Do You Add Fiber To Your Homemade Food?

Azazel

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So I used to be in the camp that believed that absolutely no plant-based fiber is best for cats until about yesterday...

After one of my cats didn't poop for 3 days on a homemade raw diet with no carbs, I started to add a teaspoon of pumpkin to their daily meals. They are all regular now (going once a day) and I haven't had an issue since.

My vet, who likes that I feed homemade raw, strongly encouraged me to add daily pumpkin to their meals. She basically believes that the pumpkin is good for their gut bacteria because it acts as a prebiotic and that some cats will become constipated without any source of fiber in their diet - not because they need fiber for nutrition but because they need it to build healthy gut bacteria. This being said, she thinks it should be a very very small amount, something to mimic the tiny amounts of plant-based fiber they would eat in the stomach contents of their prey or the grass they would chew if they were outside.

I honestly disagreed with her for the longest time, but I'm starting to agree with her now. What are everyone's thoughts, and do you add a fiber source to your cat's food? I should also mention that I contemplated adding psyllium husk to the batches that I make, but my vet encouraged me to use pumpkin instead because she said it acts more as a prebiotic to encourage ongoing healthy gut bacteria whereas psyllium is more like a laxative.
 

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I add about 2 - 3% pumpkin to the homemade turkey I make for our cat. I freeze the food in ice cube trays. To put the amount that I add into perspective, it's about one ice cubes worth of pumkin in a batch of food that totals maybe 40 - 50 ice cubes. So, not a whole lot.

My only rationale for adding it is that when I switched him from dry food only to canned he took to Stella and Chewy's "canned" (actually boxed) and did really well on it. It contains some pumpkin. Reading Lisa Piersons homemade food article, she mentions pumpkin as an option as well so I just continued adding some to his homemade when I began making it. I don't know if it helps him or not but he likes the food so I will continue to add a little bit.

He won't eat pumpkin on it's own however.
 

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Oh, this question! :D I'd been feeding very tiny amounts of pumpkin to our cats for several months because of Ireland's constipation... but stopped recently because I'd always had similar concerns about pumpkin, A Azazel . It was especially convenient to stop recently because I was away for a few days and didn't want to make my husband have to deal with the pumpkin, too. All has been well with Ireland (I think cutting back on her bone intake was enough) so I just stopped with the pumpkin.

Meanwhile, though, I keep seeing mentions of prebiotics all over the place! And wondering... Though I'm also not sure if the pumpkin may have been part of why Edwina was barfing so much this summer. (I did a lousy job of feeding trials by making a lot of changes at once, meaning I don't know what, exactly, improved things: no more pumpkin, adding fish oil to Alnutrin, or feeding more egg yolk! Edit: I also removed agar-agar from the cats' diet.)

FWIW, Dr. Pierson is a fan of guar gum for fiber, too; that's the one thickener I'm not very concerned about.
 
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Azazel

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Funny enough, my cat never had problems on a homemade diet with bones. It’s only been since we moved to a boneless diet that he got a little stuck. I’m wondering if it’s because the tendons acted as fiber when he was eating bone? I know bone can also cause constipation so I don’t even know if that makes sense!

I should add that the amount of pumpkin I’m giving per day is tiny. About 1/2 teaspoon-1 teaspoon a day.
 

lisahe

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Funny enough, my cat never had problems on a homemade diet with bones. It’s only been since we moved to a boneless diet that he got a little stuck. I’m wondering if it’s because the tendons acted as fiber when he was eating bone? I know bone can also cause constipation so I don’t even know if that makes sense!

I should add that the amount of pumpkin I’m giving per day is tiny. About 1/2 teaspoon-1 teaspoon a day.
The offending food here was Primal turkey, with 10% bone. We still feed one meal a day of Primal pork, 6% bone.

Did you switch anything else (ingredients in the homemade? any commercial foods?) when you moved to the boneless diet?

I was using far less pumpkin, more like 1/8 teaspoon a day per cat. I thought that seemed like very, very little, but a guy at one of our better pet food stores told me that it really doesn't take much for some cats. Besides, Ireland's problem was pretty minor: she was pooping regularly and not straining (at least not obviously when I saw her in the box), but she was sometimes/often hesitant to eat. I think she was uncomfortable. Getting rid of the 10% bone food and adding the pumpkin turned her into a great eater!
 
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Azazel

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The offending food here was Primal turkey, with 10% bone. We still feed one meal a day of Primal pork, 6% bone.

Did you switch anything else (ingredients in the homemade? any commercial foods?) when you moved to the boneless diet?

