for Scylla when she gets her kitty....

[lynwlt]

Which she WILL DO soon...

The cat's needs for BARF diet are very different from dogs because unlike most other carnivores, cats eat almost no vegetable matter as part of their regular evolutionary diets. Whereas animals like bears and dogs commonly supplement their diet of meat with fruits, berries, roots, etc when they can get them, cats feed exclusively on meat, usually freshly killed. Cats, including the great cats, have a genetic anomaly that prevents them from tasting sweetness that probably has an important part to play in their meat-only habits. In captivity, cats cannot (and should not) be adapted to a vegetarian diet because they cannot synthesize all the amino acids they need from plant material. Specifically this applies to Taurine, the lack of which causes the cat's retina to slowly degenerate, causing eye problems and ultimately permanent blindness. This condition is called central retinal degeneration (CRD). Cow's milk is a poor resource of taurine and adult cats are generally lactose intolerant. You can feed cats lactose-free milk and while it may be perfectly safe, is still not a substitute for meat. This contrasts with domesticated dogs, which commonly are fed a mixture of meat and vegetable products and have been adapted in some cases to a completely vegetarian diet.
Despite these proven and well known feline necessities, the majority of brand-name cat foods are primarily grain based, often containing large amounts of corn or rice and supplemented with meats and essential vitamins and these simply do not meet the nutritional requirements of cats but much less so a lactating or pregnant cat. In the case of the cat, which is an obligate carnivore and a hunter, the biologically appropriate diet is based largely upon animal derived foods. Basically, whatever nutrition can be derived from a whole fresh raw carcass – in its entirety – constitutes a biologically appropriate diet. Relative to size, domestic cats are very effective predators. They ambush and dispatch vertebrate prey using tactics similar to those of leopards and tigers by pouncing; they then deliver a lethal neck bite with their long canine teeth that severs the victim's spinal cord, or asphyxiate it by crushing the windpipe. The domestic cat can hunt and eat about one thousand species—many big cats will eat fewer than 100. Although, theoretically, big cats can kill most of these species as well, they often do not due to the relatively low nutritional content that smaller animals provide.

Cats have highly specialized teeth and a digestive tract suitable to the digestion of meat. The premolar and first molar together compose the carnassial pair on each side of the mouth, which efficiently functions to shear meat like a pair of scissors. While this is also present in canines, it is highly developed in felines. The cat's tongue has sharp spines, or papillae, designed to retain and rip flesh from a carcass. Cats also rely on bones as a major part of their diet for a variety of reasons including teeth cleaning and the myriad of benefits and nutritional attributes of bones as well as their psychological benefits. Cats are also known to munch on grass, leaves, shrubs and houseplants. They do not eat a lot in one sitting, but prefer to have it as a snack. Eating vegetation in this way may aid the cat's digestive system and can prevent hairballs.



Lynda

[temperateporcine]

I'm scared now, my cat just tasted me.

[magicma]

Feb 17, 2011 11:10:09 GMT temperateporcine said:

I'm scared now, my cat just tasted me.

at TP MM xx

[temperateporcine]

If you look at a cat and the cat looks back
with a look in its eye like it's about to attack,
pretend you're a farsome cat eating hound
bark like a dog the cat to confound,
this may not work if the feline's astute
so you may have to connect its backside with your boot,
I don't advocate kicking cats up the bum
unless you're cornered with nowhere to run.

[jerryrm]

I'm not barking at or kicking any cats. Running away, might be a better idea.

[magicma]

I think that cat would keep even TP quiet!! MM

[Chrissie]

So would Isaac


Don't worry too much TP cos cats can't digest Pork

Now come on Scylla what doe Lynda mean by "for Scylla when she gets her kitty....Which she WILL DO soon" ?

[Scylla]

Lynda's doing kind and wishful thinking And I did say I would like to rear a new kitty on raw meat.

That article is so informative and well written (IMO). Thank you Lynda!

Wow! rich coated, sexy Isaac

scylla

[jerryrm]

Feb 17, 2011 22:03:11 GMT Chrissie said:

So would Isaac


Don't worry too much TP cos cats can't digest Pork

Now come on Scylla what doe Lynda mean by "for Scylla when she gets her kitty....Which she WILL DO soon" ?

HI ISAAC !!!!

[Deleted]

Hello Jerry

Chrissie caught me from a bad angle in that pic, I'm a big softy really

[jerryrm]

Feb 17, 2011 22:55:54 GMT Isaac said:

Hello Jerry

Chrissie caught me from a bad angle in that pic, I'm a big softy really

[bluecow1980]

if I can help Ive been feeding RAW (not barf - cats do NOT need veggies) to my cats for 15yrs

[Scylla]

That makes it even greater to have you here, Blue

Love the avatar too!

scylla

[bluecow1980]

thanks Scylla, raw feeding is something I'm quite passionate about.... but even I will admit that there are some good commercial diets out there.... just not usually found in vets surgerys or supermarkets.

For a good wet (much prefer wet to dry... but thats a whole other thread) commercial try bozita, toplife (bozita in a different case essentially and available in asda), feline feyre black (again asda, morrisons or home bargains) or smilla.... those offer good value and good nutrition.

For dry, try orijen, acana, ziwi peak (ziwi isnt exactly a dry - its more like a jerky)... which at least have very high meat contents.

Raw feeding isnt for everyone, and with cats its essential to get it right every time.

I generally live by the mantra

"a well balanced raw diet will ALWAYS be better than commercial, but any commercial diet will ALWAYS be better than an unbalanced raw diet"

My final tip, and speaking from experience here, ensure your cats can and do accept and digest some sort of commercial food, and keep this in stock. I feed mine a commercial meal once or twice a week. I struggled badly when we had severe snows a couple of years ago and my supplier couldnt get through, I ran out of RAW, couldnt get to the supermarket and basically my cats had to live on crappy quality local shop brands. This meant about 3 weeks of bum gravy for me to deal with. My little boy is also in and out of hospital, and this means relying on friends and neighbours to feed and care for my cats. In these times they tend to stick to the commercial, as RAW is quite a daunting prospect even if I have it already bagged into portions.

So just incase you ever have a hospital stay, the weather causes chaos or some other emergency make sure you have a stock of good quality commercial available at home for you or a neighbour to feed.

as to the RAW, many feeders tend to go for the franken-prey approach. This means that you are essentially ensuring you get as near to a whole prey item in terms of content per meal. I find this method the easiest to follow and easiest to ensure overall balance.

sorry I'm rambling now lol!

[Scylla]

Ramble on!

Naturally I had to Google "franken prey" and came up with:

"With franken prey you use various parts of the animal to come up with food in the proportions found in prey animals. Generally 80% meat 10% edible bone, 10% organs half of which is liver.

"You use the same meats you would buy at the grocery store for yourself. Some people will use freezer-burned meats as well, they still hold nutritional value just don’t taste great to people."

And I wondered how I'd got thru this long life without familiarising myself with the term "bum gravy" - the visual equivalent of onomatopoeia?

Lovely stuff, Blue, it's great to have another contributor to our knowledge bank

scylla