Top 5 Tips You Must Consider To Feed Your Cat

It has been said by Asst Professor of Veterinary Medicine of University Minnesota that cats are incredibly opinionated of their food preferences for the first year. Feeding your furry feline friend should be the most critical and timely activities of your daily routine. That ensures a longer life for your pet. If you are providing nutritious foods to your cats, you not only get an active friend, you save a lot of money on any subsequent health issues. Their foods include dry, wet and semi-dry, semi-moist, and canned. The distinguishing features are protein level, density, calorie, and semi-digestibility.

1: How Often?

Whether you feed your cat twice a day, four times, or Ad-lb, you are to consider what works best for you and your furry friend. However, age is the deciding factor. For instance, kittens need small meals, maybe four times a day. You may continue this routine throughout adulthood or may change if the circumstances require. While you can feed them in several ways, the best option will be to accommodate individual preferences. You may consider the following schedules.

• Twice a day: Breakfast and dinner matches your family routine
• Several times to accommodate their natural routine.
• Ad-lib; You can feed the dry foods any time your cat wants.

2: Potion Control

Cats become overweight if you don’t control the potion. When you feed pet foods bought over the counter, you can find a guideline indicating the weight of your cat and the quantity of feed needed during the day. You can take its weight at the beginning of the day and apportion the prescribed quantity of feed throughout the day. The feeding guideline is based on a specific scientific equation. Therefore, you will have to consider facts such as levels of his activities, and if your cat is neutered. Another innovative way of feeding is “feeding the hunting mind.” You may consider keeping dry food dispensing toys. Scatter feeding is another playful method of feeding. Scatter a few pieces of food at a time and make him find them. Keep the water bowl away.

3: Balanced Food

As cats are hungry, they need more than a dozen nutrients that may include minerals, fatty acids, vitamins, and amino acids. Therefore, you should know how to read the label on the cat food and adopt the same in practice. Irrespective of the number of ingredients mentioned on the label, the most important are nutrients that contain protein and fat.

Assistant Professor Churchill says the carbohydrates and grains are bad. But carbohydrates hold the protein and fat and thus the overall feed becomes comparatively cheaper. By checking from a statement of the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Official), you can know if it is complete and balanced. In that case, you don’t need to feed your kitty extra vitamins or supplements. The following are the ingredients of nutrients and calories included in the general commercial cat feeds:

• Poultry and its byproducts
• Meat and its byproducts
• Fish meal
• Grain and its byproducts
• Fiber sources
• Dairy products
• Mineral and vitamin supplement

4: Choosing a Food

The Feline Nutrition Expert (FNE) has established the standard minimum nutritional requirements of cats. The sub-committee of the AAFCO prescribes the same standard to be adopted by manufacturers. The manufacturers must carry the “AAFCO statement” on the product packages. The nutritional requirements of cats change with their ages. A kitten becomes an adult and pregnant if female and finally to the lactation stage. The nutritional claim on the statement must indicate the quantitative correlation of nutritional value with successive feline stages.

Before choosing the cat food, you must read about the ingredients that are usually printed in decreasing proportional weight. If meat byproducts or seafood tops the list, it indicates the intent of providing essential amino acids and fatty acids. If you are considering if your cat can eat shrimp, you can occasionally serve without cooking with any seasoning oil or fat. After getting assured that the feed is complete and balanced, you need to consider the preference of your cat. Your cat may like canned food or dry food or the combination of both.

5: Treats

Treats are not nutritionally complete and balanced. But, feeding your cat with treat occasionally is not harmful. As a general rule of thumb, take care to see that the extent of treats does not exceed 10 to 15 percent of the daily calorie intake of your cat. If you are considering if your cat can eat potatoes, you can add two pieces of sweet potatoes or chips to the treat. But, never add raw meat to cat food or treats because it is the potential courier of toxoplasmosis and other infectious diseases.

Take care to see that your cat does not consume human canned fish lest it should develop neurological disorders. Avoid feeding milk to your cat as some cats are intolerant to lactose and develop gastrointestinal problems.

Just as you give so many considerations while you take your food, you need to pay attention to so many factors while feeding your cat. However, the above top 5 tips will keep you free from eventualities that might arise due to not feeding complete and balanced food to your cat.

About the author:

Hey I’m Linda Butts, the girl behind Pawsome Talk. With my pawsometalk.com I hope to share ideas and techniques from my personal experiences of what I have done with my pet research and what I love about pets and their lives.