I know fish is bad for cats - does Pure Bites freeze dried shrimp count?

I don't know why I didn't make this connection earlier, but I don't feed my 6 month male kitten fish based foods because of the increased risk of UTI problems, but we do feed him 3-4 freeze dried shrimp from pure bites every day as treats and shrimp is a seafood (took my brain this long to realize it!). Does this have the same problems as fish and fish based foods? They are pretty tiny pieces and it's pure shrimp with nothing in it. I'm worried cuz I've been feeding it to him daily for almost 2 months!

I wouldn't worry too much about it if the treats are the only source of fish, since that's a very small part of the diet, even if you do give him a few pieces daily - my cats love all the PureBites flavors - really, every single flavor! - maybe next time try getting your cat the chicken or turkey PureBites - I can pretty much guarantee he will still love it    I don't feed fishy food flavors either, but I do use bonito flakes as a topper on wet food that they aren't too keen on eating - I think as a treat or topper it's OK since it's a small amount so I'm sure it doesn't do any "damage" like an actual fish-based diet would.   But since your guys likes PureBites anyway, try one of the non-fish flavors and I'm sure he will still love it just as much!

What about fish based foods increases a cat's risk for UTIs? I've not heard that before, just curious! 

I thought the main concern with fish was the heavy metals they contain. And, of course, if they are allergic to it. For this reason, my vet said it was totally fine to feed fish that are really low on the food chain (such as sardines, shrimp) but to avoid/ feed in moderation fish that are higher in the food chain such as tuna and salmon. Also, she mentioned that if you are gong to feed some fish, it must be from a reputable brand such as Weruva and Tiki Cat or from a high quality fish market where you know the source. Obviously, most "ocean fish" contained in cheap brands would be something to stay away from. However, I have no problem feeding the Tikicat "sardine cutlets" on occasion. If I fed them every day, Ghibli would become a sardine snob and refuse any other type of food I offer 

The occasional fish treat or canned food is fine It's feeding nothing but fish / seafood for every single meal that can be a problem, probaby more of a problem with a dry food only diet that has fish as one the first few ignredients. You can't exactly pick the fish out of hard kibble  It's the high phosphorus content of seafood that can contribute to the formation of urinary crystals. Phosphorus can be hard on the kidneys to filter out, too. From Catinfo.org:

When considering water versus phosphorus content, as noted above, the water issue is the most important but if you are really worried about crystals (even though they are not an abnormal finding in cat urine as discussed below), pick a diet that is low in phosphorous.

Phosphorus is a general indicator of the calcium and magnesium load of the diet.  If a diet is low in phosphorus, chances are it is also fairly low in calcium and magnesium since all of those minerals are high in bone material and if a diet is low in phosphorus, it is probably low in bone matter.

Note that fish tends to be high in phosphorus because fish comes with its own bones so stay away from fish.

jolie0216 said:

 
I wouldn't worry too much about it if the treats are the only source of fish, since that's a very small part of the diet, even if you do give him a few pieces daily - my cats love all the PureBites flavors - really, every single flavor! - maybe next time try getting your cat the chicken or turkey PureBites - I can pretty much guarantee he will still love it 

  I don't feed fishy food flavors either, but I do use bonito flakes as a topper on wet food that they aren't too keen on eating - I think as a treat or topper it's OK since it's a small amount so I'm sure it doesn't do any "damage" like an actual fish-based diet would.   But since your guys likes PureBites anyway, try one of the non-fish flavors and I'm sure he will still love it just as much!

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We tried the chicken and he didn't like it as much. It also crumbles in the bag and I don't know what to do with the wasted 'powdered' bits. Are the salmon ones any good? 

WafflesNomNom said:

 
We tried the chicken and he didn't like it as much. It also crumbles in the bag and I don't know what to do with the wasted 'powdered' bits. Are the salmon ones any good? 

