Can I feed human food ( meat and fish ) to my cat ?

Luc

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...specifically at Costco and other places there are fish and meat food in small and medium size cans for human consumption.

In theory cats are obligated carnivores so I should be able to feed my cat at the meat food in cans, correct ?

In practice I am not sure, is there anything wrong and is my cat going to have problems if I do this ?

Cat is male, 6 months, almost always hungry and likes to eat everything.
 

KarenKat

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I’m sure others will come by with more detailed information, but the concern is that you are not feeding a complete and balanced diet for a cat. There are many vitamins and nutrients they need that can’t be supplied from simple meat. People that feed homemade food either use the whole prey model - which is an entire animal which would include organs, bones and heart in addition to the muscle meat. Another way is to get a supplement mixture like ez-complete that will add all those necessary nutrients into whatever meat you feed.

In addition, I’d check what types of salt, preservatives or whatever might be in the canned meat - I would think fresh meat might be better and have less harmful ingredients.
 

daftcat75

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Meat is not complete.

I purposely rhymed that so you will remember that.

Meat alone is deficient in calcium among other nutrients. Without calcium from another source, it will come from the cat's bones to balance the phosphorous rich meat.

If you are lucky, you will have a cat who enjoys and thrives on EZ Complete, a powder premix that can make meat complete down to servings as small as 45 g. All the other premix powders I know will require a minimum of 1 lbs of meat.

Having said all of that, if you keep meat alone ("treat meat") to less than 10% of his daily calories, you can get away with the occasional treat.

I don't recommend feeding raw fish as raw fish has an anti-nutrient that affects B-vitamin absorption. I know some guardians will feed their cats the occasional sardine canned in water, not oil.

I would also avoid any canned meats that add salt (or any other ingredient) as a preservative.
 

tabbytom

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In practice I am not sure, is there anything wrong and is my cat going to have problems if I do this ?

Cat is male, 6 months, almost always hungry and likes to eat everything.
Human food and cat food are processed in a different way. There are many types of human food are toxic to cats and also whatever ingredients are further added in to enhance and preserve the food which may not be good for cats.

Cats need Taurine and certain other added ingredients to aid their health and to promote their daily internal body function which human food does not have. That's why such ingredients have to be added to cat food.
If the cat does not have the required nutrients meant for cats, they'll definitely be faced with lots of heath issues which you don't want it o happen to your cat.

Cat food are processed in a different way human food are processed and canned.

Since your cat is only 6 months old, he is very much a kitten still and he he being always hungry means the he is not fed enough. Feed him food made for kittens and feed him as much as he can eat (canned food meant for cats) at one sitting and 4 - 5 times a day. He needs all the proteins in his growing up years and all the calories as kittens burns off calories very fast as they are very active.

And since he likes to eat everything, it's good that you can have many types of flavors for him (cat food)

As he approaches his adult age, he may have a growth spurt which means he'll eat more than usual and tat will run through deep into his first year and after that his food intake will taper off.

You can either feed him with food meant for kittens or food labeled 'For All Life Stages'. Once he's an adult, switch him over to adult food or you can continue with the one that's labeled 'For All Life Stages'.
 

daftcat75

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:yeah:

As a kitten, he should be eating all he can of kitten and cat food to make sure he gets all the correct nutrients and balance between them during his peak growth years.
 

LTS3

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Many canned meat and fish sold for people contain salt and extra things that cats don't need in their diet. An occasional treat of a bit from a can of, say, tuna in water (never the type in oil or flavored) is fine but as a meal it's a no-no because it lacks the necessary vitamins and minerals a cat needs.

A 6 month old cat is still growing and should be fed as much food as he / she wants. It's like feeding a hungry growing teenager. Many people like to free feed a set amount of dry food to kittens and provide a few canned food meals daily. If your cat is still hungry, feed more cat food, either dry or canned :) You can't overfeed a growing kitten.
 

JamesCalifornia

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~ I do - as a treat. Steamed chicken is a favorite. I always mix it with "official" kitty food to be safe . :catrub:
 

jen

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You can as a treat. In theory, yes cats are obligate carnivores, but also in theory they would be eating the entire animal in the wild. The liver, the bones, the necks, the heart, thus making it complete and balanced. Just giving them plain meat only is not the appropriate diet. Does that make sense?

Also many canned meats have preservatives and salt, etc. Very bad for cats.
 
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Luc

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Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply.

I already had a feeling that it was not going to be as simple as I thought it would be.

I'll keep on buying and feed wet food for my cat almost always and occasionally have him snack on dry food.

At the moment the wet food was changed with another kind of wet food and the cat is not eating at all.

Specifically I am trying to replace Tiki with Almo Nature but it is not working.

My understanding is that a healthy cat can go without food for about 1 - 2 days, correct ?

If the cat does not accept the new wet food ( it has different varieties ) I'll go back to the old wet food.

Again I very much appreciate all the replies and suggestions, they were very helpful.
 

Talien

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Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply.

I already had a feeling that it was not going to be as simple as I thought it would be.

I'll keep on buying and feed wet food for my cat almost always and occasionally have him snack on dry food.

At the moment the wet food was changed with another kind of wet food and the cat is not eating at all.

Specifically I am trying to replace Tiki with Almo Nature but it is not working.

My understanding is that a healthy cat can go without food for about 1 - 2 days, correct ?

If the cat does not accept the new wet food ( it has different varieties ) I'll go back to the old wet food.

Again I very much appreciate all the replies and suggestions, they were very helpful.
If you are trying to transition your Cat to new food, the best way to do that is continue feeding the old food while adding a small amount of the new and increasing the ratio of new-old over a period of time. Personally I've never had it take longer than a week for any of my Cats to fully transition to a new food, but I've seen other people post about it taking much longer so it would depend on the individual Cat.
 

Azazel

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Which Almo food are you trying? Most of them are not complete and aren’t intended to be fed as a full meal.
 
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Luc

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Which Almo food are you trying? Most of them are not complete and aren’t intended to be fed as a full meal.

https://www.chewy.com/almo-nature-hqs-complete-variety-pack/dp/209564

That particular Almo Nature offer costs 1/2 price compared to Tiki wet food, but the cat has been ignoring it all day. Both brands have good ratings and come from Thailand.

It was not mixed as someone just suggested to do, so if the cat does not show any interest for the other Almo flavors I will have to give up and go back to Tiki after dark .

From an economic point of view it is a bummer since they both seem better than average, but I don't know what else to do.
 
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Luc

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Little update: the cat would eat all the Tiki can in the first 5 min while it took all day before the cat approached, ate and finished the Almo can out of hunger.

I am thinking of staying with Almo because they donate all their profits to animals in need and because it costs 1/2 price.

Hope the cat will get use to Almo and go back to eat 3 cans x day as he did before.
 

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I hope everyone remembers that raw meat, egg yolks, etc. harbor many bacteria that are not present in cooked food. If your cat is immune suppressed in any way, even sick, do not give raw food, it can overwhelm their immune system quickly . I can't leave my cats outdoors at all any more, have to wash my own hands frequently after coming in contact with an outside dog/cat/pet, because one of my little ones has almost zero white blood cells from leukemia. These are what fight off illness. He was so very sick we considered euthanazia, but to our surprise, withy much urging to eat and giving him some 'nose relief drops for felines we found on amazon he is looking a thousand times better! His lungs were full and he was struggling to breathe. So beware if they are sick at all. we know this is most likely temporary, but every minute he is feeling good is precious right now.....
 
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