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Your Kitten's Health and Diet

"Dietary Habits - Don't Kill your Cat with Kindness"

"Fat is Important to That Diet"

Your Kitten's Health and Diet

If you want your kitten to reach his full potential without expensive vet visits, please, please feed him a natural diet - he is after all just a short step away from his carnivore ancestors - unlike dogs which have changed greatly with domesticity and which can tolerate the commercial pet foods.

The cats and kittens that Grandmother owned never had the health problems that beset most of our current cats and kittens!  Why?  Because Grandmother didn't have the convenience of dishing out a handful of dry cat food or tinned food, but fed her cat raw meats and table scraps.

Many of today's cats suffer kidney disease, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, urinary tract problems, pancreatitus, liver disfunction, obesity, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, etc., etc.  Almost none of these diseases were present in Grandmother's cats, but our cats that are fed commercial cat foods tend to be at the vet for at least one or these problems before they reach 2 years of age with a much reduced life-expectancy.

At Oz Catz, we feel very strongly about the negative impact feeding dry and canned commercial foods has on cats and kittens, which is why we choose to feed a wide variety of raw meats and fish, raw bones, cheese and yoghurt.

Once your kitten leaves Oz Catz, if you change his diet to one of mostly dry commercial cat/kitten food, the chances are he will suffer loose bowel motions as a result.  If this happens, take away the dry cat food completely and replace it with raw chicken and within 24 hours, all problems will be resolved.   Then introduce other raw meats back into his diet to maintain a healthy growth pattern for your kitten.

Not only is a natural raw diet better for your kitten's health and development - it is cheaper for you!

Your cat's basic meal should consist of a combination of -

Add to this combinations of the following for each meal - 

Plus daily, add -

And for kittens, every 2 or 3 days, and for adults, every day - 

About once a week, we also add a fresh raw egg (or cooked if they prefer for a change) to their meal.

Kittens to the age of 6 to 9 months should also have access to Royal Canin Dry Kitten Food.

Adult cats over 9 months of age should have NO dry kitten or cat food AT ALL!!

Here are some sample menus for your Ocicat kitten based on meals that we serve our cats and kittens -

# Home made chicken stock – bring necks, carcasses, chicken bones (beef bones also can be added) to boil in large pot of lightly salted water, simmer covered for several hours, adding grated carrots, celery in last hour (no onions). Cool stock, remove all bones, leave any meat & freeze in small containers (about 1 cup per container).

Some more tips -

Also be sure to read the statement by Oz Catz about Tritrichomonas and its treatment - click here

Dietary Habits - Don't Kill your Cat with Kindness"

# The source of this information is from "Nutrition of the Domestic Cat" by VH Menrath, BVSc, BAgr, MACVSc, as published in "Target" all breeds magazine of the Council of Federated Cat Clubs of Queensland and printed in an issue of "National Cat"

Your Cat is a Carnivore

It is typical of the cat's independent nature that although it has been a companion of man for many centuries, it has generally refused to change its dietary habits. The cat has continued to hunt and provide for itself at every opportunity. In its natural state, the cat is a healthy and resourceful animal and as a hunter is second to none.

Recent nutritional studies have proved the cat to be a pure carnivore. It is unable to exist in its natural environment without a diet of tissues and organs of other animals. A wild cat eats all of its prey - hair, skin, flesh, bones and internal organs. 

Since the wild cat is a healthy animal with excellent teeth and bone structure, it has given us some clues in the search for a good diet for our domesticated companions. Cat owners often unknowingly cause nutritional dieseases in their animals in a quest to provide a balanced diet.

Research studies indicate the cat's dietary requirements are unique.

Protein

The cat has an extraordinarily high requirements for protein. An adult cat needs 20% of its total daily calorie intake to be protein. This is about five times that required by a dog. Kittens need 30% protein for normal growth and development.

The majority of the protein has to be of animal origin. If a cat is fed exclusively on tinned dog food, it loses weight gradually and eventually becomes irreversibly blind.

