Natural & dry food mix

Hello everyone,

Please consult me on the following issue:

I have a neutered Thai male, 1 y.o., his name is Jack. His daily nutrition consists of meat (beef, turkey and chicken fillet, I usually put meat to the boiling water for 5 secs) every evening and canned food (Schesir) mixed with salad greens or rice every morning. Also I give my cat vitamins like Gimcat Multi or Beaphar's Renaletten on daily basis.

I want to add Acana or Orijen dry food to this mix sometimes (maybe 1-2 times in a week) especially when I leave my home for more than 15 hrs. Is it OK?

Thank you in advance for your replies!

Welcome to the Cat Site, Elurian!

The answer to your question about adding the dry food is that yes, it's fine, though I'd be careful with that: some cats with sensitive digestive systems don't react well to changes in dry food so there may be some who have difficulty being fed dry food only once or twice a week rather than a little bit each day. I don't feed any dry food, though, so will leave that question for someone more knowledgeable!

I'm more concerned about the mix of meats and wet food that you're feeding Jack. Have you consulted with a vet to be sure the vitamins/supplements he's getting make the meat into a complete meal with all the nutrients Jack needs? The GimCat has taurine, which is super-important, but balancing vitamins and minerals can get complex and tricky without a recipe or a comprehensive supplement, something that your two supplements don't seem to claim to be. It's great to feed raw, partially cooked, or cooked meat to a cat but the meat needs to be properly supplemented to avoid malnutrition; salad greens and rice aren't going to help much in balancing his diet, and the rice adds "filler" carbohydrates that Jack just doesn't need. It's excellent that you're feeding three kinds of meat and it sounds like the Schesir food is complete, so that's good! Foods that aren't complete should be kept to less than 10% of a cat's diet.

Do you have a picture of Jack that you could post?  

Thank you for your reply! The rice is a rare addition to Jack's menu and its share is quite small (less than even 3% of his daily food). I consulted with a vet regarding Renaletten after neutering Jack, I was told that it is the best supplement to prevent renal problems in neutered cats. As for Gimcat Multi, I was advised to give it by the owner of the cattery. What vitamins would you recommend to add?

As for dry food, it will be added 1-2 times in a week instead of breakfast or dinner, when I am out for a whole day, so it will be about 50% of the ratio that day, but less than 10% of a weekly food.

Jack is such a handsome cat, thank you for posting the pictures! He's very sleek!

I'll leave the dry food questions for someone else to answer since I just don't know how cats respond to that sort of change.

As for the supplements, it sounds like you got recommendations for people you can trust but the big question is whether or not that combination would work to give Jack complete nutrition in combination with the meat you're feeding. Your vet may be able to help you with that question.

I use a premixed supplement when I make cat food so I can avoid the complicated matter of balancing a food with the right amounts of all the right nutrients, including vitamins and minerals. I use EZcomplete from Food Fur Life, which has these ingredients, things I would never, ever want to try to replicate at home: http://www.foodfurlife.com/the-ingredients-in-ezcomplete.html

I'd suggest a few things to get far better advice than what I can give:

-There's a thread on the site with links to lots and lots of sites and articles with information about raw feeding. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264154/raw-feeding-resources

-Two good pieces to start with, written by @LDG, one of the creators of Food Fur Life: http://www.thecatsite.com/a/homemade-food-for-cats-consider-your-recipe   and http://www.thecatsite.com/a/raw-feeding-for-cats-the-ingredients

-You could also go to the Raw & Home-Cooked part of the site's forum and post a question there: http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-amp-home-cooked-cat-food

One other thought, since (based on the names of the supplements you're using) it sounds like you live in Europe: maybe @Columbine is familiar with those products or knows of another member who could help with advice about them. Isn't there a raw-feeding member who lives in Switzerland? (Thank you, Columbine!)

I hope all that helps in some way! I think it's great that you want to feed so much meat to Jack: we have two Siamese mixes and our vet told us Siamese/Thai cats have a tendency toward having digestive problems so it's fantastic he's getting a lot of real, nearly-raw meat in his diet.  He's a beautiful cat!

lisahe has given you some great advice already

With the meat mix you make yourself, the best thing would be to use a vitamin/mineral premix designed for balancing raw meats. Fellini Complete and Fortan Catfortan are two that come to mind. Both are available from Zooplus - an online pet food supplier that serves most of Europe. Their prices are generally pretty good too

With dry food, it really isn't a good idea to feed it some days and not others. If you want to introduce kibble then by all means do so, just take it slowly to avoid tummy upsets and make it a part of his daily diet.

If the issue is simply that you're out for long periods some days, and automatic feeder might be a better solution. Some of them can keep the food cool during the day, making sure that it's still good to eat at the required time. Check out our Reviews section for ideas

lisahe
Columbine
Thank you for your advice!
Autofeeder is a great idea, my priority is to make sure that Jack has enough fresh food when I am at the office, not changing his main dish to Acana or Orijen kibble. I will check vet shops here if they have Cafortan here, many vitamins and supplements are sold under different names in this country. For example this supplement
is sold under this name

Yes, the autofeeder might be the best thing! With all the various supplements available for cats, I would definitely check with the vet to be sure what you find really would make the meat you give Jack into a complete meal. I keep finding, more and more, that it's not always easy to feed cats properly!