making own cat food!

Grainne

we adopted a stray we found at the side of the road before xmas. shes a very loveable year old tabby. we started feeding her kitten/cat food and my god the flatulence was unbelieveable and her poo was just so smelly and runny. anyways the vet suggested that i change her food which i did, but still no change. we then gave her a probiotic and starved her for 24 and then started the antibiotic. now shes stopped farting but her poo is still really runny but its not smelly. we have another cat and i don't ever remember her stools being that bad.

i've done some research on cat food and apparently all the cat food on the market is mostly made up of carbohydrates. cats and dogs are mainly meat eaters so i've decided to try making my own cat food by mixing chicken/fish with rice. has anyone decided to do this themselves or has anyone any suggestions?

Whispered

This is a great idea. We did that when we had a dog with an upset stomach. I would also suggest that you get a very good quality dry food like royal canin as you have to be very careful with a cats diet, it needs to be balanced. A complete dry food will do this for you. If you speak to your vet again he should recommend a good quality dry food and feed with chicken and fish etc as maybe every second meal. Or have her main meals made up of homemade things and leave dry food down overnight for her.

Milk can cause diarrhea in animals, never give a cat milk.

When you first change her over keep skin and stock out of her diet as this is very rich. Obviously no bones.

MsFifers

Personally, I'd be a bit hesitant to take that on - not because I think prepared cat food is so wonderful, but because I know so little about how to cater for cat nutritional requirements.

There are certain nutrients etc that they absolutely need - vit A, taurine, but then too much of them can cause illness. You would need to do a lot of research to ensure your little smelly cat is getting what she needs in the appropriate quantities!

Do some googling I suppose - here are some recommended books:
http://cats.about.com/od/catfoodandnutrition/tp/natfoodbooks.htm

What brands of cat food have you tried? I notice that Royal Canin have a cat food for sensitive stomachs - maybe you could try that? Also - I presume you aren't including any dairy, as this can cause the problems you mention? But I'm sure your vet would have discussed that with you.

Arcadian

I wouldn't really go down the route of feeding just rice with chicken or fish, in the long run it won't be a balanced diet. Royal Canin, Burns or Nutro are all quite good quality foods, some of the Royal Canins (and Burns actually) cause really runny stools in my house but Fit32 by RC seems to agree with all of them while RC Sensitive/Sensible affects them worst.

I'd stick with just plain boiled chicken for a week or so, under veterinary advice, and see if there's any improvement, and slowly reintroduce dry food mixed with it in tiny portions if there is. If not I'd consider getting her bloods done to make sure there isn't an underlying cause, I think it costs about €40 and takes ten days or so for the results to come from Glasgow.

Grainne

thanks for all your advice.

where can i get "Royal Canin, Burns or Nutro", would i get any of them in pet world? i've been using whiskas and go cats, i've never had any problems. however, i'm aware now that my other two cats are putting on lots of weight. really, i want to give them the best diet possible and making thier food is grand but i do know they need a certain amoutn of vit and minerals and i'm not really that well up on this aspect. my main concern is that the likes of whiskas etc. are very high in carbohydrates and this will eventually cause them to put on weight. by the way they are all females and have been spayed. i don't give them milk at all.

when we were young our cats at home just got the leftovers from dinner, and they all seemed fine. and i can't help thinking that all pet foods on teh market have a lot of junk in them. in america at the moment lots of dog and cat food had to be taken off the market, there were traces of plastic and other harmful substances found in them. there were over 11,000 cases of animals getting seriously ill from different dry and wet foods. this is being investigated at the moment. i'm kind of thinking along the lines that whats most natural is probably best i.e. leftovers and scraps etc. cats that are in the wild survive very well on mice, birds and rats etc.

i'm probably over thinking things too much !

Whispered

You will be able to get those foods for definate in the vets, Thats where I get all my pet food, I'm snot sure about other shops, but maybe.