Vitamin A

The cat is unable to synthesise Vitamin A from the plant pigment carotene and has to eat the vitamin in its true form. Cats have a high Vitamin A requirement, but excessive doses are more disastrous then deficiencies.

Raw liver is an excellent source of Vitamin A but cats often become addicted to eating liver, which causes excess bone tissue to be laid down in joints. The Vitamin A poisoning eventually causes permanent stiffness of the legs and neck.

Low grade Vitamin A deficiencies occur quite commonly, especially in breeding catteries, where stress caused through viral respiratory infection or pregnancy results in a rapid depletion of Vitamin A stored in the liver. This not only results in prolonged recovery from illness but is a common cause of sterility, reduced litter size and birth defects such as flattened chests and cleft palates.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is required for normal bone growth and development. Cats with Vitamin D deficiency develop a disease known as rickets. Rickets in cats is virtually unknown in Australia. This is because cats need only minute quantities and are able to synthesise Vitamin D in their skin under the influence of sunlight.

Over-zealous Vitamin D supplements in the diet, through cod liver oil and Vitamin D/calcium mixtures - can cause mineralisation of body organs. Mineralisation in the heart, arteries and kidneys can lead to death.

Calcium

The most common man induced nutritional disease in young cats is bone disease due to a diet of too little calcium and excessive amounts of phosphorus.

Growing kittens rapidly acquire a taste for raw beef and stubbornly refuse to eat anything else. Although beef is an excellent source of protein and B vitamins, it contains very little calcium and large quantities of phosphorus - just the right ingredients for severe bone weakness which can cause permanent spinal and pelvic deformities.\

Fats

Cats are not capable of utilising vegetable oils for all their requirements and need to have part of their daily diet as animal fat. Too much vegetable or fish oil can cause pancreatitus, known as 'yellow fat disease', where the fat pads and internal fat deposits become severely inflamed and painful.

Vitamin B

One of the most startling nutritional diseases in cats is due to thiamine or Vitamin B1 deficiency. Thiamine is essential for a healthy nervous system and raw meat and offal normally provide ample quantities of b vitamins. Yeast powder or tablets are also an excellent source of Vitamin B.

Thiamine deficiency can occur in two ways. The first is by feeding cooked meat and offal where the cooling process destroys all the B vitamins. The second is to feed a large proportion of the diet as raw fish, especially deep sea fish which contains enzymes that destroy thiamine.

Both these feeding methods will eventually lead to a disease called Chastek's paralysis which has neurological symptoms such as convulsions and paralysis - and finally permanent brain damage.

Summary

These unusual nutritional requirements of the domestic cat ensure it is extremely sensitive to man interfering with its natural diet. Ideally we should feed a diet of mice, rats, birds and other small prey - but this is impractical.

Cat breeders and owners are fortunate the pet food industry has studies their animals' needs to provide them with a wide range of good quality tinned and dried foods. These prepared foods are divided into two types - one provides a complete diet and the other must be supplemented with other foods.

It is important to distinguish between the two types. Vitamins and minerals are added to these prepared foods to prevent deficiencies.

So What Should you Feed your Cat?

"Fat is Important to That Diet"

# by Dr. Truda M. Straede

The correct diet for your cat?

The correct diet for a cat is a matter of contention - and every economic competition! Every brand of pet food trumpets its value with many claiming to be complete or balanced. This may be true - but I have yet to meet a cat that doesn't become unutterably bored by the same flavoured can every day, and most are not interested in the second half of a tin opened the day before.

If biscuits are the dietary mainstay, more sustained enthusiasm is likely - some seem to be addictive.

The protein to fat ratio

The content of these prepared foods is generally given as crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre and natural sodium chloride. The protein to fat ratio is between 2:1 and 3:1, values well worth committing to memory when planning a non processed, more natural, and cheaper diet for your breeding colony or companion.

The most common mistake made by fussy cat owners and breeders is not providing sufficient fat in the diet. 

Proteins consist of amino acids made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur which can be used as building blocks to make cat proteins, or the excess can be used as an energy source. In this case the proteins are deaminated - nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur are stripped away, leaving the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen portions to be utilised in respiration.

