Homemade Diets for Cats

A homemade diet for cats has many health benefits. Making food for your cat is one way to ensure that your pet gets all of its nutritional needs met without the preservatives and byproducts that are contained in commercial pet foods. A special homemade diet can accommodate the particular dietary needs of your cat.

  1. Nutrition

    • Many cat owners feed their pets only foods from the table. While it may seem as though this is a nutritious diet for your pet because it is nutritious for you, the diet will not meet the needs of a feline. Remember that your cat has different nutritional needs than you do.

      Understanding the nutritional needs of a cat is the first step to creating a diet that is nutritionally sound. A cat requires more protein in its diet than any other mammal. The feline can survive with little or no carbohydrates in the diet. In the wild, a cat must obtain nutrients from the animals it eats. A cat cannot eat a plant and metabolize the nutrients from the plant in its digestive system. The plant must be metabolized by another animal, and the cat then ingests the nutrients in the meat or from the digestive organs of the prey animal.

    Balance

    • A cat's diet must contain animal protein. Most commercial dry foods have too high a percentage of plant proteins to be healthy for your cat. Cats cannot survive on a vegetarian diet. Only 3 to 5 percent of a cat's diet should be carbohydrates.

      The water content of a cat's food must be higher than that of other animals. Cats have a very low threshold for thirst and derive most of their water from the foods that they eat. Water is an essential part of a cat's kidney health.
      Homemade cat food should always contain meat. Avoid any recipes that are vegetarian or offer plant-based proteins. Premixes that contain all the necessary supplemental ingredients are available; the cat owner just needs to add raw meat and water. These premixes make homemade food much easier to manage.

      To ensure that your cat is getting a well-balanced diet, add nutritional supplements.

    Transitioning

    • Introduce pets to the new homemade diet slowly over a period of weeks. Animals have a difficult time adjusting to new diets. Consider adding the new food to your pet's dish a little at a time, combined with their current food. Increase the percentage of new food until the transition is complete.