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Don't throw away the powder / finely crushed up bits at the bottom of the bag- sprinkeld on top of food to make it extra yummy Lots of people buy the PureBites for dogs since it's a bigger sized bag for just a few dollars more. The pieces are bigger but you can easily break them up so you get at least twice the amount of treats than a cat sized bag 

PureBites aren't the only brands of freeze dried treats out there There are lots of them - Whole Life, Halo Liv A Littles, Real Food Toppers, Stella and Chewy's Kisses, Orijen, Bravo, etc. You can try different ones to see what your cat likes. Sometimes a meat of one brand is yummier than the same meat of another brand. Cats can be picky

LTS3 said:

 
Don't throw away the powder / finely crushed up bits at the bottom of the bag- sprinkeld on top of food to make it extra yummy

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I agree! It's the most useful part: I use the chicken Pure Bite dust to get the cats to eat leftovers they don't really want.

Another brand I recently tried out on the cats is Good Lovin' freeze-dried chicken heart treats that I bought at Petco. They love them!

LTS3 said:

 
Don't throw away the powder / finely crushed up bits at the bottom of the bag- sprinkeld on top of food to make it extra yummy

Lots of people buy the PureBites for dogs since it's a bigger sized bag for just a few dollars more. The pieces are bigger but you can easily break them up so you get at least twice the amount of treats than a cat sized bag 

PureBites aren't the only brands of freeze dried treats out there

There are lots of them - Whole Life, Halo Liv A Littles, Real Food Toppers, Stella and Chewy's Kisses, Orijen, Bravo, etc. You can try different ones to see what your cat likes. Sometimes a meat of one brand is yummier than the same meat of another brand. Cats can be picky

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Where are you guys getting all these brands!!! At the Petsmart here in Canada, there's only PureBites and another brand that only caries chicken and ocean white fish. Every other treat isn't pure meat but the kibble kind. 

WafflesNomNom said:

 
Where are you guys getting all these brands!!! At the Petsmart here in Canada, there's only PureBites and another brand that only caries chicken and ocean white fish. Every other treat isn't pure meat but the kibble kind. 

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You could try smaller mom/pop shop pet stores.

I'm in Ontario and we have a couple smaller shops, in addition to the regular PetSmart and Pet Valu  that carry a greater selection of dehydrated treats.

You just have to poke around on the internet and see what's close to you.

WafflesNomNom said:

 
Where are you guys getting all these brands!!! At the Petsmart here in Canada, there's only PureBites and another brand that only caries chicken and ocean white fish. Every other treat isn't pure meat but the kibble kind. 

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Check out the local indepdent pet stores You'll find lots of healthy premium brands of food and treats there Also , look in the dog treat aisle. Sometimes there are suitable treats for cats there. Just make sure it is 100% freeze dried meat or seafood with nothing else. The pieces maybe larger but just break them up into cat sized pieces.

You can check out the company web site for a Canadian store or, if there's an option, buy directly from the company:

http://www.wholelifepet.com/whole_life_pet_store_locator.php

http://halopets.com/where-to-buy/

http://www.completenaturalnutrition.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=13 (Real Food Toppers)

https://www.stellaandchewys.com/where-to-buy/

http://www.orijen.ca/where-to-buy/

http://www.bravopetfoods.com/findus.html

I forgot about Vital Essentials treats. http://www.vitalessentialsraw.com/#!find-your-store/c1cp9

Anything can be bought online these days. Try Chewy.com and Amazon Canada.

LTS3 said:

The occasional fish treat or canned food is fine :nod: It's feeding nothing but fish / seafood for every single meal that can be a problem, probaby more of a problem with a dry food only diet that has fish as one the first few ignredients. You can't exactly pick the fish out of hard kibble  It's the high phosphorus content of seafood that can contribute to the formation of urinary crystals. Phosphorus can be hard on the kidneys to filter out, too. From Catinfo.org:


When considering water versus phosphorus content, as noted above, the water issue is the most important but if you are really worried about crystals (even though they are not an abnormal finding in cat urine as discussed below), pick a diet that is low in phosphorous.



Phosphorus is a general indicator of the calcium and magnesium load of the diet.  If a diet is low in phosphorus, chances are it is also fairly low in calcium and magnesium since all of those minerals are high in bone material and if a diet is low in phosphorus, it is probably low in bone matter.



Note that fish tends to be high in phosphorus because fish comes with its own bones so stay away from fish.