This is wasteful as it takes a lot of energy to make proteins and is an extra strain on the kidneys, which have to excrete the unused material.

The secret

The secret is to provide only the growth and repair requirements as proteins, and the energy source as some less complex form of carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Carbohydrates immediately spring to mind, but cats are carnivores so their guts are not able to utilise complex carbohydrates such as cereal and bread with any efficiency - they are designed to use the carbon hydrogen oxygen complex which naturally accompanies protein - fat.

How best to provide this fat?

How to provide this fat may cause a bit of head scratching - but don't despair, there are some simple and very palatable answers.

Don't buy best mince because it has a low fat content. Cheaper human consumption mince or pet lines are a better and cheaper proposition.

Chicken mince is sometimes fatty, but it is hard to tell by looking. Ask about the source, or boil a small amount until well cooked, then allow to cool overnight in the fridge - the fat content will quickly be revealed.

Kangaroo mince is extremely low in fat, and is unsuitable as a foundation diet unless adequately fat enhanced. Fat from the dripping from your roast, from cheap fatty lamb breasts - which can then be sliced into rib sections and served with bone to entranced cats - or butchers' lard can be used.

I cut a portion of set fat off the block, then chop it up finely on my board, and mix it through a mince mixture. Don't forget that the fat should be stored in the fridge, and roast dripping should be used with its jelly within a few days.

Other fat sources are on pieces of meat themselves, particularly hearts, which can be chopped up so that most sections have some fat on them. Anything trimmed off your own meat should not be wasted. A fatty but cheap cut of lamb is more economic if you give the fat trimmings to the cats.

If you have a food processor you can buy fresh suet. Shred and store it in small quantities in the freezer for up to three months.

Cheese is excellent, but a bit of a treat and is perhaps more suited to the weanling kitten than adults. Plain yoghurt can be added to a mince mixture but no more than a level teaspoon per cat. Yoghurt makes the mixture a bit odd by the third night and cats won't eat it - so don't add it if you are making up a mince mixture for a few days ahead.

Older cats

Older cats and those with dicey kidneys, need a lower protein diet. White meat - fish, chicken, pork - with bulk, such as cooked rice or oats can be mixed when cold, with fat prepared as suggested. Offer a saucer of cream, or a cheese snack, and those fatty sliced roasted lamb breasts are all very acceptable. These make the cat feel full, lively and maintain its condition, but do not overtax its kidneys.

Cats in poor condition

A cat in poor condition, perhaps recovering from a long illness, or simply having reared a large litter kittens, will benefit from having as much as it likes to eat with about half of this being some form of fat. Unless the cat has lost muscle mass, it really needs to lay down fat reserves it used up in its recent endeavours. To supply this as primarily protein is not only energy inefficient, and expensive, but also works kidneys very hard. As the causes of the poor condition probably also put extra strain on the kidneys, this recovery time is an opportunity to allow them to recuperate.

Cats with a skin condition

A cat which suffers from skin conditions, such as dry and scaly patches in the fur, or cracked skin on noses and paw pads may have some kind bacterial or fungal infection which will respond to suitable medication. The underlying cause of such a problem, however, may lie in the skin itself, so that medication only clears up the secondary infections.

To maintain the restored health of the skin and to improve the coat's lustre, examine the diet for its fat content, and amend if necessary.

I find that a fatty diet, in combination with the addition of heavy metals, particularly zinc (in the form Keylomin Organic) reduces allergy type skin problems among my cats by about 90%. In a sample of more than 100, where about 20% showed some skin allergy problems, I now have only three cats with a remnant problem. In these it is reduced in extent, and in one cat it only recurs in the hottest and most humid times of the year.

Summary

So remember, fat for cats for energy will save your pocket, is good for their skin and conserves their kidneys.

 Oz Catz - your Specialist Ocicat Breeder 

www.OzCatz.com                nolakim@optusnet.com.au

Last modified: March 10, 2010