I feel the same about pet food and the worries about what might be in it, but I feel totally safe giving my dogs and cats royal canin. It's a bit on the expensive side but they tend to need to eat less, they dont need to go to the toilet as often and when they do it's not half as smelly . I had a stray dog a while ago and within a week of being on a royal canin food he was unrecognisable. Shiny coat, full of energy, back to proper weight. You really should try it.

I know what you are saying about wild cats but an average lifespan for a wild cat is only 4-5 years!! A domestic cat is 15-20. If you look at strays in your area you can tell they are stray by how dull their coat will look, how thin they are etc. They can survive on rats and mice, birds etc but not very well. (also keep in mind that these cats also have a lot of human waste at their disposal)

MsFifers

Actually, I don't think you are over-thinking things too much - I agree with you about how confusing it all is. I'm not overly happy about feeding my cats dry food - I feel it would be the equivalent of me having only potato waffles and vitamin pills for my diet.

After I posted before, I read another website arguing for feeding cats on a raw diet, it suggested that all these food manufacturers have vested interests in getting the cats unhealthy - eg we feed them kitten food first to get them used to the taste, then adult cat food - which makes them too fat, then we have to buy the diet cat food, and then a special tooth-kind food when their teeth get weak, and them maybe a specialist older cat forumla etc etc.

The only problem is how difficult it is to get the balance right on the raw foods and how much research I'd have to put into it. The cats would need a mix of offal and muscle meat, as well as gristle and bone. I guess a simple solution would be to let loose a couple of mice every day!!! But that would be mean!

For the moment I'm going to stick with the premium dry foods and I think I will (thanks to your prompting! ) do some research into the raw food diet.

Anyway - you should be able to get those foods from a good pet shop, your vet may stock something like Science Diet which is also a good quality dry food. Zooplus.ie is an online shop that sells a big range of food, and husse.ie sell their brand of cat food on line also.

kerrysgold

I read somewhere that cat's only need meat, unlike dog's who need a balanced diet. If that's true you could just buy meat for him/her and cook it yourself and maybe mix in a bit of something else for variety. But I know next to nothing about cats really so I'm probably wrong about this lol.

Caveat

kerrysgold wrote: »

I read somewhere that cat's only need meat, unlike dog's who need a balanced diet. If that's true you could just buy meat for him/her and cook it yourself and maybe mix in a bit of something else for variety. But I know next to nothing about cats really so I'm probably wrong about this lol.

You're kind of right - cats don't only need meat but they need a much higher percentage of protein in their diets than dogs. It's relatively easy for dogs to be veggie but not so for cats.

But cats need as balanced a diet as possible and require various minerals/trace elements that won't be found in a meat only diet.

Schlemm

i've done some research on cat food and apparently all the cat food on the market is mostly made up of carbohydrates. cats and dogs are mainly meat eaters so i've decided to try making my own cat food by mixing chicken/fish with rice. has anyone decided to do this themselves or has anyone any suggestions?

Commercially available cat food won't be made up of too many carbohydrates - cats can only tolerate very small amounts of carbohydrates before the onset of diarrhoea. Your best bet is to stick to a dry commercial food and feed it on a regular basis. Formulating your own cat food can be done, but it is difficult because of the unique metabolic needs of cats. The diarrhoea could have other causes - has she been wormed and vaccinated (including shots/tests for feline leukaemia virus)?

sillymoo

I agree with Arcadian about trying boiled chicken for a while and then reintroducing a premium dry food. I had a similar problem with my cat who was also a stray and that was the advice I got from the vet.

He is fine now, the boiled chicken seemed to dry up his stools but make sure you leave plenty of water out as he may get constipated due to "dry bulk". He is now on Hills Sciene Plan which we get from the vet and he is in great condition-bright eyes, shiney coat, good weight.

Im not a vet I just want to add, most my patients are humans, but I found this worked!

HunterS

Being feeding my cat raw meat since she was a kitten and she's fine. While not claiming to be an expert I suppose if you just mix up your cats diet they'll be fine. True the wet food and some dry food are just full of sugar and crap but a treat every now and again is alright. We all like sweats now and again. I tend to limit a wet pouch to once a week (if that) and the rest of the time just feed her tuna, salmon, chicken and beef (cooked & raw) and plus she gets the odd bird abit of dry food and leftovers (she loves crunching into chicken bones).

