficiently. The bodies, and hence nutritional needs, of human omnivores, as well as of dogs, differ from those of felines, so don’t think that a cat will thrive on a human or canine diet — it won’t. Protein, for example, which is required to maintain organs, muscles and tissues, should make up 30 to 40 per cent of a cat’s diet, around three times the level recommended for a dog, and it also needs fat (at least 10 to 15 per cent) for energy, along with fibre (around 7 per cent) for roughage and trace amounts of vitamins and minerals.

To ensure that your kitten or cat consumes all of the nutrients that it needs, and thus remains fit and healthy, the safest option is to base its diet on a ‘complete’ (not ‘complementary’, ‘treat’, ‘incomplete’, ‘varietal’ or any similar euphemism, so check the label carefully) proprietary cat food, be it tinned, foil-packed or dry. You’ll then be secure in the knowledge that the cat-food industry’s experts in feline nutrition have ensured that their products contain exactly the right proportions of the nutrients that are essential for the maintenance of feline health. Some cats find tinned or foil-packed food more appetising than dry, although the disadvantages to humans include their powerful smell and speedy rate of spoilage. Dry food generally works out cheaper than its tinned or foil-packed counterparts and has the further advantage of offering less wastage, also giving the cat’s teeth and gums a thorough work-out (remember that feline teeth were designed to crunch on bones). Most reputable manufacturers of cat food offer a range of products that have been speciallyformulated to suit every cat’s age and condition, and their labels usually contain guidelines advising you how much of the product to feed your cat a day. If you have any doubts about what, and when, to feed your feline, ask your vet for advice.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Cats, Dogs, Fish, Foods, Health, Kittens, Supplements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.