Is It Alright That I Feed My Cat Baked Chicken?

So during my weekends I tend to eat baked chicken and when doing so I also tend to give my cat a meal during the middle of the day that's roughly 2.5 ounces of baked chicken.

This meal that she gets is an "extra" meal. During the day and night times she gets what I believe to be high quality cat food Wellness Core Signatures so in between she gets the baked chicken lunch as a bonus. Is there any harm in doing this? She seems to be fit and hasn't gained weight or lost weight and stays at a steady 8 lbs.

No harm, meat is the BEST thing for them. They are strict carnivores so it is dry kibble we should be limiting. Is Wellness Core is a great very low carb food, if it is Wellness Signature Selects, most have too high carbs for my liking but better then dry so that's great!

Anyway just make sure the meat isn't seasoned or salted. Particularly garlic and onion is a no no.

Yeah I'm using the Signature Select version since for whatever reason my cat just dislikes their pate. The pate texture is just too pudding like it seems.

Also thanks for the reply! It's just unseasoned chicken that was previously frozen, the ones you get from Costco so the salt content is rather low. Pretty sure the only salt on it is the natural salt that is in all living things(or used to be living).

2.5 ounces seems like a bit much. According to what I can find, that's about 140 calories. Which is a lot for a cat. But that's just on weekends, so only once or twice a week, right? So that should be OK. If you were giving her the chicken daily that would be too much though. She shouldn't have more than 10% of her diet unbalanced.

Willowy said:

2.5 ounces seems like a bit much. According to what I can find, that's about 140 calories. Which is a lot for a cat. But that's just on weekends, so only once or twice a week, right? So that should be OK. If you were giving her the chicken daily that would be too much though. She shouldn't have more than 10% of her diet unbalanced.

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Yeah it's just on the weekends. Is calories the main problem I should be worried about or is there some nutritional imbalance? I've been doing this for almost a year now and I've been keeping track of her weight which is give or take 8 lbs not much lower or higher at any check ups.

Here's a recent picture of her, she's rather petite yet very lean for her size.

What a beautiful mini panther. Keep doing exactly what you're doing.

m3rma1d said:

What a beautiful mini panther. Keep doing exactly what you're doing.

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Aw thank you!

Cooked meat keeps little taurine if the meat is surrounded by water while cooking (taurine is water soluble). Another problem is that we never know for sure how much taurine is in a particular meat portion.

But feeding small portions of backed chicken meat once in a while does not seem to me as a health hazard, since there is sufficient taurine in commercial food.

I cant say how much backed meat is to much.

Once one enters into dietary calculus, that is a never-ending story from my personal experience. Both cats and humans diets:-).

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To sum up: make sure you use small amount of water in cooking meat (or not at all), feed one chicken meal a week (as a rule of thumb) and weight the cat from time to time (twice a year of four times a year could be OK).

solomonar said:

Cooked meat keeps little taurine if the meat is surrounded by water while cooking (taurine is water soluble). Another problem is that we never know for sure how much taurine is in a particular meat portion.

But feeding small portions of backed chicken meat once in a while does not seem to me as a health hazard, since there is sufficient taurine in commercial food.

I cant say how much backed meat is to much.

Once one enters into dietary calculus, that is a never-ending story from my personal experience. Both cats and humans diets:-).

+++

To sum up: make sure you use small amount of water in cooking meat (or not at all), feed one chicken meal a week (as a rule of thumb) and weight the cat from time to time (twice a year of four times a year could be OK).

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Yeah it's a bonus meal. Generally I feed her Wellness Core Signature for morning and night times and in the middle of the day I give her a 1.3 oz Sheba Perfect Portions or Nutro Perfect Portions as a snack. However during my weekends, I switch out the Perfect Portion snacks and fill it with roughly 2.5 oz of chicken one each day of the weekend.

Baking can get a little dry sometimes so end up using chicken juice that's left behind after the bake and pour it over the chicken along with one or two tablespoon of filtered water depending on how much I over shot the bake(which I admittedly do here and there). So in general she eats roughly 6.8 oz of food per day or 8 oz during the weekend. So again, the chicken is literally just there as an extra, it's not taken into account in any way towards her nutritional needs.

