Feline Nutrition

Lifestage Nutrition From Kitten To Senior Cat

In 2021 the AAFP (American Association of Feline Practionerns) has published new guidelines and a new feline life stages chart.

The Four Life Stages of a Cat

1.Kittens (Birth up to 1 year)

Kittens have a very high play drive. Now is the best time for gradual positive introductions to people and other pets. It is also the right time for your cat to become comfortable with nail trims, tooth and coat brushing, their cat carrier, and transportation to the veterinary practice.

2. Young Adult (1 year – 6 years)

Inter-cat aggression may develop at this stage of life along with sexual maturity. Be sure to use appropriate play with your cat.

3. Mature Adult (7 – 10 years)

Play activity begins to decrease and your cat becomes more likely to gain weight. Many people assume their cat is young and healthy, but a lot can change in just one cat year which equals four human years. Your cat will benefit from regular checkups to keep her/him healthy and prevent disease or illnesses.

4. Senior (over 10 years)

The human equivalent at the beginning of this life stage is about 60 years. Senior cats may exhibit behavioral changes in vocalization, litter box usage or not going up and down stairs as easy. Senior cats should visit the veterinarian a minimum of every six months since much could happen in a year and your veterinarian can catch things early on before they are more advanced or costly to treat.

LINK to CHART: https://catfriendly.com/life-stages/

 Nutrition Sets The Foundation

Nutrition sets the stage for a thriving pregnancy. Maintaining nutrition and bodyweight before, during, and after pregnancy is essential to the wellness of the queen and her offspring. Knowing when to increase caloric offerings, and when to cut down can be challenging when it comes to pet care.

Gestation and lactation periods require increased needs for calories, vitamins, and minerals. Malnourishment caused by inadequate nutrient consumption can lead to miscarriages, or health problems of the queen and/or kittens.

Kittens need more suitable nutrients to support a healthy growth. Just imaging all that growth within a couple of weeks. Depending on the age of your kitten, caloric intake changes every week. With appropriate nutrition you can set a healthy stage for the years to come with your new family member.

The average life span of an indoor cat is 15 years. When we see our beloved cat age daily, we sometimes don’t recognize the small changes in her mobility or loss of eyesight or hearing.

The aging process can affect their quality of life. Loss of sight, hearing and smell will change their eating habits. Mobility issues will require dietary changes. Many older cats have mobility issues, which leads to being less active and a lower energy requirement.

If we do not recognize these signs in time we tend to overfeed. And obesity is the number one risk factor for other diseases.  Obesity in cats has been linked to various health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, kidney disease, and reduced life expectancy. Obesity in cats can cause a range of health problems due to metabolic derangements, including insulin resistance, inflammation, and abnormal appetite control.

Older cats often seem to lean to one, or the other side. Wasting away or being overweight. Every cat, and every household situation is different. We want to make sure you can enjoy the golden years with your aging cat.

 Choosing The Right Diet For Your Cat

Feeding cats the right diet is controversial. The wild ancestors of domestic cats certainly had no commercial food available, but does that mean our cats should eat raw foods only?

Let’s look at the pros and cons of various cat food diets so you can make an informed decision when choosing a healthy food for your cat.

What Is Raw Cat Food?

Raw cat food is just that—unprocessed food made from raw ingredients. Unfortunately, the term “raw” has no clear legal definition. And this is where the confusion for customers starts.

Raw cat foods come in many different stages of processing and forms. Some pet parents prepare raw foods for their cats at home. Others choose commercially available raw cat food diets, which are usually sold as “raw frozen” or “raw freeze-dried” formulas.

Other options are premixes of vegetables, vitamins, and minerals that you add raw meat to, or there are ready-made, raw pet diets that can be purchased from local butchers. Which option is best?

Making your cat’s food at home gives you the most control over what they eat, but it isn’t as easy as you might think. Meat alone is not enough!

Cats need the correct balance of amino acids, fats, vitamins, and minerals to thrive. These nutrients are best provided by a combination of meat, internal organs, vitamin and mineral supplements, and other ingredients eaten in just the right amounts and proportions.

To make matters worse, numerous studies have shown that it’s virtually impossible to find nutritionally complete and balanced recipes for homemade pet foods online or in print. Why is that?

Recipes or formulations are every company’s best kept secret. To be able to formulate a complete and balanced diet one needs nutritional information about all the ingredients that go into a diet. This requires expensive lab testing. And not every “ground beef” is the same. There is 90% lean, 80% lean, 75% lean. And you see where I am going with this.

