Evaluate my proposed cat's diet

I am about to get a kitten and would like to float a proposed feeding schedule by you experienced cat people. I have considered 100% raw, but I am just useless at cooking for myself, let alone balancing a nutritional diet for cats from scratch. 100% wet I have heard causes mouth problems/bad breath. So here's what I'm thinking could work for me. I would feed a rotating mix of 3 kibble brands and one wet food brand, actual amount would of course change with age and be better calculated once I get the actual cat and weigh him/her, so this is just a rough draft.

Day 1 - 1 cup of Iams kitten (chicken-based)
Day 2 - 1 cup of Go! Trout and Salmon (fish-based)

Day 3 - 1 cup of Acana Grasslands (lamb-based)

Day 4 - 1 Fancy Feast (either Beef or Turkey) plus one smashed egg, eggshell and all.

To be fed once a day, at bedtime, after playing with the cat. I would put warm water on all of them to increase liquid intake.

Assuming it goes well and my cat accepts all the food, are there any problems you can see with this variety of diet? Is switching proteins daily bad, switching brands bad, going from wet to dry bad, etc?

All opinions appreciated. Thanks!

Switching proteins is a very good thing. Switching brands is important in helping to raise a kitty that isn't a picky eater. Variety is the spice of life! Rotating brands and varieties is very important, IMO. We don't like eating the same thing day-in, day-out.

As to the theory that dry food helps with dental health, unless it is special prescription food, that is a myth. 85% of cats develop dental disease by age 3 (according to Banfield State of Pet Health report), and the primary form of food fed in the U.S. is dry food. So if you are feeding dry for dental health, that's not a sound reason for including it in the diet. If it is convenient, if you need to include it to lower cost, great. But please do not be under the mistaken impression that it helps teeth and gums.

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/does-dry-food-actually-clean-your-cats-teeth


Here is information on the nutritional needs of cats, written by a vet: http://www.catinfo.org for your consideration. :rub:

I have never heard of wet food causing problems with mouths. Wet food is better if you can go that route but I do understand giving dry food along with the wet food.

Is there anyway you can go with one dry food?  I would think that would cause some tummy problems with so many different dry foods. Whenever you change dry foods its a slow process and should take a week to change to a different brand.

You can rotate canned food without much tummy problems.  It's a good idea to try different proteins and brands of the wet food but I really would stick with just one dry food.

Snugglecat said:

Is there anyway you can go with one dry food?  I would think that would cause some tummy problems with so many different dry foods. Whenever you change dry foods its a slow process and should take a week to change to a different brand.

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Before I fed raw, when I fed dry food, I used to rotate them. In fact, I often mixed several together. When they have already been introduced to it, it doesn't upset the tummy to rotate. It is when they are used to eating one brand of dry food that switching up becomes a problem. But if they are not "set" on a food, then it isn't a problem.

The idea that wet food causes dental problems is an idea that is/was largely purported by kibble companies and don't have scientific backing. In fact, diet alone doesn't have the huge impact on dental health the way other factors like genetics do. Some cats can eat wet food their entire lives and not have a single dental issue, while others may eat kibble their entire lives (maybe even dental diets) and require regular dentals at the vet's, and then there are cats who can eat raw with bone their entire life and need a regular dental at the vet's too.

If you want to do your best to monitor your cat's dental health, I would suggest picking up a cat toothbrush and toothpaste set so you can get them accustomed to you touching their mouth, looking at their teeth, and brushing regularly to prevent plaque build up. I would also wager that sufficient water intake is more important than dental health, both in the immediate and long run. You can clean teeth that have plaque build up, but it's a much more difficult process to rehydrate small, shriveled kidneys that are a potential result of chronic dehydration, particularly for the many many cats who don't go out of their way to drink enough water. They get used to it, and cat toothpastes make it a slightly more enjoyable experience for person and cat.

Kittens are small and expend more calories, so start out feeding more food and more often so they can continue replacing all the energy they burn off. Most of us with adult cats still feed two or more times a day. There are varying opinions regarding whether cats do better with a short fast between meals (so a lot of two meal feeders will separate meals by ~12 hours) or with multiple smaller meals throughout the day (with the help of automatic feeders, frequent visits home during the day). I personally feed two meals a day 12 hours apart.

Kibble is something that can be more difficult to switch between rapidly. More cats seem to get upset stomachs changing dry food often than they do wet food. I know Go! and Acana are both good brands to offer, and Fancy Feast is a good wet food too, but what I actually do with my kibble (which is fed as a "treat") is mix them if I know I want to feed more than one brand. Changing kibble brand or flavour often means doing a transition from one to another, so you add more and more of the new food gradually over the course of several days so the cat slowly eats more and more of the new food without an immediate change that could cause stomach upset.