Honestly I was just worried about whether or not it's a nutritional overdose. Calorie wise, I know that pose absolutely zero problems. She's been a steady 8 lbs cat give or take for roughly a year now.

It's fine since it's just on the weekend. It's like a treat! Treats aren't nutritionally balanced but it's fine in small doses like that. I often give my cats a small piece of what I'm eating.

*baked (sorry!)

Sammiches said:

Honestly I was just worried about whether or not it's a nutritional overdose.

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No "overdose"; the problem with plain muscle meat is that if you fed too much the cat would suffer from many deficiencies. No calcium, not enough taurine, not enough iron, etc. There's a lot to consider in making a balanced cat diet!

But the amount you're feeding is fine . She looks great!

Willowy said:

No "overdose"; the problem with plain muscle meat is that if you fed too much the cat would suffer from many deficiencies. No calcium, not enough taurine, not enough iron, etc. There's a lot to consider in making a balanced cat diet!

But the amount you're feeding is fine . She looks great!

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Yes I understand that but as I have said numerous times, this meal is a "bonus". She gets all of her nutritional needs already and this is literally just extra food on top of all that.

The best way I can explain this is on the weekdays you eat your healthy nutritional balance. Let's say you eat 2500 calories worth of food. On the weekends however you eat 3000 calories. However I do realize cats shouldn't be using humans as a comparison in their feeding guides(since they're more sensitive than we are and all) hence I'm here asking about it since I'm no expert.

Also thank you, I too think she looks great/amazing

Are you speaking of fileted chicken or bone-intact chicken?

Baking makes bones brittle, which makes them dangerous for your cat to eat.

Having visited BalanceIt.com, a site posted by Davis Veterinary Medical Consultants (its owner is a VMD/MS, Diplomat, american college of veterinary nutrition)

which allows one to design one's own recipe, then see its nutritional profile with and without their supplement.

and several board-certified veterinary dentist sites,

THEY ALL hold against your cat eating bones.

Sharp, brittle bones going into your cat's digestive system would be dangerous.

If you insist on feeding your cat bones, DON'T COOK THAT MEAT.

Boneless chicken, cooked, so long as it's cooled where kitty can eat it, would be fine.

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No worries, no cooked bones. It's pretty much just baked chicken, lots of water, and some Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers - Chicken. I don't feed Luna straight up Fancy Feast anymore ever since I found out about healthier food but the Gravy Lovers is just so less in the can(mostly gravy, not much meat matter) that it's just what I was looking for when using it as a mixture(half can). Since baked chicken tends to be a little on the dry side, I put a lot of purified water mixed in along with a little portion of gravy to help maintain the taste that the extra water may have taken out.

Here's what it looks like -

Sammiches said:

^
No worries, no cooked bones. It's pretty much just baked chicken, lots of water, and some Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers - Chicken. I don't feed Luna straight up Fancy Feast anymore ever since I found out about healthier food but the Gravy Lovers is just so less in the can(mostly gravy, not much meat matter) that it's just what I was looking for when using it as a mixture(half can). Since baked chicken tends to be a little on the dry side, I put a lot of purified water mixed in along with a little portion of gravy to help maintain the taste that the extra water may have taken out.

Here's what it looks like -

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Looks yummy! I bet she loves it

Wile said:

Looks yummy! I bet she loves it

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Thanks! Got my finger slit open when she knew what she was getting. Got overly excited and jumped at my hands to grab the bowl down faster lol.

Since it's unseasoned it's completely fine as an extra treat, but if you want her to get the extra taurine then consider putting her portion in a sealed bag and boiling it to cook.

Talien said:

Since it's unseasoned it's completely fine as an extra treat, but if you want her to get the extra taurine then consider putting her portion in a sealed bag and boiling it to cook.

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Is it safe to assume that cat food in general has enough taurine as is? Currently on Wellness Core Signature Selects, Nutro, and Sheba through rotations.