I was told by my vet that a cat with a pure diet of fish, chicken & beef (cooked) with dried food was fine and regarding the vitimins that these commerical foods provide we must remember that the saying "If a little is good, a lot must be better" simply doesn't apply in the case of vitamins or most other nutrients.

Even for a cost to protein level it makes sence. For example a 100g pouch of wiskas with 8% proteian costs 46cent while a 185g(125g dried) of tesco tuna with near 99% protein costs 52cent and 100g of chichken would be around 60cent.

So yes do make your own cat food. Try diffent things Fish, Liver, Heart abit of steak if the're real good. Throw in abit if fresh grass from an uncut section in the garden and some "sugar ridden" commerical food and you're laughing.

Check out http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm for a good article on changing your cats diet to a raw one. Very intresting points too note even if your gonna cook the food.

helena.ryan

helena.ryan wrote: »

Milk can cause diarrhea in animals, never give a cat milk.

Alot of cats are lactose intolerant, but by no means all.
I have had dozens of cats, all have drank milk, and only one has ever had diarheoa as a result.

Grainne

the cat we have outside, is a great eater and will eat all dry food and wet if if give it to her, but she screams and screams if she doesn't get milk. so what i've started doing is watering down her milk 60% water and 40% milk. the two indoor cats don't get any milk, because i figure their stomachs would be much more sensitive.

i'm going to try the Hill's Science Plan brand and see how i get on with it.

our vet told us not to give her just chicken/beef because it would be very hard on her kidneys long term. and kidney problems in cats are very popular.

also my little lady that has diarrahoe is on anitbiotics at the moment. could this be causing her stools to be very soft???/ now her poo isn't totally runny but just very soft and mushy. my other cat always had hard stools.

Whispered

Moonbaby wrote: »

Alot of cats are lactose intolerant, but by no means all.
I have had dozens of cats, all have drank milk, and only one has ever had diarheoa as a result.

Sorry Moonbaby, I will rephrase......... Milk gives some cats diarrhea, not all, however milk is bad for ALL cats.

sillymoo

Yes antibiotics can cause soft stools, also if she is coming out of a phase of diarrhea the stools will be soft for a little while until her lower GIT recovers. You might notice soft stools for a few days after stopping the antibiotics as the antibiotics prob will kill the intestinal flora also but will go back to normal after a few days.

Hope she is getting on ok and enjoying the Hills

helena.ryan

helena.ryan wrote: »

however milk is bad for ALL cats.

I thought that health problems caused by milk are as the result of deficenies caused by prolonged diarohea?
So I assumed my cats are safe as milk agrees with them.
Is there another reason why it is bad?

comongethappy

Hi OP

Just checking out your post. If you and the vet think she may have a food allergy it could be best to keep her on chicken and rice to see if that agrees with her, then maybe in a couple weeks introduce fish, etc, just to see if there is a link.

The cat food I use is from Sweden. They have very strict controls about what goes into animal food - all ingredients have to be human grade. I use Husse (www.husse.ie), but they don't seem to do a sensitive stomach version. On www.zooplus.ie, their is another Swedish brand called Bozita. You can check them out here: http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/cats/dry_cat_food/bozita .

They may seem more expensive now, but they actually have lower feed rates than whiskas or go cat, so while you pay more once off, it will be about the same in the end.

My cat couldn't eat Whiska's at all - she suffered from diahorea the whole time she was on it, and would only eat enough to get by. I tried Royal Canin, and it was okay, but it just didn't seem brilliant. Since starting Husse, she hasn't had any problems. Just remember also, when you introduce a new cat food it's normal for the cat to suffer from diahorea for about the first week (especially if it has a sensitve stomach). I found with Royal Canin it was about 3 or 4 days, Husse it was only a day, but cat's can vary.

Good luck and I hope you find out what's wrong with your poor kitty!