|
 |
 |
 |
|
How to Feed Your Senior Cat
A healthy diet is fundamental to your senior cat’s well-being and longevity. Good food supports her immune system, helping her fend off infectious diseases. It also helps maintain the proper functioning of your cat’s organs, her muscles and other supportive tissues, her senses, and her mind. In contrast, a poor diet will do nothing to promote longevity and may contribute to a variety of health and behavior problems.
Knowing the basic principles of feline nutrition is a helpful step toward keeping your cat healthy throughout her life, but her individual needs may be slightly different than those of another cat. The nutritional value of any particular food is different for different species and individuals, depending on the animal’s nutritional needs and the ability of the animal’s digestive system to utilize the nutrients in that food.
A Balanced Feline Diet
Each of the nutrients in your pet’s diet supports specific bodily functions that contribute to physical and mental health. To thrive, your senior cat needs the right amounts of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, other nutrients, and water, and these nutrients must come from high-quality sources.
Proteins
Proteins are found in high concentrations in meat, fish, poultry, milk, cheese, yogurt, fish meal, and eggs. The protein content listed on a cat food container indicates the food’s total protein, but that can be misleading. The value of that protein depends on the quality of ingredients and on the digestibility of the food. Cats have a much higher protein requirement than people and many other mammals do. Cats are true carnivores, so their diet should consist of about 30% protein.
Cats also require taurine, an amino acid found in meat. Taurine deficiency causes blindness and can lead to fatal cardiomyopathy. Complete proteins, which are found in meats, fish, and eggs, provide all the amino acids your cat needs to maintain good health. Proteins that lack these amino acids—such as those found in most plants—are known as incomplete proteins.
Fats
Fats are found in meat, milk, butter, cheese, and vegetable oils. Dietary fat makes food taste better but also provides energy, protects the internal organs, insulates against cold, and transports vitamins and other nutrients within the body. Though too much fat is just as unhealthy for a cat as it is for a human, proper amounts are vital to good health.
Studies have shown that as cats age, they lose their ability to digest and absorb dietary fat. As a result, they need to eat fat that they can digest more easily to maintain their weight and energy. Also, unlike most mammals who need fewer calories as they get older, your cat’s caloric needs remain pretty much the same throughout her life unless she becomes less active. If your cat loses weight or if her skin and fur become dry, ask your vet about a change in food or about the addition of fatty acid supplements.
Carbohydrates
Although your cat is a carnivore with high protein needs, she does need some carbs in her diet as well. The carbs you offer your cat should be whole grains and vegetables rather than sugar. These healthier carbohydrates are easier for her to digest—a big plus for an older cat whose digestive system doesn’t work as efficiently as it did when she was younger.
Vitamins
Vitamins promote good health in a variety of ways. A high-quality feline diet provides vitamins in the proper amounts and in balance with one another. However, light, heat, moisture, and rancidity can easily destroy the chemicals that make up vitamins, thereby reducing the nutritional value of your cat’s food. For that reason, it’s essential to store food properly and to use it before its expiration date.
As important as vitamins are to your pet’s health, an excess of vitamins can also be dangerous. Too much vitamin A, for example, can damage your cat’s bones. Make sure that the food you offer your pet contains vitamins in proper amounts, and consult your veterinarian if you’re concerned about your pet’s vitamin intake.
Minerals
Minerals are vital to strong bones, healthy cell tissues, and properly functioning organs. High-quality feline diets provide minerals in the proper balance. As with vitamins, too much of certain minerals can cause serious health ailments, including kidney stones and skeletal problems.
Water
Water is an essential part of your cat’s diet. It keeps her body properly hydrated and helps her organs function. Senior cats are particularly prone to dehydration, so you must make it easy for your pet to take in enough water every day, especially if she eats dry food.
Your cat should always have access to fresh, clean water. If her mobility becomes limited as she ages, help her by placing water bowls in all parts of the house that she frequents.
Commercial Cat Foods
Using commercial cat foods is the easiest way to feed your cat. The best foods have benefited from years of extensive scientific research and feedback from cat owners and veterinarians, and they offer high-quality ingredients in carefully balanced blends.
Although a wide
variety of commercial foods are available for purchase, not all cat foods are equal in quality. Lower-quality foods contain fillers with little or no nutritional value, use lower-quality proteins, and often include food dyes and preservatives that have been linked to allergies and other health problems in cats. Regardless of the type of commercial food you
offer, it should be a good product that contains only quality ingredients. The following are the types of commercial food available for purchase.
Dry Foods
Dry food, or kibble, offers a number of advantages for a cat owner: it’s easy to feed and store, it doesn’t get messy, and it is readily available in a wide range of qualities and ingredients. It also tends to keep your cat’s teeth cleaner because particles are less likely to stick to teeth and gums, and the hard pieces tend to scrape the teeth clean as she chews.
However, there are some drawbacks to offering dry food. As your cat gets older, she may find it difficult to chew. Also, a cat eating dry food needs to drink more water. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but if your older cat has mobility issues, you must make it easy for her to get to her water bowl whenever she needs to drink. Also, the low odor level of dry food may make it less interesting to your cat as her senses dull with age. (See “How to Handle a Finicky Eater,” later in this section, for tips on solving this problem.)
