Nutrition And Supplements For Your Cat
May 1st, 2008What should you be feeding your cat?
You need to consider what cats will need in the wild to determine the best food sources for them. In the wild, cats will eat mice and birds, and drink water. Obviously this is a diet high in protein and it is essential that your cat gets sufficient protein to maintain a good healthy diet.
What many people don’t realize is that cats can get diabetes from having a diet that is too high in carbohydrates. By constantly feeding your cat carbohydrates it can become insulin resistant and unable to keep its blood glucose levels at a suitable level. Some signs that your cat is becoming diabetic include drinking a lot of water and eating considerably more than they usually do. You might also notice a sign of weakness in the back legs as they tend to wobble a bit when walking.
The only way to be sure whether your cat is developing diabetes is to give it a blood test.
This is the best way to determine whether the cat has diabetes or not. Although you can do a urine analysis to check blood glucose levels, but this is not as accurate. Unlike humans and other animals it is possible for cats that have diabetes to go into remission provided their diet has been changed with an elimination of high carbohydrate foods. More protein will help to stabilize the blood glucose levels.
Dry biscuits are particularly bad for cats as they are generally very high in carbohydrates and even though your cat might love eating them, because of the additives that have been put into these dry foods, it certainly won’t do their health a lot of good. The reason why these dry biscuits are so popular is because of the convenience and the fact that cats are very fussy eaters. Most cats like dry biscuits except possibly those that have been found straying in the wild.
Provided you are giving your cat a balanced diet there should be no need to give it additional amounts of supplements. In fact by adding additional vitamins and minerals to your cat’s diet you could actually be upsetting the natural balance of the nutrition and doing more harm than good.
Many of the commercial cat foods are nutritionally complete and balanced and no additional supplements will need to be added if you are feeding your cat these types of foods. If you are feeding your cat on a raw food diet that represents the types of foods that it would eat in the wild then it should be nutritionally balanced with sufficient protein and the essential vitamins and minerals that it needs to remain healthy.
The only time where you might need to give your cat additional vitamin supplements is during times of illness, or where there are other factors involved such as loss of body fluids or diarrhea. Even in these circumstances it is wise to check with your vet first to ensure that these additional supplements will not cause any other problems.
If you feel that the nutrition of your cat is not up to par then by all means you will need to consider supplementing its diet. Be sure that you have gotten good advice on the matter. There are a lot of good cat vitamin and mineral supplements on the market and they can help improve your cat’s health particularly as your cat ages but it is best to give these to your pet based on sound advice from a good vet.
It is well worth discussing with your vet any changes that need to be made to your cat’s diet during the various stages of its life. Nutritional needs tend to change somewhat as the cat ages and there are some good commercial products that help with fur balls and other problems that specific breeds of cats may have. Cats that are well cared for will live a lot longer than what could be expected in the wild and for that reason, as with people, aged cats can require additional supplementation.