Why Is Seafood Bad For Cats?

[Rini]

Hello cat servants!

I have seen this mentioned several times now--that seafood flavors are best avoided--but I am still confused as to why. As dense as this sounds, I avoid feeding His Majesty seafood flavors of the wet food because it seems like a lot of other people do. He mostly gets variety packs of poultry/beef flavors which he seems very happy with. He does get the ocean whitefish kitten variety of Fancy Feast because I use Amazon and they don't stock the turkey with prime. I've thought about switching to Chewy, lots of people seem to use that and they definitely have better variety.

Why don't you feed seafood? Or why do you?

Thank you!

 

[LTS3]

These explain why

Why Fish is Dangerous for Cats | Little Big Cat

Can I Feed My Cat A Fish-based Or Fish-flavored Diet?

 

[MeganLLB]

I feed it occasionally. I just don't solely feed fish. I don't think having it in a rotation is that bad especially if thats what your cat will eat

 

[Daisy6]

Fish specifically is what people want to avoid. I never read anything about shrimp being bad too. Most people think a little fish is OK as a treat.

The problem is fish have mercury. Big fish have more mercury than small fish and get more of it by eating small fish. These predators include the most common fish flavors in cat foods: tuna and salmon. Because cats are much smaller than human fish eaters, a lot less mercury is needed to make the kidneys stop functioning.

 

[Rini]

Thank you all--and what informative articles. I just saw that Fancy Feast has FINALLY added some new kitten flavors--chicken and salmon. It was always annoying to me that they didn't have a chicken. So now I can swap out some of his adult/all life stages food for kitten specific--think I will stick to the chicken. Yay.

 

[Daisy6]

Rini, couldn't you buy chicken flavor of a different brand? When I looked for a wet Wellness kitten food, the only flavor they had was chicken.

 

[Gizmobius]

My cats get to split one 3oz can of a fish based food every Saturday. I call it seafood Saturday. I try to avoid tuna but I admit they do get it every now and then. I like to try to stick to sardine and mackerel. They go crazy for their weekly snack of seafood, so I don’t want them expecting it everyday or else they’d probably never eat anything else!

 

[duckpond]

I feed more seafood than recommended. my little white girl will eat Dr. Elseys dry, chicken. and she will eat Almo nature wet salmon and apple. Thats it. So she get a can of the salmon for breakfast, and the kibble the rest of the day Its what she will eat. She is not a food motivated cat, at all, i have never found a treat that she will eat either. Once in a blue moon she will eat a pure bite chicken treat, but normally she runs from it..lol

one male also wants fish, but he will eat chicken wet, so he gets some fish and some chicken wet. Other two do not like fish, so they get chicken.

I do worry about the contaminants in fish, but i worry about that in all the foods i feed, so i dont know the answer to this one I feed fish wet food, but try to make sure they get other proteins as well.

 

[mikameek]

Mika is definitely on track with being classified as addicted to seafood. She really loves her salmon. I've been getting her to eat other stuff like chicken and beef but she just doesn't go at it like she did her salmon. I think I'll have to have it in rotation more often than is recommended but I don't want to risk her not eating.

 

[Tashanasha]

I feed Marx more fish than I should (he gets it 2-3 times a week) but that is hard to avoid when you're located in Asia. Almost all wet food that one can buy here is tuna based (so tuna+chicken, tuna+beef, tuna+turkey ect.). What makes me angry is that even the western brands like Sheba have special Asian lines which are also tuna based. I guess it's partially because it's cheaper and on the other hand it's the mentality - people here assume that cats like fish more then anything else.

I don't know how it affects the cats in the long run. I just try to avoid it as much as possible and hope for the best.

 

[Daisy6]

Tasha, it is because people eat a lot of fish in Asia. Supply and demand calls of an all-fish diet if you buy cat food locally.

Would it cost too much to buy cat food with meat and poultry flavors?

 

[Rini]

Rini, couldn't you buy chicken flavor of a different brand? When I looked for a wet Wellness kitten food, the only flavor they had was chicken.

Aslan really only likes Fancy Feast or home cooked food--I give him chicken to supplement his diet. I have tried the more expensive brands and he looks at me like I'm trying to poison him.

 

[Daisy6]

LOL

 

[Tashanasha]

Tasha, it is because people eat a lot of fish in Asia. Supply and demand calls of an all-fish diet if you buy cat food locally.

Would it cost too much to buy cat food with meat and poultry flavors?

Today I actually found some good non-fish food! One of the online stores has Animonda Carny food available - it's still a bit more expensive than it would be in Europe, but it's ok. I ordered him 12 cans of different flavors, fingers crossed he'll like one of them

The non-fish foods I found so far are either not a complete food or are pretty bad ingredients wise (like a pate beef, which he actually really likes, but it's only 5% protein - so we treat it like a snack, not like real food). So I really hope that Animonda will please his majesty

 

[lisahe]

My cats get to split one 3oz can of a fish based food every Saturday. I call it seafood Saturday. I try to avoid tuna but I admit they do get it every now and then. I like to try to stick to sardine and mackerel. They go crazy for their weekly snack of seafood, so I don’t want them expecting it everyday or else they’d probably never eat anything else!

This is a lot like what I do, too, and for the same reasons, since we had a cat who was pretty close to being a fish addict. The food with fish that we feed is almost always a Weruva Cats in the Kitchen blend of chicken and one or two kinds of fish, something like Funk in the Trunk (the favorite) or Goldie Lox. I split a three-ounce cat between two cats every week or two and it makes them happy. I think both of those foods I mentioned have tuna but chicken's the top ingredient so I don't worry about it too much. The cats do get small amounts of fish in other canned foods they eat, but it's not much.

FWIW, our vet, who's pretty anti-fish, seems to think salmon's the least worst to feed.

 

[Daisy6]

Are you saying your vet thinks salmon is not as bad as any other fish?

Fish not being the first ingredients means very little. The tiniest fraction is enough for a pet food company to say it weighs less than the first ingredient.

 

[lisahe]

Are you saying your vet thinks salmon is not as bad as any other fish?

Fish not being the first ingredients means very little. The tiniest fraction is enough for a pet food company to say it weighs less than the first ingredient.

I'm saying that she thinks salmon is the least worst. She's not a fish fan at all but thinks salmon isn't quite as bad as, say, tuna.

And yes, I'm aware of how ingredients and weights go but my point is that those particular foods aren't just fish (some of them even have two kinds, which probably outweigh the chicken) because they have chicken in them, too. And I feel better about feeding something that's not just fish.

 

[Royalty]

Yes I had very recently read that. Fish is bad for cats while none of mine had tuna. They did have salmon n trout couple of times a week both of them. Since reading about it. They just eat rabbit chicken lamb turkey duck flavours.

 

[jclark]

Meh... I wouldn't worry about it. Just rotate proteins.

 

[Daisy6]

Meh... I wouldn't worry about it. Just rotate proteins.

You should worry about it. The consequences of feeding a lot of fish can be deadly or life-threatening to cats. If your cat will not eat anything else, by all means feed fish, but otherwise, fish is a big no-no.