Brainstorming Healthier Foods for Cats

shllnzl
shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited November 2020 in Dogs & Cats

@silvertipgrizz I thought we should have a separate discussion about cat nutrition. I agree that food selection is less diversified for them.

Copied from other thread:

"You got me thinking about cats. I just had a weird idea about the Birdseye frozen mice that are packaged for reptiles; if healthy to start with, they would include all necessary minerals for cats within the internal organs. Thawing and cooking them, including removal of fur and bones would not be fun though. Watching the cat eat it from a whole condition would be messy and unappealing.

I just gave myself a few nasty visuals for the day."

Let the ideas flow.

Comments

  • blevinandwomba
    blevinandwomba Posts: 813 ✭✭✭✭

    Raise pigeons? People used to do it for their own consumption...I read some how-tos for that a while ago, but I'm not sure where- probably John Seymour.

    I don't think you would need to remove the bones in the mice, unless freezing really changes them somehow or you are feeding them to a cat who has never caught a mouse. When cats catch mice they eat them bones and all. Actually, even with somewhat larger prey like young rabbits they will eat the bones. The bones are actually an important part of the nutrition.

  • silvertipgrizz
    silvertipgrizz Posts: 1,990 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @shllnzl

    pardon my language:... lmao rof

    You know what they say.... choose carefully which voice, or in this case 'visuals' you listen to/look at lol!!!

    Ok, funny you thought of this... the mice. When my beloved Miss Mew got sick all I could think of was how I was never going to feed her commercial food again. So I planned to finish opening up the garage ie getting my stuff organized and off the floor, and bringing her 'live' mice to chase all over the garage. One thing that has stuck with me after all the research I did back then on the health of cats, is the fact that one of the reasons out door cats are healthier is the prey they catch and eat already has to some extent depending on the last meal the varmint ate, the stomach would have some degree of pre digested enzymes broken down by said varmint for the cat that would get none of that if left to store bought food. So as cold as that sounds, yes, I was ready to start bringing her live mice as long as the vendor had written guarantee of the good health of the mouse.

    Unfortunately, I lost her soon after that and I will never doubt that it was the flea treatment I put on her after a month of trying to fight them naturally for her sake. The main ingredient in the trash I bought was imicloprid. The very same ingredient that one source admitted to their belief that that pesticide was the reason for the bee die off. It is a hormone disruptor and a nerve blocker, and I will never get over loosing her. I actually did research before I broke down and used it as a last resort to bring her freedom from the blood suckers, but I know that is what it had to be because out of no where not too long after that, maybe 8 months, she was growing mammary gland tumors.

    The last time I talked to one of the call in places for questions regarding problems reported from consumers, I told them I was appalled that for all the technology and medical advances our country and other countries had achieved, that we were still left with PESTICIDES to put on our fur family members to rid them of the flea plague... They are so indifferent and it's a sad state that we still clamor among ourselves trying and hoping to find a healthy alternative.

    Thanks for your input/idea, and for sharing your 'visual' lol.

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    Interesting topic...

    While many of us try to get our pets the best food possible for them, sometimes the animal themselves just don't want to get with that program. And since I have so many, it's like one teaches the next "hey, we don't eat that." And the difficulties continue.

    So yes, I have tried all the recommendations and I'm still trying. But to me, how can these cats possibly taste/smell one tiny half a teaspoon of a "new quality food" mixed in with their normal food and then they look at you the next 3 or 4 days and say "I'm not eating that."

    And I don't re-serve the same bowl for 3-4 days. They get fresh each day.

    Finicky...yes! But I'm always the one who breaks down first because they seem to know she (meaning me) won't go beyond 4 days without feeding them something they will actually eat.

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @greyfurball I think the cats are challenging us to be better pet parents! They are trying to raise the food bar to excellence.

    I bought some high end wet food that my cats picked over and mostly rejected. Instead of wasting it, I decided to feed it to the stray cat. Once the indoor cats smelled that food going out of the house, they wanted it.

    I have started incorporating human hunting scraps into dog food. Human meat scraps do not appeal to my indoor cats, except for the one who spent his first four years outdoors; he will try anything the humans or dogs are eating, sometimes snubbing wet cat food. (Reminds me of the chihuahua who snubs dog food and wants human or cat food.)

    Do you think our pets play these mind games with us just for the entertainment value? (The parrot will drop a preferred treat with "oh-oh" trying to trick me into giving her another one so she can go back and retrieve the first one later.)

  • Karin
    Karin Posts: 272 ✭✭✭

    I did a lot of research into cat food when we got our new kitten as she was only 3-4 weeks old - had been abandoned by her feral cat mama (or maybe wandered off herself, who knows). So I wanted to give her the best start I could. My partner is a truck driver and worked for a company that transported the offal and bone, skin etc from the freezing works and local homekill butchers to a rendering plant which onsold to petfood companies. You have NO idea what absolute garbage goes into our petfoods - even the "high-end" expensive ones - all are made from the same rubbish. Stuff that has been sitting around in bins for days - the smell is unbearable. No wonder cat food smells so bad once opened. I did not want to give our kitty that stuff. There are a few good websites on making your own catfood - some are from trained veterinarians so they have the research base. I have always fed our cats raw meat, with some fish, either canned or raw, plus egg yolks and cream, and they are healthy and active and love it. They refuse any commercial cat food, in fact, the kitten when we first got her, would starve herself even then, if I offered commercial kitten food - so they know if given the chance what is best. I did read of some cat owners buying in the frozen mice and partially thawing it before giving to their cats to eat, bones, fur and all - as they do when they catch them. Apparently mice are the perfect food for cats lol.

    I also only give flea treatment rarely and prefer to comb them to get rid of fleas. But a healthy cat will not have as many fleas or other parasites as an unhealthy cat.

  • pamelamackenzie
    pamelamackenzie Posts: 143 ✭✭✭

    Cats are picky eaters. I tried to mix small bit of a new healthier food into my cats food and she picked it out and left it on the placemat. She just ate the food she was used to.