Feeding cats

Life Pets & Domestic Animals
41

My parents last two cats lived to be seventeen years old. They both died suffering from kidney disease, liver problems, poor teet, and one had cancer. They lived almost exclusively on name-brand cat foods.

My cat my mother had when she was a child was only fed table scraps, as were all cats and dogs before pet food was ‘invented’ sixty years ago. That cat lived to be twenty-two years old and none of the symptoms that the later cats displayed.

The oldest cats ever both lived to be thirty-four years old. The more recent one was fed table scraps, and the previous record holder died long before cat food came into existence. According to my Google research, all the other oldest-cat contenders were fed table scraps exclusively or as a major part of the diet.

It is also not that rare for cats to live twenty to twenty-five years. So your feline friend died at the lowerend of the scale. :s

Sean

42

I don’t know, but I think the life expectancy for a Persian now is about 15 to 16 if you feed it well. I don’t know the age breeders average for a common cat/tabby/moggie/non-Persian. But food is definitely the most important thing that contributes to a long, healthy life. Some breeders will actually ask you what you are planning on feeding your Persian before letting you have one.

43

Would chocolate chip cookies be the wrong answer? :stuck_out_tongue:

44

Keep in mind that bred dogs and cats are probably less likely to live as long as a mix breed that’s given the same care. Even the strongest pure breds from reputable breeders are genetically weaker than the average mixed breed. Diet is important, but it obviously won’t change a dog or cat’s genes. Of course I’m partial to mixed breeds anyway.

45

:laughing: You need a holiday, mate! :loco:[/quote]
No doubt.

When I saw the title of the thread, I thought I drop in to see what kind of dog you were feeding the cats to. Sorry, wrong thread. :smiling_imp:

Signed,

Definitely a Dog Person

46

Yes, Jiveturkey, that is why I thought 18 was quite cool for our old Persian. What is dying of old age anyways? There is no such thing. You always die of SOMETHING…cancer, kidney failure, whatever. I don’t promote unhealthy living, but this whole living until 100 obsession gets to me. I’d rather live well and enjoy myself and live to be 95.
Well, I guess this is not about cats anymore.
So, are feeding table scraps healthy, then? How about salt and MSG and additives?

47

Table scraps of old didn’t have any of the nasty additives and preservatives that we accept in our food now, which is why we should be feeding as natural a diet as possible (many record-breaking ages for pets came long, long before ‘scientific’ pet foods).

I feed my cat raw, meaty bones and eggs. Included in this would be chicken or duck wings, legs, backs, etc., whole fish (over several days), beef, lamb, and sometimes a little pork. I also get whatever exotic meats Jason’s has to offer.

This is all a cat needs, being a carnivore ‘n’ all, but I do smear blended green leafy veggies on her meat, or sprinkle some powdered alfalfa or kelp to throw in a few more vitamins and minerals (this mimics the stomach contents of a rabbit, mouse, etc.).

And if you do some research on Persians, they can live well over twenty-five years. :wink:

I just find it laughable that pet food companies would have us believe we don’t have the wherewithall to feed our four-legged companions a healthy, balanced diet, when the animal can do exactly that by eating other dead animals. All the vitamins and minerals and additives in cat food are there in an attempt to mimic raw meaty bones, so why not just feed raw meaty bones?

Food for thought? :slight_smile:

48

When we were at the vet getting a growth removed from our dog’s face today, the vet was also preparing a dog for bladder stone removal surgery. I asked the vet what causes bladder stones, and he said that the most likely culprits are keeping a pet inside all day and only giving them one or two chances a day to pee, and manufactured dry food. Dogs living in apartments have to hold their pee for longer, which makes for some pretty concentrated stuff. Manufactured foods are full of all kinds of spoiled minerals and vitamins that are no longer in absorbable form since they’re in rotten meat and have been mixed up with all kinds of preservatives and salts. The result is that they just pass straight through the animal’s digestive system and then accumulate with the salts and preservatives in all the places where they shouldn’t.

Our vet and his wife are Burmese. They originally practiced there before moving to Australia where they did more study so they could continue to practice. He’s now in HK. According to him, bladder stones are simply unheard of in countries that don’t feed commercial kibble. He’d never seen such cases in Burma. He couldn’t say whether it’s commerical food or apartment living that is the greater cause of bladder stones. He did say that probably no research on the matter would ever be done since literally all research into cat and dog diet is funded by Science Diet, et al. Concerning diet, it’s been a breath of fresh air to go to this vet. He’s not only an excellent surgeon and repairer of dog bones, but having come from Burma where veterinary training and practice isn’t so dominated by large kibble and pharmaceutical companies, he’s quite open minded.

49

Shame he’s in HK. Would like to meet him. Thanks for the post, Jive Turkey; it was very interesting.

The AnimalsTaiwan primary vet doesn’t know what to think of the natural diet, but he lets me give it anyway, as I’m always researching ways to alter the diet according to each animal’s condition.

The vet we use in the Xinyi area supports it, but she doesn’t advise er clients to try it, because she feels they will get it wrong, which could be harmful (actually, it’s so easy, anyone can feed it, but you can get right into tweaking the diet here and there for maximum benefit). She fully supported my decision to switch Foxie from a low-protein ‘scientific formula’ dog food to natural food, and it turned out to be the right decision.

Cardiovet told me that Foxie was the healthiest dog he had seen with a heart as bad as hers, and he asked me what I fed her; when I told him, he was wide-eyed, and told me, “You shouldn’t feed that; it’s very unhealthy!” I pointed out the contradiction and lent him the book about natural diets for pets. I haven’t seen it since, as he read it then lent it to his wife, then his professor, etc. It’s currently doing the rounds at the NTU animal hospital. :unamused:

It would be great to find a vet here who supported giving a natural diet to pets instead of pushing Science Diet.

