What Meat Should I Feed My Cat?

[OvidiuHiei]

Long story short I have 3 cats, they all started to eat different food, one of them likes dry food, the other wet food and the other one started to eat meat, we gave her chicken and he eats everything, he also likes wet food but since chicken is way cheaper we might just switch him to full meat , but not sure if we should keep feeding him chicken or something else.

If so should i only give him the meat or bones and other stuff too? or give him meat another day cat food then meat again etc?

thanks in advance

 

[LTS3]

Raw and home cooked feeders typically rotate different proteins. Chicken and other poultry like turkey are popular with most cats. Beef, rabbit, venison, and other novel proteins can also be fed.

Meat alone is not enough nutritionally for a cat. It's fine as an occasional treat but not for a full day's worth of meals even if you also feed canned food every other day.

A super easy way to turn any meat (no bones or organs) into a complete diet is to use a pre-mix. EZComplete is a popular one and there's also TC Feline and Better In The Raw. Typical instructions are to take 2 lbs of meat, ground or chunked to your cat's preference, add in X amount of pre-mix powder, add in X amount of water, stir to combine, portion out, then feed or freeze for later use. 2 lbs of the mixture doesn't take up much space in the freezer, depending on what size containers or freezer bags you use. You can buy ground boneless meat from a supplier like Hare-Today.com or look for chubs at the independent pet store.

Be sure that any meat you buy from the supermarket or butcher shop doesn't contain broths, flavorings, preservatives, etc.

 

[OvidiuHiei]

Raw and home cooked feeders typically rotate different proteins. Chicken and other poultry like turkey are popular with most cats. Beef, rabbit, venison, and other novel proteins can also be fed.

Meat alone is not enough nutritionally for a cat. It's fine as an occasional treat but not for a full day's worth of meals even if you also feed canned food every other day.

A super easy way to turn any meat (no bones or organs) into a complete diet is to use a pre-mix. EZComplete is a popular one and there's also TC Feline and Better In The Raw. Typical instructions are to take 2 lbs of meat, ground or chunked to your cat's preference, add in X amount of pre-mix powder, add in X amount of water, stir to combine, portion out, then feed or freeze for later use. 2 lbs of the mixture doesn't take up much space in the freezer, depending on what size containers or freezer bags you use. You can buy ground boneless meat from a supplier like Hare-Today.com or look for chubs at the independent pet store.

Be sure that any meat you buy from the supermarket or butcher shop doesn't contain broths, flavorings, preservatives, etc.

~thanks for the help, he also eats dry food sometimes, would that help giving him dry food and meat? our dry food is available most of the day btw they have full access to it

 

[LTS3]

If you are also feeding cat food, whether dry or canned, plain meat should be limited to no more than 10% of the diet to prevent an unbalanced diet. I would limit the meat to a few pieces daily.

 

[OvidiuHiei]

If you are also feeding cat food, whether dry or canned, plain meat should be limited to no more than 10% of the diet to prevent an unbalanced diet. I would limit the meat to a few pieces daily.

thanks for your help!

 

[1 bruce 1]

Making Cat Food

This isn't meant to scare you away from making your own cat food, but as LTS3 stated you can really mess up a commercial diet if you unbalance it. The commercial diet isn't magical but it IS balanced. If you start adding this and that, the daily balance might go off and over a period of months or years, your cat might have issues.
If you decide to go 10% or so, that's great IMO and you might notice cleaner teeth.
The site above I linked is from a vet that's well versed in feeding cats.
We feed a PMR diet and don't supplement as much as you would for grinds alone.

 

[cardinalred]

Cats are obligate carnivores with protein needs higher than dogs or humans.
Cats need meat to be healthy. Their digestive systems aren't designed to thrive on carbohydrates, much less the vegetable, fruit, nut, seed regime much beloved by human vegetarians.

In the TCS Forums here, Nutrition, sub-forum Raw and Home Cooked, you might look at:

a thread that addresses that, with multiple cites

You might also look at:

The carnivore connection to nutrition in cats,
Debra L. Zoran, DVM, Ph.D, DACVIM
JAVMA Vol. 221, No. 11, December 1, 2002, Vet Med Today: Timely Topics in Nutrition, pp 1559-1567.

"The natural diet of cats in the wild is a meat-based regimen that contains little carbohydrates, thus, cats are metabolically adapted to preferentially use protein and fat as energy sources...."

The link I originally posted a few days ago is broken, so you can find it by author and title.

 

[LTS3]

Just adding a bit more, if you're not sure how much 10% is since it appears you have one bowl of dry food available all day for all the cats and who knows how much each cat is eating, err on the safe side and supplement meat to avoid an unbalanced diet. EZComplete and other pre-mixes are easy ways to turn meat into a complete diet. EZComplete in particular can be used with either raw meat or plain cooked meat. If you want to add bones and organs and other things, you need to follow a recipe or use the "80% meat - 10% bone - 5% liver - 5% other organ" rule.

 

[lisahe]

To add to what LTS3 said, EZ Complete works great with cooked and raw meat. I use it with cooked meat that I shred, mince, chunk, pate, or otherwise put into manageable pieces and the cats love it.

 

[misskestrel]

Not sure if someone will see this, as it seems to be an older thread, but is it really as easy to feed a “raw diet” as mixing in a premix powder + water into a varied selection of raw/cooked meat? If it’s that simple, why aren’t more people doing it??

 

[Willowy]

If it’s that simple, why aren’t more people doing it??

1.) It's expensive

2.) Cats are picky

3.) You have to buy and store a lot of raw meat which some people find icky

 

[misskestrel]

Thank you for the reply. But the answer to my question, then, is yes? Assuming that the cost of the meat isn’t prohibitive, and I followed the directions, it really is that simple? (I have snakes, which means dead mice and rats are already in my freezer. I have no issues with the handling of meat, raw or otherwise.)

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Willowy]

Yes, if you buy a good pre-mix and follow the instructions, it really is that simple.

Then it's up to your cats .

Will your cats eat whole mice/rats? Some of mine will eat them (I have snakes too). That's a good way to give them a raw snack.

 

[misskestrel]

1) Holy cats! Really? A mouse? How would I give it to him? Just thaw it and put it on a plate? Or chop it up? I assume the skin stays on...

2) What kind of snakes do you have? I have 1.1 cornsnakes, 1.4 ball pythons (.3 are hatchlings from my very first clutch), 1. anery Kenyan sand boa, and 2. rubber boas.

 

[Willowy]

I just toss 'em a thawed mouse or rat. They get all the snake refusals, but if the snakes are eating well I'll thaw some just for the cats. What they do with it is their business (although I do make sure they eat it in a timely manner so there are no nasty surprises). They've caught wild mice too and batted them around the house before they ate them so I'm not too squeamish about that. If you want them to keep it in one place you could put them in the bathroom or a large dog crate until they're done eating. Mice and very small rats generally go down whole (with a few crunches) but larger rats can be a little messier.

I have 3 ball pythons (1 normal, 1 pastel, 1 cinnamon lesser) and a motley Central American boa constrictor. The cinnamon lesser and the boa are from breeders and were sexed as male. The other 2 BPs were rescues and never sexed, but I think the normal is female and the pastel is male based on appetite, lol.

 

[misskestrel]

Cool! And thank you for your mouse suggestions for my cat! Got some exciting stuff to try now!!