We not only need in dept information about all the ingredients, we need a formulation software or tool to house all the information. Unless you want to spend the time and do the math’s all by yourself.

If you start with a good recipe, like one designed by a companion animal nutritionist to meet your cat’s particular needs and get good information on how to prepare it can be easy to prepare your own cat food. And it is way less expensive than any commercial diet.

If you decide to feed a commercially prepared raw cat foods make sure that you can find an AAFCO statement of nutritional adequacy on the label of any cat food you might purchase.

How raw/homemade cat food compares to commercial diets?

Nutritionally inadequate cat foods are widely available, and this is true for both processed cat food (canned, dry, etc.) and raw cat food diets.

Here are some factors to consider and how different diets stack up.

Ingredients

If you decide to prepare your own cat food, you will be in control of what goes into this food. The quality of ingredients in commercial cat food is a major concern for many. And also, the secrecy and all the recalls that are surrounding this industry. Almost every manufacturer had a recall in the last decade. Trust was lost, and many pet parents are very concerned.

Moisture Content

Cats are meant to get most of their water directly from their food. While dry cat foods are very low in water, canned cat foods can provide just as much, if not more water in comparison to a raw cat food diet.

Raw versus cooked

Both raw and cooked food can be made from ingredients of varying quality. Raw isn’t synonymous with “high quality” or “high digestibility.”

In fact, cooking improves the nutritional value of certain foods. For example, many types of raw seafood contain thiaminase, an enzyme that breaks down thiamine. Cats who eat a diet of mainly raw seafood are at risk for thiamine deficiency, which can lead to poor appetite, seizures, and death. Cooking breaks down thiaminase, making these varieties of seafood safe for cats.

Nutritional Value

No scientific study has ever shown that raw cat food diets provide better nutrition than do other types of cat food.

Of course, a high-quality raw diet would be nutritionally superior to a low-quality processed food, but you could achieve similar benefits by switching to a high-quality canned cat food, for example.

Safety Considerations for Raw Cat Food Diets

The risk of food born pathogens is greatest for people and cats who are very young, very old or immunocompromised.

Safe handling practices apply to all food products, for humans and for cats. Both, your dry or raw cat food can be contaminated with salmonella. If you are aware of the risks you should handle them appropriately. The human factor in handling the risk is what we rarely talk about.

Studies reveal that commercially prepared raw pet foods suffer from increased levels of contamination with potential pathogens like Salmonella, Listeria, and E. Coli in comparison to “regular” pet foods.

On the other hand if you don’t clean or change your cat’s dry food bowl on a regular basis changes may be the same that you or someone else in your household falls ill.

People living with a cat who eat raw foods can also be exposed to these pathogens from handling contaminated foods or coming into contact with pathogens in the cat’s feces.

Clinical Nutrition For Cats

Many veterinarians are convinced that a prescription diet is the only way to manage feline diseases. And will be advocating strongly against raw or homecooked diets. They fear the raw/homecooked diet may not be complete and balanced. Or the cat owners could contaminate their home/kitchen/family members with salmonella or other pathogenic microbes.

These concerns are very valid and should be taken seriously when producing your own homemade diet.

Some pet food products are formulated as a complete diet intended to meet an animal’s nutritional needs and to treat or prevent a specific disease, such as kidney disease or urinary tract diseases. A lot of research has gone into these diets, therefore the high price in many cases.

Some prescription diets (the term “prescription” is trademarked) are simply to prevent cats from overeating, and the owners from overfeeding.

In many cases it is easier to switch your cat to a wet food diet instead of feeding a dry weight management diet to initiate weight loss. Many clients that switched to a homemade wet diet instead of feeding a hydrolyzed diet have seen great success in cases of food intolerances or allergies.  

Services

This is how the 5-step process looks:

1. Book an appointment online and be prepared to fill out the intake form.

2. Make sure your zoom account is working ahead of time. Please submit any addition information at least 24 hours before the consult. If we are meeting in person, please make sure you send me your address ahead of time.

3. During the personal or virtual meeting, I would like you to give me a brief description of your situation. We will then tour of your home to get a better understanding of your cat’s environment.

4. We will then discuss a detailed, customized plan with step-by-step instructions how to help resolve the issue(s). Pls take your own notes during this conversation. I will follow up with a written outline of our discussion and my recommendations within 2 business days.

5. Depending on the type of consultation you booked we will have a 30 minute follow up call within 14 days to discuss any questions, concerns, or next steps.  You can send follow up questions for up to 45 days after this consultation.