I was using far less pumpkin, more like 1/8 teaspoon a day per cat. I thought that seemed like very, very little, but a guy at one of our better pet food stores told me that it really doesn't take much for some cats. Besides, Ireland's problem was pretty minor: she was pooping regularly and not straining (at least not obviously when I saw her in the box), but she was sometimes/often hesitant to eat. I think she was uncomfortable. Getting rid of the 10% bone food and adding the pumpkin turned her into a great eater!
Hmm, I did also remove the occasional feeding of Weruva. And now that you mention it, it could have been the removal of all the gums! I completely forgot about that.

I think I will still stick with the small amount of pumpkin every day since it seems to be working well.
 

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I keep reading this page and retaining very little of it. Very meaty! (so to speak ;) )

Gut Bacteria and Fiber

Food feeds the cat. Fiber feeds the gut bacteria. And the gut bacteria play an important role in helping to prevent constipation as well as maintaining the health and integrity of the gut wall.

And the other thing I got from this is not all fiber is created equally.
 
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Azazel

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I keep reading this page and retaining very little of it. Very meaty! (so to speak ;) )

Gut Bacteria and Fiber

Food feeds the cat. Fiber feeds the gut bacteria. And the gut bacteria play an important role in helping to prevent constipation as well as maintaining the health and integrity of the gut wall.

And the other thing I got from this is not all fiber is created equally.
I had read that page before, and it sounds very much like what my vet has been trying to tell me regarding pumpkin being a prebiotic.

There seems to be lots of conflicting information on the internet about whether cats need fiber, from what sources, and how much. We probably don't know enough about cats' dietary needs to have a definitive answer.

This is an interesting study with cheetahs, and I think it may be the source of lots of these websites' claims that undigested animal parts function like fiber for carnivores: Animal fibre: the forgotten nutrient in strict carnivores? First insights in the cheetah. - PubMed - NCBI
 

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I keep reading this page and retaining very little of it. Very meaty! (so to speak ;) )
It's so funny that you say this: I've read it before, too, but never retain much!

There seems to be lots of conflicting information on the internet about whether cats need fiber, from what sources, and how much. We probably don't know enough about cats' dietary needs to have a definitive answer.
Yes, this is a huge part of the problem. (For this and so many other feline health problems!) Which brings us back to the "if it works for your cat" approach.

Hmm, I did also remove the occasional feeding of Weruva. And now that you mention it, it could have been the removal of all the gums! I completely forgot about that.
Even occasional feedings can make such a difference! I kind of wonder if variations in our cats' menu (for example, there was a while when I cut back on gums, too...) are what caused Ireland to have such intermittent problems with constipation.
 

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My cat on raw food got constipated on 10% bone. I took him to the vet for relief, and reduced the bone content to about 7%, and no further problems.

I found a page on The Feline Nutrition Foundation website regarding the question do cats need dietary fiber by Elisa Katz, DVM, with references with a short answer of “no”.

The tiny tiny amount found in the stomachs/guts of prey would include the enzymes for digestion of the fiber.
And they don’t always eat the guts. I’ve found remnants of my outside cat’s wild caught prey, birds or chipmunks, (I know...🙁 ) and they’re often not eaten.

A tiny amount of pumpkin to mimic the stomach content of prey is a far cry from the high fiber grain based commercial cat foods.
 

Mrcclms

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So I used to be in the camp that believed that absolutely no plant-based fiber is best for cats until about yesterday...

After one of my cats didn't poop for 3 days on a homemade raw diet with no carbs, I started to add a teaspoon of pumpkin to their daily meals. They are all regular now (going once a day) and I haven't had an issue since.

My vet, who likes that I feed homemade raw, strongly encouraged me to add daily pumpkin to their meals. She basically believes that the pumpkin is good for their gut bacteria because it acts as a prebiotic and that some cats will become constipated without any source of fiber in their diet - not because they need fiber for nutrition but because they need it to build healthy gut bacteria. This being said, she thinks it should be a very very small amount, something to mimic the tiny amounts of plant-based fiber they would eat in the stomach contents of their prey or the grass they would chew if they were outside.

I honestly disagreed with her for the longest time, but I'm starting to agree with her now. What are everyone's thoughts, and do you add a fiber source to your cat's food? I should also mention that I contemplated adding psyllium husk to the batches that I make, but my vet encouraged me to use pumpkin instead because she said it acts more as a prebiotic to encourage ongoing healthy gut bacteria whereas psyllium is more like a laxative.
My vet just told me the same

Protein only is unhealthy

Even in nature when they eat a prey they also eat their bowels full of fiber

I was happy with Darwin but I think I'll have to find another solution cause fiber seems minimal in it and since I started feeding my cat got constipated and develop hairballs (maybe a coincidence!?)
 