Next time your vet pushes Science Diet on you, ask him if he studied nutrition or how he learns about it. The vast, vast majority of vets do not study nutrition and they get all their info from the Hills/Purina/Pedigree guide to pet diets, or the suchlike. Asking a vet about pet nutritional needs is like asking your doctor about your teeth. Take a bag od Science Diet and ask him why it contains so many grains, when grain has no nutritional value to cats or dogs, and is, in fact, linked to all kinds of allergies and skin problems. We refused to give Lazarus the ‘skin formula’ Science Diet, as it is mostly (three of the first four components) grain, and demodex mites feed on the carbohydrates (sugars) produced by grain. His condition is now on the mend again.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say, the more I read about natural diets for pets, the more I can’t believe I ever fell into the processed, commercial pet food trap. It’s not even more convenient, when you consider how much less the animal and its eliminations smell, the easier clean up, and the reduced number of vet visits.

They’re animals! They eat raw meaty bones! :wink:

50

I think feeding raw becomes much easier with practice and the development of a system. Our dog has a nervous personality and is still slowly adjusting to living in an area where we actually have neighbors. He won’t usually eat during the day because he hears too many little noises from outside that distract him. He’s full grown, so we can feed him just one big meal a day. We feed him late at night when the neighborhood is quiet and he’s relaxed.

After we moved to this neighborhood, he stopped eating as much as before. He was just barely eating 2% of his weight, and he was still 1 or 2 kg underweight. We started trying different things to see if he would eat more. We tried different meats broken up in different ways. None of it worked. Finally, one day we had gotten his food out and left it out on the counter for about 30 minutes. I can’t remember why we did that. That night he ate about 5% of his weight. It turned out that he loses his appetite if his food is cold. If we cut up a chicken or duck and let it get closer to room temperature (we let it sit for about 15 or 20 minutes), he will usually eat until we stop putting pieces in front of him. The change was a bit shocking, actually. We felt pretty dumb. We had been getting pieces of whole bird out for him, and if he didn’t eat after 15 or 20 minutes, we’d put it back in the icebox. At times we were tossing up to 20% of what we got for him because it would eventually go bad after being taken in and out of the icebox so often. Now he eats everything and has even more energy than before. The little fucker now wakes my wife up at 5am every morning wanting to play.

51

:slight_smile: Good te hear!

My cat prefers the meat to be about a day old, which can be a real pain as it starts to smell. :noway: I put her food outside, now.

52

If you only give your cat catfood, they will eat. It is better for them in the long run. I know it is painful for you. Also cats like to kill and eat birds which is heathful and delicious.

53

What the hell are raw meaty bones and where do you buy your supply?
Is it OK to just feed meat?
I have nightmares of racing cats to the vet in the middle of the night (in the days before cellphones) with bones stuck in their throats and even in one’s palate once. The only bones that cats really eat in the wild are crunchable bird, mouse and other small bones so they can get in real trouble with big bones. Right?

I started out feeding the cats those raw chicken strips from Wellcome, which they loved, but that made Violet puke every time. Do you think people would be better off on raw meat too? Could the same problems, like salmonella, that come from raw chicken or pork affect cats too?
How about beef minced meat?
I would love to feed them raw meat because they like it so much but am worried about the germs in meat.

54

[quote=“twonavels”]What the hell are raw meaty bones and where do you buy your supply?
Is it OK to just feed meat?[/quote]
I can’t really say what’s ok for cats. For dogs, it’s not really good to just feed them raw meat without the bone. The meat will just go straight through them and it doesn’t have all the vitamins and minerals they need. As for supply, it just depends on where you live. Here in HK where every last bit of a chicken or duck is sold with the whole bird, we can’t get chicken necks or backs on their own, so we just buy whole ducks and chickens. The dog eats the whole bird except the head. We chop it up for him, but he eats all the bones.

I imagine that you wouldn’t feed your cat big bones anyway. He probably wouldn’t bother with them if you put them in front of him. That’s the way dogs are. If we put a bone down that’s too big or hard, our dog doesn’t even touch it, so the size thing isn’t so much of a concern. Also, as many have written here before, it is cooked bones that are the real danger. Cooked bones becomes a lot more brittle and can break into sharper pieces that may hurt an animals digestive system before they are broken down.

Aside from eating prime cuts of raw beef, I wouldn’t stick to raw meat. I suppose that we humans just don’t have the right chemistry in our guts to handle all the bacteria. Dogs do, though. Seeing as how cats are supposed to be pure carnivores in the wild, I guess their guts can deal with the bacteria just as well as dogs can.

I can’t really say for cats, but it hasn’t been a problem for our dog. We don’t feed him any pork, though, as there some nasty things that can be present in pork that will really mess a dog up.

I usually just use that as a treat or to get my dog to take his heart worm medicine. He really needs bones.

I guess most people worry about that, but it actually seems to be no problem at all. The only thing that worried me at first was that our dog took a while to get used to chewing up his bones. In the beginning, he would sometimes swallow them too soon and then hack them back up later. He only did that for about three weeks. Now his instincts seem to be working and he breaks everything down to pretty small pieces in his mouth before swallowing. He hasn’t thrown a bone back up for about four months now.

55

Take a look and tell me what you think:

http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/

It’s a very informative site about cat care, and this link takes you to the section on cat diets, processed/commercial cat food, the raw diet, etc. :slight_smile:

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bump