Cat Diet
Does Your Pet Need Special Food? 

Some pets require a special cat diet to help support their lifestyle or particular circumstances. It is often something that is over looked by many cat owners and they continue to feed their pet the same food throughout their lifetime.

Although this may not be harmful to the cat it certainly wont help them through times when they require special nutrition to support their system to remain fit and healthy.

We have changed our cat, Little Mos diet several times throughout her lifetime to help her through illness and aging.

She remained healthy right to the end of her life and we put it down to her good diet and exercise regime (we play with her every day). Sadly in the end she died due to a severely broken leg which could not be fixed and she was to elderly to survive a operation.

Cat food is not made equal and that is often reflected in the price. The better the quality of the food, the more it will cost. As a cat owner you will have to decide and balance your cats diet to make sure they get the appropriate food requirements for their personal needs.

Weight Loss Food

keeping your cat a healthy weight can sometimes be tricky especially if you have a cat who juts wants to eat and eat and who snacks all the time.

I'm sure we have all at one time or another had a cat who needs to loss some weight. But ho to do this?

Luckily there are cat foods available that are lower calorie but sometimes you may need a special cat diet food that will keep your cat full without taking in too many calories. This can of Fruitables does just that.

The Elderly Cat Diet Requirements

As cats get older they require less protein in their cat diet. Protein helps to promote growth and is a great energy giver.

However as they get older and less active they no longer use as much energy and have stopped growing a long time ago. Although protein is still required, they need less than an adult and so dont require food that is high in protein.

It is important to reduce the protein levels for older cats because an excess of protein in their system will put a strain on their Liver and Kidneys. This can cause an increased level of thirst and or course urination as the body tries to eliminate some of the excess protein, but of course at the same time it is flushing away valuable vitamins and minerals as well.

The cat diet for an elderly cat needs to be very well balanced and easily absorbed by an aging system. If not then problems can arise quite quickly as their bodies struggle to cope with the imbalance of nutrients.

You may notice that even though your cat appears to be eating well they are still losing weight; again this could be because they are not receiving the right kind of fats in their diet that their bodies are able to process well. (If this happens it may be advisable to have them checked by a vet as they could be suffering from hyperthyroidism, this is easily treatable).

Special cat foods are available which have been specially balanced for the elderly cat, providing all the right amounts of nutrients to keep an older cat healthy.

Motherhood and Nursing Queens

A normal healthy cat should not need extra food during her pregnancy until the last few weeks when they will require more food fed to them in small quantities. She will need top quality food which will provide energy but which is not too bulky. Dont forget she is full of kittens and space is at a premium.

Find the best cat food that are designed to give your cat extra energy in a kibble format as this is not too filling but packed with goodness. Often kitten food is a good option s it it contains extra nutrition. Continue to feed your queen this cat diet as long as she is nursing her kittens and perhaps adding some wet food as well for bulk.

Kitten Diets

By the time kittens are 8 weeks old they will require their owners to provide food for them. Kittens are packed with energy and are growing all the time; this will require food that can keep up with all their nutritional needs.

The easiest way to do this is to buy a specially formulated kitten diet food. Wet or dry food is excitable but wet food my be more tempting due to its stronger odor.

When feeding kittens make sure that you only provide enough food in their bowls to fill them up. The danger with kittens is that they may gorge themselves and make themselves sick.

You will have to make all the decisions as to how much is enough, but generally feed them little and often. Make sure that food is small enough for kittens to cope with, break up meat with a fork to make it more palatable. Dry food will already be made small and is soft to eat making it easy for kittens that have not yet developed their strong teeth.

The Adult Cat Diet

Cats will usually stop growing after a year but some long haired cats continue to grow until they are years old.

It is important that you find out if your cat is of this type, as they will need to be fed high protein diets during this period. After that most normal cat foods will be sufficient for a healthy lifestyle.

From my experience never buy cheap pet food as it definitely won't be the best cat food and probably not good for your cat health. You never really know what is in it and it is likely that it is cheap for a reason, perhaps using less than quality meat etc in its ingredients.

I once bought a tin of cat food that was on the cheap side and when I opened it, it really looked awful. It was watery and grey and had a peculiar texture to it. There was no way I was going to feed that to my feline friend, especially if I didnt want to clean up any you know what afterwards.

Cats With Urinary Problems

Little Mo suffered with urinary problems for a while until we switched her food to one that was designed to provide just the right amount of minerals etc as to prevent these problems occurring. This uretic cat food can help with this balance.

Some cats system find it hard to process the amount of minerals in their diet and this can lead to the formation of stones in the bladder, causing urinary problems. Special cat diet food such as Wysong uretic Feline Diet food is one such product that can help cats with these problems.

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