Magnesium for Cat Health

Magnesium is a mineral that is essential to your kitty's health and well-being. This mineral occurs naturally in many foods, including fish or leafy greens, and is added to your feline friend's food by most pet food manufacturers. While necessary in small amounts, if your cat gets too much magnesium in her diet, she could develop struvite bladder stones in some cases.

  1. Why Magnesium is Needed

    • The cells in your cat's body all contain the mineral magnesium to help them complete their necessary functions. Your cat's body utilizes magnesium as a catalyst to activate many essential processes, including more than 300 enzyme systems, according to petMD. Magnesium helps with your cat's metabolism, heart rhythm, muscle function and nerve function. It also helps to keep her bones strong, convert sugar into energy and break down other minerals and vitamins. When your cat doesn't receive enough magnesium in her diet, she could experience muscle weakness, lethargy, depression, an abnormal heart rhythm or even appear uncoordinated and shaky. This usually occurs due to malnutrition, kidney poisoning or with cats suffering from diabetes.

    Daily Recommended Dosage

    • The feline nutrient profile established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials recommends that an adult cat needs a minimum of 0.04 percent magnesium in her diet each day, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Pregnant and nursing cats or young kittens younger than 12 months need twice that amount each day to maintain their health. All commercial cat foods that list on the label that they follow the AAFCO nutrient profile contain at least the minimum amount of magnesium needed to maintain your kitty's health, depending on her life stage.

    Too Much Magnesium

    • Too much magnesium can be harmful to your cat. When your cat ingests large amounts of magnesium, it can form struvite stones in her bladder when it combines with ammonium and phosphorous in alkaline urine, according to the Long Beach Animal Hospital. These stones are serious and can lead to feline urinary tract disease. This condition can cause a blockage of the urethra, urinary infections and blood in the urine. To treat this condition, surgery or low-magnesium prescription diets, such as Hill's Feline s/d or c/d, which contain only the minimum amount of magnesium your kitty needs, usually are recommended by vets. In addition, nonprescription low-magnesium diets containing less than 0.12 percent magnesium on a dry matter basis and are available in pet supply stores, according to the Eukanuba website.

    Considerations

    • If your cat is eating a diet that follows the AAFCO nutrient profiles, she doesn't require any magnesium supplements unless your vet prescribes them. Ingredients in cat foods that naturally contain magnesium include chicken breasts, shrimp, sardines and tuna, according to the Petco website. Low magnesium levels in your cat's diet can sometimes lead to the formation of calcium oxalate urinary stones, according to the Long Beach Animal Hospital. Consult with your vet before feeding a low-magnesium diet to your Burmese, Persian or Himalayan cat, because these breeds are more likely to suffer from calcium oxalate stones, warns the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Keep in mind that diet alone may not prevent either struvite or calcium oxalate stones and a serious surgery for male cats, known as a perineal urethrostomy, may be needed to remove the stones.