Cats Get Better Food

My New Year's resolution is to finally get my cats eating a raw diet. It's because of them that the dogs eat raw, but I haven't taken the time to switch them yet.

It all started when we adopted the cats in the summer of 2008. Zebulon had horrible, persistent diarrhea and often didn't make it to the litter box. They had come home with a bag of a commonly recommended brand of kibble (*cough* Science Diet *coughcough*) from the shelter. Not knowing any better, I fed it.

It didn't take long before I was at the vet, Zebulon was getting fecal tests done, and they said nothing was wrong. He just had loose poop. They got me to pay for "prescription" canned food. I put up with this for 5 months. He still had diarrhea, though not as often, during that entire time.

My husband deployed and I went to live with my best friend while he was gone. She noticed the diarrhea and told me to stop feeding the commonly recommended brand. She showed me the ingredients. These are the first 10 ingredients in the kibble I was giving:

Chicken By-Product Meal, Whole Grain Corn, Animal Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Corn Gluten Meal, Brewers Rice, Chicken Liver Flavor, Fish Oil, Lactic Acid, L-Lysine, Flaxseed

There is ZERO meat, or if any in the by-product, it's negligible. Cats are carnivores! I can't believe I'd never checked the ingredients. The ingredients on the canned food were no better. At the time I didn't know it, but unnamed meat sources like "Animal Fat" can legally be from euthanized pets*. This food was terrible and I needed to switch asap.

She took me to the local pet supply shop and we spent about an hour looking at ingredients of brands I had never even heard of and comparing prices.

I think the formula has changed since I started buying it but here are the current top 10 ingredients in the Rocky Mountain Feline formula by Taste of the Wild:

Chicken meal, peas, sweet potatoes, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), pea protein, potato protein, roasted venison, smoked salmon, natural flavor, ocean fish meal

No grain, no by-product, no corn, no soy, no unnamed sources. I stopped feeding the canned food and put them straight onto the new food. Within a week there was no diarrhea and there hasn't been ANY since, with exception of that caused by stress such as on car rides.

I kept them on the new food for about a year and a half and due to the store here in San Diego being so far away for this specific food I have been buying different brands and varieties, but all of them are free of corn, grain, soy, by-product, etc and have named meat sources first on the list.

It was because of researching about pet food for the cats that I came to believe a raw diet would be best and it's the reason the dogs are fed raw. Switching cats is sometimes easy, sometimes not. Some cats take to it right away, other don't. Mine don't. I've tried here and there and they will eat itty bitty pieces of beef liver or chicken but they lose interest. With dogs you can play the "eat it or starve" game but cats will get very sick if they aren't fed. They can get hepatic lipidosis which is when fat builds up on their liver. Liver disease. So, in the new year of 2012, it is my goal to take the time and patience necessary to get the cats on a fully raw diet. Wish me luck!

*"Meat rendering plants process animal by-product materials for the production of tallow, grease, and high-protein meat and bone meal.  Plants that operate in conjunction with animal slaughterhouses or poultry processing plants are called integrated rendering plants.  Plants that collect their raw materials from a variety of offsite sources are called independent rendering plants.  Independent plants obtain animal by-product materials, including grease, blood, feathers, offal, and entire animal carcasses, from the following sources:  butcher shops, supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food chains, poultry processors, slaughterhouses, farms, ranches, feedlots, and animal shelters."  
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch09/final/c9s05-3.pdf