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Azazel

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My vet just told me the same

Protein only is unhealthy

Even in nature when they eat a prey they also eat their bowels full of fiber

I was happy with Darwin but I think I'll have to find another solution cause fiber seems minimal in it and since I started feeding my cat got constipated and develop hairballs (maybe a coincidence!?)
I would disagree with your vet that the amount of fiber in Darwin’s is not enough. Yes, they do eat the bowels of prey, but not all of it. The amount of fiber they eat is extremely minimal, even less than what’s in Darwin’s. Unfortunately most vets don’t know very much about feline nutrition. I don’t think your cat’s issue was necessarily fiber. The diet you were giving prior to Darwin’s was even lower in fiber (only a small amount of pumpkin added). At this point it’s really unlikely to know why exactly your cat had a hairball. But, I wouldn’t be quick to assume you need to add more fiber to the diet. As I mentioned before, your best bet would be to move your cat back to the diet that he did well on rather than experimenting with new foods.
 

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Constipation is often, maybe usually, due to a higher bone or calcium content than that particular kitty needs/can handle. Some cats do just fine on 10% bone, some get constipated on that much. It can take a while for it to clearly present as an issue.

One thing to look for on ingredients of food or treats is calcium carbonate. I had been giving my cat a digestive/hairball control supplement that I thought would be helpful to make his poops move better. (He pooped regularly, but it was a bit of a strain.) It had some psyllium and probiotics and prebiotics. I gave it to him for a couple months. He then developed a ball of hard feces he couldn’t pass.

I looked at the “inactive” ingredients, and there was calcium carbonate, which I think that on top of the 10% bone content of his food, pushed his calcium intake too high. No more of that product!

I don’t add any fiber to his food. His raw boneless food has added Alnutrin with eggshell calcium. He gets some whole prey mice, and eats them completely, so he gets whatever wee bit of fiber is their stomach/intestines. He occasionally eats some catnip. I reduced the bone content of his raw with bone food to about 7%, now his poops come out easily with very little odor.
 

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In desperate times, I will sometimes use a very small amount (like a 1/16th of a teaspoon) of seaweed calcium supplement to "dry her up" when she's having loose stools or diarrhea. But I only do this for very desperate times and only while the stools are liquid. Because it works very effectively and it can easily swing the problem in the other direction. If the calcium supplement does this, then bone, which is predominantly calcium should also cause this level of constipation. In fact, I was feeding her ground-up Stella and Chewy's freeze-dried morsels as a topper with her food back when she was having clostridium. Those are usually too high in bone that they bung her up very easily. In this case, that's sort of what I was going for. At least use the bone content to slow her food down long enough to get digested. Seems to have worked. I haven't seen the clostridium in over a month. But we also did s. boulardii and a few other desperate tools and tricks.
 

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The recipe I use includes a bit of pureed vegetables with each serving, but my cat finds a way to eat around it unless I mix it really well. The pureed vegetables definitely increase his frequency from once every two days to once a day. But if the poop breaks apart then you can visibly see interior is just pureed vegetables with all their color. The author of the book I got the recipe from says that the vegetables give him necessary nutrients and fiber, but I am skeptical of the former claim if it is coming out undigested.
 

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~ Most kitty food that is labeled "Hairball Control" has added fiber. Fiber is good. For people too ! 🚽:)
 
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Azazel

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~ Most kitty food that is labeled "Hairball Control" has added fiber. Fiber is good. For people too ! 🚽:)
Unfortunately most of those foods also have a long list of very unnecessary ingredients followed by fiber.

Cats don’t need nearly as much fiber as people. And, the type of fiber they need is not plant based. In the wild they would obtain fiber from fur, cartilage, etc. Pumpkin and psyllium that we add to foods is only a decent substitute.

I really hope people aren’t misinterpreting this thread... I still believe that the excessive amounts of plant fiber in pet food is way too excessive. Half a teaspoon of pumpkin a day is very different from having a primarily plant based food.
 

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Unfortunately most of those foods also have a long list of very unnecessary ingredients followed by fiber.
~ Yes that is likely true - unfortunately. I always thought kitty would eat grass for fiber ? Seems they do this when they feel it's needed ... :redcat:
 
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Azazel

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~ Yes that is likely true - unfortunately. I always thought kitty would eat grass for fiber ? Seems they do this when they feel it's needed ... :redcat:
We really don’t know why cats eat grass. If it was for fiber they wouldn’t throw it up. :)
 
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