Feeding Your Cat The Right Food
What should you feed your cat to make sure he or she will have the necessary nutrition? What is the ideal mix of food to help your cat live to the limit of it's life span?
To
answer these questions, one should look at the diet of a feline in it's
natural habitat. In the wild, a cat eats almost exclusively animal tissue.
However, they would normally eat the entire body of the animal, including
it's stomach contents, which has many nutrients that are simply lacking
in an animals muscle tissue.
Another question some cat owners have is: Is fresh meat the best possible
food for cats? Not necessarily. Fresh meat will not provide a balanced
diet for a cat, as they are extremely protein dense while being very low
in vital nutrients such as calcium.
Conversely,
some cat owners have asked, "Is it alright to feed my cat a completely
vegetarian diet?" The answer to that question is a clear cut no.
Cats cannot produce the nutrients it needs from an exclusively vegetarian
diet in the same way that humans can.
Being a very specialized hunter, it has actually lost that ability during
the course of it's evolution. Certain skin problems are sometimes the
result of a deficiency in certain essential fatty acids which can be found
in animal flesh alone. Another problem is that a deficiency of the amino
acid taurine, a major building block for proteins of the body, which can
cause both blindness and heart failure. Cats are simply born carnivores.
Is
it o.k. to give a cat only dry food? According to petshub, the answer
is yes, providing that you ensure that fresh water is available at all
times.
Dry food is generally more convenient, hygienic, and affordable than canned
or fresh food. It also exercises the teeth and reduces the buildup of
tartar, which can grow into a severe problem in cats that are fed a soft
and mushy diet.
A.M Wilmont is a writer and researcher. For more information you can visit http://www.premium-cat-food.com/