Is it necessary to use a dry food to get a healthy diet for cats ?

Question

Diet i.e. a large % of the cats diet consists of steamed chicken complemented with either tuna, pilchards or sardines, occasional milk and unfortunately up until now Purina 1 total nutrition chicken and rice formula (dry compliment)?In your opinion what is the best dry supplements on the market? On determining what is the best can this be offset with additional wet variations which will give the same desired dietary results?

Answer 1

Raw diet (or raw frozen meals) is optimal of course but for a dry supplement I recommend (very highly) the Blue Buffalo brand. In my humble opinion it's the best readily available pet food on the market! Kudos to you for caring!    

Answer 2

I personally feed a ground Raw Meat, Bones and Organ based diet to my cats and they are incredibly healthy on it. I HIGHLY recommend it. While scary at first, once I got the hang of it and felt comfortable with it it's a snap to prepare.

Cats are obligate carnivores after all and must derive ALL their nutrients from meat based sources. They are unable to absorb them from any other source. Despite thousands of years of domestication they remain strictly carnivorous. True and honest meat eaters and that is what they need most. Protein from meat!

If you are interested in feeding a raw diet some great places to start learning are http://www.catinfo.org/  , http://www.catnutrition.org/  , and http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/  .

If you would like to try raw with your cats and don’t want to get all technical about it but want to try a trusted, time tested and balanced raw diet you can order from http://www.felinespride.com/products/cat...  . I purchased this myself when I first started and my cats loved it!

Another premade Raw you can try is Natures Varity. I personally have never used this but know many people that do and it’s pretty easy to find http://www.naturesvariety.com/content.la...

Here's a bunch of websites to help you learn what you need to know.

www.catinfo.org/

www.catnutrition.org/

www.rawfedcats.org/

www.felinespride.com/

www.felinefuture.com/

www.felineinstincts.com/

www.raisingcatsnaturally.com/

www.blakkatz.com/

www.holisticat.com/

http://www.goldcoastragdolls.com/MyOwnCa...

Answer 3

A diet of steamed chicken, oily fish and milk is not balanced.  Tuna is not good for cats except as an occasional treat (excess of tuna can lead to a painful inflmmatory ondition known as yellow fat disease).  A diet based on muscle-meat e.g. chicken is deficient in many vitamins and minerals - in the wild, cats eat bones, skin, organs, gut contents etc of their prey, not just the muscle meat.  Many cats are intolerant of milk.  Your cat needs a more balanced diet.  If you want to avoid commercial diets you need to look at a raw foods website as they will recommend essential supplements (usually in the form of powder to add to the meat).

Dried food (biscuits) exists for the convenience of the owners and is not particualrly good for cats.  Look at what cats eat in the wild. Canned food more closely resembles the texture and moisture content of prey. Though many cats like crunching biscuits, dried food is not natural for a cat. Many cats on dried food diets do not drink sufficient amounts of water, resulting in kidney problems. Manufacturers add salt to the biscuits to try to make cats drink. They spray the biscuits with fat to make them more appetising. The cereal content of biscuits is inappropriate for a cat as it is an obligate carnivore.  Cereal-based foods are unnatural for cats and can cause problems due to intolerance of cereals and soya, plus they are low bulk and high in calories which contributes to obesity (a major cause of feline diabetes).  

The role of dried food in keeping teeth clean is also greatly exaggerated. Look for a premium quality complete canned food - this will be a much better balanced diet for your cat than a diet of chicken, fish and supplementary dried food.  

Answer 4

Cats do best on a high protein, low carb diet so actually wet food is better for them. It's best not to give them cows milk (cats can't digest it well) but you can get special milk for cats that they can digest. It's not bad to give them a little bit of (high-protein) dry food but the balance of their diet should be wet food or things like chicken necks/wings (UNCOOKED!!) or plain tuna in springwater etc.

Answer 5

In the U.S., commercial pet foods are tested by feeding them to animals to insure that they are "complete and balanced."  That means that they contain all known necessary nutrients and that animals that have been fed the food have remained healthy.

I think it is next to impossible to give cats human food and have their diet be "complete and balanced."  

Consequently, I always buy cat food made by major manufacturers and labeled "complete and balanced."  I don't think it matters whether you feed canned or dry food.

This page discusses cat foods and recommends the best ones: http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family...

Answer 6

wet food is better for cats...and i don't suggest you give them anything raw as it could contain worms or bacteria that could make them sick..and cats diets aren't meant to be made up of chicken wings anyways (cats don't eat chicken in the wild) if you give it chicken make sure to cook it first and then sprinkle it with a little salt if you want (to help it drink more and cats need a little salt anyways)...dry food is ok from time to time but it doesn't really clean the teeth (this is pretty much a myth) and it can clog up a males urinary tract rather easily...and although you need to cook foods before giving it to a cat don't boil it...steam it or roast it

Answer 7

maybe