A cat may adjust to multiple brands if it's a regular part of their life, but especially since this is a new kitten, you don't want to bombard it with changes every single day. Likewise, whatever it's eating before it comes home to you, offer it a gradual transition from its old food (which means going out and buying whatever it's being fed now) and slowly introducing the foods you want to feed it before really mixing it up.

I'm not sure about the egg, so I'll have to let others comment on that.

wermy said:

 
I am about to get a kitten and would like to float a proposed feeding schedule by you experienced cat people. I have considered 100% raw, but I am just useless at cooking for myself, let alone balancing a nutritional diet for cats from scratch.

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There are balanced commerical brands of raw pet foods you can buy Nature's Variety Instinct is one and you can find it at Petco and Pet Supplies Plus and independent pet stores. Other brands are Rad Cat and Primal, among others.

You can also use a pre-mix with a chub of raw meat from the pet store or raw pet food supplier or meat that you grind yoursself.

There are options for feeding raw food without having to balance stuff You can check out the Raw and Home Cooked forum for more info.

Originally Posted by wermy  

100% wet I have heard causes mouth problems/bad breath.

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Poor dental hygiene causes bad breath and mouth problems. It doesn't matter what type of food you feed. If you don't take care of the cat's teeth with regular dental cleanings and some kind of home care, the breath is going to smell bad and dental problems like gingivtis may occur.

Don't add water to dry food, especially not a bowlful of food htat is going to sit out for hours. Bacteria fom the cat's saliva will obivously get on the food and bowl and the water encourage the bacteria to grow. Plus the food will go moldy pretty quickly.

Switching proteins is fine but constantly switching brands may cause a cat to become picky over time and may upset some sensitive tummies.

Wow thank you for all the quick replies!

I agree about it not being ideal to keep changing foods straight off the bat. What I was thinking of doing was getting a bagful of whatever food the kitten is currently on, and feeding it every day while adding in a little of the kibble I want him/her to eventually be on. So like:

Day 1: Current food + 1 tablespoon of Iams
Day 2: Current food + 1 tablespoon of Go!

Day 3: Current food + 1 tablespoon of Acana

Day 4: Current food plus 1/3 can of FF

and so on, and then moving up to 2 tablespoons and then 3 over a long period until they are eating 100% of what I planned.

There are balanced commerical brands of raw pet foods you can buy 

Nature's Variety Instinct  is one and you can find it at Petco and Pet Supplies Plus and independent pet stores. Other brands are Rad Cat  and Primal, among others.

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I live in New Zealand, we don't have that stuff here. There are raw food suppliers for pets but you would have to choose the mix yourself, and they don't have supplements like taurine. 

Thanks for letting me know about letting food sit out for the a day, is it ok to put water in the dry food if I do smaller feeding times thrice a day?

As to the egg, one large egg is probably too much for a kitty. I feed my adult cats 1/4 egg yolk every-other-day basically. I mix it into ground raw food, your equivalent would be mixing it into some canned food. But including the shell is MUCH too much calcium. Eggshell is 97% calcium carbonate, and many use it as the source of calcium in a homemade diet. But it only takes 1/2 a teaspoon of finely ground eggshell to balance an entire pound of meat, and the eggshell from one large egg makes about a teaspoon of finely ground powder.

1) Too much calcium is constipating - you will likely have one very miserable incredibly constipated kitten on your hands if you include a smashed egg with the entire shell in his/her diet.

2) Calcium works in concert with phosphorus. Meat and egg yolk are sources of phosphorus to be balanced with calcium. One large egg yolk only needs about 1/32nd teaspoon of finely ground eggshell powder to balance it.

Calcium is something where "more" is most definitely not better.

(I made a reply post but it's got to be approved by moderators?)  

Anyway in the meantime: Good to know about the egg! I think I was still half thinking about raw food mixing when I realised there isn't any bone in FF and thought some eggshell might add the necessary calcium, with a dollop of egg protein for good measure. Should I omit the egg entirely then? Or feed a just small bit of eggshell and a bit of yolk?

Most commercial foods do not use bone as the source of calcium, they use calcium carbonate. ANY food labeled "balanced and complete" will already be properly balanced with calcium, and does NOT need any added.

I think egg yolk is a VERY healthy addition to any cat's diet. But do it in moderation. The white will increase protein, but not provide much else - not really necessary when feeding an appropriate high protein diet. It can be important when making homemade cat food, but that's different.

Some cats will eat an entire egg yolk. If your kitty is one of those, then I'd feed one a week. I personally prefer to space it out - as you saw, I feed 1/4 yolk every-other-day. This adds healthy fats, vitamin D, choline - so many things for long term and immune system health. :heart2: It'll also help prevent hairballs down the road.

But as a small part of the diet, you don't need to worry about balancing the yolk itself with anything.

I would give some canned food daily---maybe 1/2 cup dry food and a can of Fancy Feast? Cats should have 3 meals a day so if you made 1 or 2 meals canned food that would be good. I think rotating dry foods is a good idea but just get some canned food in daily instead of only every 4 days.