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Health has always been top priority for our Maine Coons here at Sugar Island Farm and we know that diet is a huge contributing factor. Everyone is familiar with the phrase, “you are what you eat”, right? So we researched what a cat’s natural diet is and learned that felines are obligate carnivores. According to Feline Nutrition, “Obligate means ‘by necessity.’ The dictionary definition is 1. Restricted to one particularly characteristic mode of life. 2. Biologically essential for survival. Combining obligate with carnivore is pretty clear. Cats MUST EAT MEAT, it is an absolute biological necessity. There’s no such thing as a vegan cat.”
Like all living things, besides the need for food, cats also need water. An interesting piece of information that I read from my Feline Husbandry book by Niels C. Pedersen, is that “cats are relatively insensitive to dehydration.. in fact cats may lose as much as 8% of body water before drinking.” In comparison, “dogs will drink when as little as 4% is lost.” Also worth noting, “cats can concentrate their urine and absorb fecal water which tends to protect them from excessive water loss.” A downside to this however, is that because of the concentrated urine, they are more prone to crystal formation, especially if they are eating a dry food diet. Most cats are not great water drinkers even though it is essential for health. A raw diet definitely checks both boxes; meat and moisture.
However during the time of my initial research, the thought of buying, grinding, preserving and storing all the raw food that we would need felt VERY overwhelming. Add in the concern over whether or not raw would be something our kittens’ future families could maintain and the effect that a food switch would have on their little bodies bothered us as well.
So for the time we settled on what we felt confident in as second best, wet canned food. We have tried several brands and several recipes, always trying to balance ingredients with economics and we have been very happy with the results. But we still wondered if we were doing the very best we could for our cats..
After yet another web search for raw food companies, I found Darwin’s Natural Pet Products. I was thrilled to read their ingredients, process and after taking the quiz for a custom feeding plan, I was also thrilled with the price! Yes, it is going to be slightly more expensive but our cats deserve the very best!!
We are still experimenting with the amounts that we need but so far the transition has been super easy and our cats love it.
So what does this mean for our kitten’ forever families? Due to the craziness of the past year and our personal struggle to find all the things we need for our Cattery in stock and arriving in a timely manner, we are going to continue feeding both canned and raw for the foreseeable future. This way they are used to both and in the event of a potential shortage, we should be fine to supplement with the other without adding too much stress to our cats.
If you would like to research more about a raw food diet, we encourage you to start here and here.