Semimoist Foods
Semimoist foods, typically sold in packets, are essentially a soft form of kibble. Though your cat may enjoy this type of food as an occasional treat, it should not be her sole source of nutrition.
Semimoist foods are commonly more expensive than dry kibble, and they contain dyes that make them more visually appealing to cat owners but offer no benefit for the cat. They also almost always contain chemical preservatives. These additives can lead to a number of health problems, including allergies and hyperactivity. Semimoist foods also tend to stick to the teeth and gums, promoting the development of tartar and, eventually, gum disease.
Canned Foods
Canned (wet) foods are more expensive than dry foods, but for many senior cats, a good canned food is the best dietary choice. An exclusive diet of canned food can cause flatulence, bad breath, and soft stools, however, so this should not be your pet’s only food source. Also, pay special attention to your senior cat’s dental care to prevent tartar from building up and causing gum disease, if she needs to eat canned food.
Cleanliness, though always important, is even more critical if you feed canned cat food because it spoils quickly and attracts insects and rodents. Make sure to remove swiftly any uneaten canned food from your pet’s bowl.
Homemade Cat Foods
Some cat owners prefer to prepare the meals they serve their cats. The main attraction of a homemade diet is that you always know what your cat is eating because you select and prepare the ingredients yourself. The time required to research, select, and prepare ingredients for your cat’s food is a drawback, however.
Some homemade diets include cooked meats, vegetables, fruits, and grains. Others focus on raw ingredients, including meaty chicken and turkey bones, organ meat (liver, kidney, heart, brain, tongue, and tripe), and eggs. You can add green leafy vegetables after running them through a food processor or juicer to break down the cellulose. Some people also add one or more of the following ingredients to their homemade diets:
- Apple cider vinegar
- Brewer’s yeast
- Dairy products (especially raw goat milk, cottage cheese, and plain yogurt)
- Fruits
- Kelp
- Raw honey
- Small helpings of grain
- Vegetable oils
Research Your Homemade Diet
Before offering your senior cat a homemade diet, spend time learning as much as possible about feline nutrition to ensure that you provide all the nutrients your cat needs. She doesn’t have to eat a fully balanced diet every day, but over several days she needs to take in the proper balance of nutrients because her health could be at risk. You can work with your veterinarian to determine a suitable homemade diet for your pet, especially if she is undergoing treatment for health problems.
Special Diets
Cats with certain medical conditions often benefit from specific dietary changes. Specially designed foods that help cats with a wide variety of health problems are available, and your vet may recommend such a food at some point in your pet’s life, depending on her medical condition.
When to Feed Your Senior Cat
Some pet owners prefer to make dry food available throughout the day so that their cats can eat whenever they want to. This method, known as free feeding, works well for many cats, but in some cases, scheduled meals are more conducive to good health. Some cats overeat when given the opportunity. Also, if you keep multiple cats, feeding individual portions on a schedule allows you to determine if one of them stops eating—often the first sign of illness or injury. This is especially important with an older cat.
If your cat is already used to free feeding, she may not like transitioning to scheduled meals. The following steps will help your pet make the transition.
How to Switch to Scheduled Feeding
- The night before the first day of the new feeding schedule, pick up your cat’s food (but leave the water).
- The next day, put the food down for about half an hour at the scheduled mealtime. If your cat is used to snacking as she pleases all day, she may be hungry and eat the food—or she may ignore it. Either way, pick up the food after half an hour unless she’s actively eating, and offer no more food until the next mealtime.
- If you have more than one cat, begin separating your pets during meals, or supervise mealtime to make sure that everyone gets an equal share. An elderly cat in particular may eat more slowly and have trouble keeping another cat from taking her food.
It may take your cat a day or two to catch on to the new schedule, but she will, and scheduled meals will become a normal part of her daily life.
Obesity
On very rare occasions, obesity is due, at least in part, to a medical problem. More often, however, excess weight in a senior cat is the direct result of an animal eating more calories than she burns. Several factors determine how much food your cat needs to maintain a proper weight and optimum health:
- Activity level: An active cat needs more food than a more sedentary one. As long as your senior cat remains as active as she has always been, her caloric needs will remain the same as she ages.
- Individual variations: Your cat’s nutritional needs differ from other cats. A diet that works perfectly well for one individual may lead to obesity in another. For example, the portions recommended on most commercial cat foods are estimates and may be too much for your cat, especially if her energy expenditures have slowed down with age.
- Quality of food: The nutritional value and calories in both commercial and homemade feline diets vary widely. In general, the higher the nutritional value of your cat’s food, the less she needs to eat.
If your cat has become overweight, it’s up to you to adjust her diet or activities to help her slim down. If you’ve been free feeding your cat, switch to scheduled meals so that you can control how much she eats. A weight-
reduction food may help, but this is not always the best solution. Talk to your veterinarian about the best way to address obesity in your senior cat.
How to Handle a Finicky Eater
As your cat ages, she may lose some of her sense of smell, and food may lose some of its appeal. If your cat becomes finicky about her food as she ages, you may be able to
revive her appetite by intensifying the fragrance of her
food. You can do this by adding warm water or salt-free broth
to dry food or by warming wet food slightly, but don’t
make the water or broth too hot because you may burn
your cat’s mouth.
| Text & Photos Copyright © 2007 TFH Publications, Inc. | Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
Tags
No one has tagged this page yet... Be the first.. Log in using the link below and return to add your tag