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LTS3 , what about commercial frozen raw which has ground bone? If one "issue" leading to high phosphorus is bone material, would frozen raw with ground bone cause problems if the food is used long-term? (I speak of Stella and Chewy's Absolutely Rabbit, which my cat likes a lot... it has rabbit with ground bone.)

PushPurrCatPaws said:

@LTS3, what about commercial frozen raw which has ground bone? If one "issue" leading to high phosphorus is bone material, would frozen raw with ground bone cause problems if the food is used long-term? (I speak of Stella and Chewy's Absolutely Rabbit, which my cat likes a lot... it has rabbit with ground bone.)

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I wonder about feeding high-phosphorus foods to young, healthy cats, too. Our vet didn't seem too worried when I asked her about it--she's more concerned that young cats get foods rich in meat-based protein and that often brings phosphorous, though I know she's mentioned that she doesn't like the higher phosphorous levels in certain foods like Fancy Feast. I asked Dr. Kris, the vet who answered questions about kidney disease on TCS a year or two ago, about this, too, and I don't remember his exact response but recall him saying there haven't been studies. I guess I take an "everything in moderation" approach to phosphorous.

If you're concerned about phosphorous and feed a lot of Stella & Chewy's, I might suggest contacting them to get phosphorous numbers to crunch. I did that a couple years ago, for the poultry foods, and the phosphorous number came out so high (around 5% dry matter, which is painfully high!) that I wonder if--even suspect--it was a mistake. I double- and triple-checked my math and made triply sure the person on the other end of the phone and I were understanding each other correctly. Even so, I wonder if something was amiss because she said the numbers were the same for all the poultry foods, frozen and freeze-dried and that seemed implausible to me. The upshot is that we don't feed a lot of S&C food. The cats seem to like it more as a topper than as a meal anyway so it all works out fine.

Feeding cats can be so complex!

For kittens, I know they need higher phosphorus because their bones are growing. But I've had the same question regarding young adult cats that are no longer growing. If I had to give a number, I'll say 2 years and older. I just lost my boy Lucky in November to acute on chronic kidney disease and now my Sara has CKD, so I've been wanting to find a way to prevent it as much as possible. I'm not restricted potassium right now for my younger cats, but what about my non-CKD senior kitty? She's 17 lbs and they say high-protein diets are better for cats that need to lose weight. But then there's the risk of causing her other issues.

It's like this maddening balancing act, I swear.

Not sure where the "fish is bad" ideas came from. My vet says fish is okay as long as it's not fed daily. I feed salmon once a week or so and my cats love it. Even tuna is fine if it's only used now & then.

I mostly feed chicken, duck, turkey and rabbit, but add salmon in the rotation once a week or so. I'm lucky in that my cats eat up everything. I also try to use the better foods, Nature's Variety, Hound & Gatos, Primal, & Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw, etc.

Red Dog said:

Not sure where the "fish is bad" ideas came from. My vet says fish is okay as long as it's not fed daily. I feed salmon once a week or so and my cats love it. Even tuna is fine if it's only used now & then.

I mostly feed chicken, duck, turkey and rabbit, but add salmon in the rotation once a week or so. I'm lucky in that my cats eat up everything. I also try to use the better foods, Nature's Variety, Hound & Gatos, Primal, & Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw, etc.

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Because it's been linked to all sorts of issues including hyperthyroidism. No one is saying it's bad to feed fish in moderation, in fact it's perfectly fine to feed it as a treat if you want, but that it's best to avoid feeding fish based foods as the primary protein source. 

I agree that feeding fish daily is not a good practice based on all the info I've been able to gather (including fish/shrimp based treats).

This site has a lot of good information that I was unaware of a couple months ago.

My point was its okay to feed fish every now & then, thanks.

Red Dog said:

I agree that feeding fish daily is not a good practice based on all the info I've been able to gather (including fish/shrimp based treats).

This site has a lot of good information that I was unaware of a couple months ago.

My point was its okay to feed fish every now & then, thanks.

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I feed fish to my guys a few times a week excluding treats. I don't think it's a big deal at all. I wish I would have known the dangers of feeding fish based food exclusively sooner, but live and learn. This site has a wealth of information, which is pretty awesome