Feeding and Vaccinating Your Cat

The kidneys of cats are uniquely capable of conserving water. As a consequence, the concentrations of substances dissolved in the urine are very high. Also, since cats eat a 70% water diet (muscle etc.), they need to consume little water.  Cats, therefore, do not urinate very much, and do not drink as much water as other species. At the Hampshire Veterinary Hospital cats eating only moist food consume 1 - 1.5 ounces of water daily.  If the cat produces less than a certain "normal" amount of urine during a period of time some of the substances in the urine can precipitate out of the urine in the form of a sandy substance. Cats are also unusual because they have a viral disease which causes the production of a urinary crystalline compound, struvite. This compound can be precipitated as a sandy substance in the bladders of about 70% of the species.

Struvite is capable of causing urethral irritation in both male and female cats. The irritation in turn causes bloody urine and cystitis (bladder inflammation). This can become a chronically repeating problem accompanied by urination in strange places around your house. In male cats, struvite and protein can form a urethral plug in the penis which can prevent the cat from urinating. This condition can cause the death of the animal.

Since cats are carnivores it is easy for them to have a rather acidic urine.  This is due to the products of metabolism of the excess amino acids which are derived from high amounts of ingested protein.  These products are excreted in the urine and, therefore, acidify the urine.  The struvite crystal in the urine, because it is acidified, is then smaller in size and is, therefore, less irritating to the urethra. 

With the above in mind, it is absolutely necessary that cats not be fed dry or semi-moist food. The 70% water content of canned food will cause cats to urinate more, making it much less likely that the sandy substance will be in high enough concentration to cause urethral irritation or blockage. 

In  an attempt to cause better urinary flow, grain companies who produce all of the dry food diets, add salt to the diets to cause the cats to drink and, therefore, hopefully urinate more.  Cats in the wild consume muscle which contains no sodium in its cells.  Since it has been estimated that 70% of domestic cats are mildly hypertensive by the time that they are 7 years of age, this concentration of sodium in dry cat food is certainly not helping eliminate this hypertension .  In addition, most cats that overeat dry food will overweight. It is more difficult for cats that overeat moist food to accumulate excess weight.

It is best to feed a balanced diet. Diets containing fish are often low in thiamine and vitamin E.  Most canned fish containing diets, even though supplemented with vitamin E and thiamine, are devoid of those substances when packaged in the can (due to the preparation techniques used for those foods) and subsequently eaten by the cat .   Therefore, feed fish-containing diets no more than twice weekly (3 times/week if used as a snack). Cats have an obligate need for vitamin A which is found in liver and, since they eat livers every day in the wild, cannot produce vitamin A from plant sources as many other mammals can. Because it is an excellent source of vitamin A, we recommend feeding liver as a snack (one to one and a half tablespoons) two or three times a week. However, over feeding liver can cause hypervitaminosis A and calcium phosphorous imbalance.  Canned cat food has adequate vitamin A and needs no supplementation.

Dry food is grain based and certainly not muscle based.  Amino acid composition of meat based foods is different from grain based foods and this makes a lot of difference in many ways to the metabolic scheme for the animal.  Certain amino acids, such as taurine, are found only in meat. Cats fed dry dog food for instance, can go blind because of a lack of taurine.  

The best diet for a cat is one consisting of a major brand of chicken cat food. Many balanced cat foods are readily available. Meat, which causes urinary acidification, is the most important component controlling struvite crystal formation.  Although chicken cat food is far from all meat, it has meat and byproducts that work for the long run.  Most of my cats, fed chicken canned food each day, live 20-24 years.

Cats are very smart.  They are the creatures that have caused the production of more varieties of cat food in the supermarket than any other type of product in the store.  Consequently, you must provide your cat with the information that only one variety of one brand of cat food is available in the store as of this day.

In addition, it has been reported that, since cats hunt and eat only about 3 times each day, the periods of fasting between meals is important.  That is because those fasting periods of time allow mobilization of protein from muscle stores and subsequent metabolic utilization of amino acids for energy.  The byproducts of this utilization of muscle protein are nitrogenous substances that are excreted in the urine and are identical to those resulting from ingestion of high amounts of animal protein.  These substances, excreted in the urine, cause a more acid urine and subsequently smaller struvite crystal sizes and less urethral irritation.  Thus, your cat should eat all of the food immediately (5-10 minutes) and then pick up the excess.  Feed 2-3 times/day only!

Chicken, in my experience, is the food that produces the least intestinal gas in the cat.  Turkey seems to produce more gas.  Gas is the product of fermentation of intestinal contents by intestinal bacteria and protozoa.  Increases in the activities of these organisms can be  immuno-stimulating and can be responsible for inflammatory conditions of the bowel including malabsorption. I like to think that chicken is facsimile of chipmunk, rabbit and bird, certainly not cow - which cats never catch in the wild - only light meat.

In an attempt to increase water consumption and urination, the following can be done:

1. Add some water to the food.

2. Slightly salt the food. This should be done only if there seems to be urinary irritation because cats need a low sodium diet.

3. Put a bit of vegetable oil on top of the drinking water. In an attempt to lick the oil off the top, your cat will also ingest some extra water.

Milk is not a physiologically sound substance to feed since adult cats do not drink cat milk and no cat in the wild sucks from a cows teat. Milk will often cause mild to severe chronic bowel inflammation.

Exercise and lean body weight are extremely important.  Many people, when they were growing up,  had cats who tolerated dry cat food.  Hunting, exercising and not allowing large amounts of omental fat to be built up in the abdomen promotes longevity despite improper diet.  If possible, allowing cats to be outdoors is very important to longevity.  Increased cardiovascular activity from hunting, for instance, can help overcome the high amounts of sodium in the dry foods.  Hunting supplements the diet well.  Often cats dine out better than they dine in.  Cayotes and coy dogs hunt at night.  The only role for salt laden dry cat food is to shake some in a can to allow your cat to think that this snack might be available and, therefore, cause kitty curfew.  Leaving a light on at night will allow your cat to race home in a crisis.  Cayotes are dark adapted and will not come into the light .  Foxes like to hunt at daybreak.

Vaccination: