Part 5

Have you ever given any thought as to the hydration value of food you give your cat? When animals are in the wild, the prey they eat are alive and well before consumption and therefore are made up generally of around 70% water.  Tinned food might average perhaps 78% water content.  Dry food, however, is known to only contain around 10% of any type of included fluid; therefore it is safe to say that a cat on only dry food will probably suffer health problems like Chronic Renal Failure and/or kidney or bladder stones. Now being a chronic sufferer myself of such an illness, I can just imagine the pain that a cat would suffer.

A cat’s water intake needs to be in great volumes, not just small sips. Their food needs to contain a maximum amounts of fluid in its makeup.  Dry kibbled food does not provide this for them.  I think the ratio of water to dry food would be 1 cup of water for every 10 pounds of body weight and that is over a 24 hour period.  Of course, in warmer weather, your cat would need more.  However, as with children, I have never seen our cat drink a lot of water before during or after a meal of dry kibbled food, have you?

Go ahead and provide the appropriate amount of water, however, then it is your job to supervise that your cat actually drinks it all up as well. Even with tinned food, your cat would need to drink at least 1/3 to ½ that amount of water as well.  A tip from a reader is perhaps to mix your food offering with plenty of water to make sure the water intake is being taken advantage of.  That way, if your cat just still will not drink enough water, then it is getting it directly from its food anyway.

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Part 4

Knowing that now made me cringe as sometimes it is so easy just to pour into a bowl rather than take the time to cut up and put out.  I certainly never made it a habit to feed my children fast foods, so I am not sure why I encouraged it for my cat.  I remember at the time, thinking that if she got hungry while I was away, there was always something she could refer back to, whereas wet food needs more supervision to ensure that pesky flies don’t blow it before it is eaten up.

Being now far better informed, were we ever to go back into a house again and to share it with a cat which is rather likely with my husband’s fondness for such creatures, we both will be better parents to our 4 legged creature in the way of food offerings.  Mind you, we would both be home with our cat by then anyway, therefore more control could be put into feed times and what to feed it.

A warning here – if you only ever offer dry food, your cat is going to be far less better off than the neighbour’s cat who only eats wet food.  Dry food contains fillers and who is to know what they are doing to your cat’s digestive system?  Usually carbohydrates can be obtained from mice and birds and lizards.  However, a factory can be known to put anything they wish into such food – even sawdust – I hate to write that, but it has been true in the past.  Nowadays many businesses only think about profits – having the health of their customers on their minds is given the least amount of attention when making up recipes to fill those tins for your animals.

Read the labels; be very careful and selective of what you buy to feed your treasured pet.

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Debbie Nicholson

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I would also watch out exactly what you buy in those tinned foods for your cat.  Anything with corn on them should be avoided.  While corn is a great protein, our house cats do not need it. And much of the tinned food nowadays is packed with corn – the manufacturers touting to you that it is a protein that is much needed food for your cat.  This information is very much incorrect – do not make it a habit to feed your cat such tinned food. It is not just a poor source of protein for your cat; it is also a known substance that can cause an allergic reaction with your cat.  So BEWARE and check the ingredients listed on the tin.

It is a very sad case that when a human professes to be a vegetarian, so they think it is their right to feed their animals on that same type of food diet.  Cats need taurine which comes from the tissues of other animals.  Please remember that.

At the same time, you might point out that cats seem to like grass and flowers.  I asked around my friends, and could not find any specific reason for this type of culinary habit other than that some grasses taste nice and if you insist on feeding your cat such things, then opt for the wheat grass which is super good for them and for catnip which they absolutely adore.  I can only assume from my own love of using nature to heal human medical problems before resorting to the more harmful to the system drugs obtained by prescription – perhaps they act in a dietary way to help eliminate when the need is impeded for some reason.

We are guilty of leaving out dry food for our cats during our absence from the home.  However, as soon as we returned we were always careful to make sure their next feeds would be for something tasty that came directly from the butcher.  Dry food has been likened to a fast food type of supplement.

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Debbie Nicholson

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Life Happens Volume 1 A Collection of Funny Emails and Facebook Messages Dating From The 1980s To 2012

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Cathy’s Well Groomed Site
Debbie’s Other Blog
Cats
Pet Education
Obligate Carnivore
Wet Or Dry
Cat Breeds
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Feeding Your Cat
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Corn as a Protein?
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Part 2

With cats we could be looking at lately –

• Holistic and organic diets
• Food that comes in tins
• Food that comes in cardboard boxes
• Food that comes direct from the Butcher
• Dry food
• Semi-moist food

Such a variety, but then doesn’t your cat deserve the variety as well?

Of course they do. They’re not silly.

You know, recently I did a wonderful chapter on that amino acid Taurine for my health website and I was so pleased to find out that Taurine is actually something that is really good for your cat as well.

Taurine comes from the muscle meat of animals and cats need that muscle source of meat in the diets that you present to them on a daily basis simply because they are known as Obligate Carnivores.

Fish, turkey, lamb, chicken and beef are all essential meats for the well-being of your cat.  Each of them are muscle tissues from an animal other than itself and in order for your cat to thrive, then food based on these named here will help to keep your cat in tiptop condition. You could say that meat is a cat’s main source of essential nutrients.

I found it very interesting that Dogs don’t’ mind eating any types of food, whether it be plant based or animal based.  They are very much like us in that way.  However, cats are not omnivorous – their bowels are a lot shorter than ours, therefore they do not possess the ability to assimilate into their digestive systems nutrients that have their source in plant material. For a short period only, they could possibly get enough protein from plant material; however, their need for taurine has far greater significance in their lives if you wish them to have longevity while they live with your family under your roof.

Thanks for reading my blog.
Please comment below and share my link.

Debbie Nicholson

Click here for your Audio link to this blog

Life Happens Volume 1 A Collection of Funny Emails and Facebook Messages Dating From The 1980s To 2012

Our Favourite Links

Cathy’s Well Groomed Site

Debbie’s Other Blog

Cats
Pet Education
Obligate Carnivore
Wet Or Dry
Cat Breeds
Cat Food
Feeding Your Cat
Pet Food
Eating Grass
Cat Behaviour
Cat Bowel
Supermarket

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