Does A Raw Diet Prevent A Cat From Hunting?
My cat is a great cat, but he brings all kinds of prey to the garage door and leaves it. Often times he has made an attempt to eat the prey, so by the time it gets to the door it’s almost unrecognizeable and always gross. There have been pieces of birds, frogs, rabbits, and once even a hummingbird (according to a family member). Apparently he’s quite good and prideful in his work. Maybe I just don’t notice how much he eats, but he doesn’t seem to interested in the dry food I have to offer.
A friend told me that he has been feeding his dogs a raw diet with great success. There is a place near our area that sells raw food for pets; chicken necks, thigh bones, that kind of thing. My friend says it’s better for their coat, energy, and all around health. He doesn’t, however, have any cats so he’s not able to help me on whether this diet would be good for my cat.
What I wonder is, if I would begin a raw diet with my cat, would it maybe give him a better alternative to hunting?
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The urge to stalk, chase, catch and kill either competently (as your cat does) or incompetently is separate from hunger. Well fed cats will still hunt and young cats may hunt and even kill without eating.
Cats do not have to be taught to hunt but they do have to be taught what to hunt and what is good to eat. Cats will chase your ankles (bad) or the tie of your robe (not as bad) even though neither are edible.
If you want your cat to stop bringing things home, you might bring him in at dusk and not let him out until morning. Early morning/early evening are common times for successful hunting. You could also play with him more so that his urge to hunt living things is reduced.
Since your cat is a good hunter, you may have to simply live with the occasional mangled corpse. If your neighbors start putting out rat bait though, you should bring him inside as he could eat a rodent weakened by the poison and ingest the poison as well.
Personally, I prefer my cat’s food cooked except for the occasional rare steak. I do not trust the food system to provide untainted meat.
thats probably the worst thing that you can do to your pet. not only can this give them diseases it can also give them intestinal parasites. and this is coming from a vet tech. if hes an outside cat it is normal for them to hunt prey down..my own cat does it. but you shouldnt prepare them a raw diet 24/7. its totally unhealthy for them
Cats are natural hunters, they want to grab small moving critters. Doing it well is a learned behavior (practice makes perfect) and it’s one of the reasons why cats left to fend for themselves in the wild can survive (or go feral). Eating a raw diet is not going to change that. And as others have said, raw meat can make your cat sick or even kill it if you aren’t careful, and any kind of small bones (like in chicken necks) can get lodged in a cat’s digestive tract and kill it. Most domestic cats don’t hunt and kill prey because they are hungry or crave meat; they do it because they can and it’s just part of their catness.
My cats eat a raw meat diet that I prepare with a supplement powder so that it is nutritionally balanced for them.
Thigh bones are usually too much for a cat. A chopped up chicken wing is a better choice. If you have a whole chicken you are preparing, chop up a chicken wing, give the liver and heart and chopped up gizzard – all raw. Then you have the proper balance of lean muscle meat, Vitamin A, taurine, and calcium and it’s very easy to do.
A chicken neck is a great treat – and it has too much calcium in relation to the lean muscle meat to be a totally balanced diet. A couple of times a week would be great. Chop that up into small pieces too. It’s a GREAT teeth cleaner.
Nothing will stop your cat from hunting..it is instinctual. You can however keep your cat indoors which will not only help keep wildlife and migratory birds safe…but will keep your cat safe as well. Some people put bells on their cats to alert prey that they are coming but some studies have shown that the cat will adjust the way it walks/stalks so as not to jiggle the bell. You can try this..but no guarantee it will work. http://www.abcbirds.org/cats/
Eating a properly balanced raw meat diet is indeed the very best thing for your cat.
It’s true that it won’t be the exact same recipe as a dog would eat, but the main difference is going to be in the supplementation. Dogs are carnivores but not obligate carnivores as cats are – they can tolerate more grains, fruits and veggies. Cats should be pretty much limited to meat, bones and organs.
Feeding raw will be very beneficial for your cat, but it will not stop his hunting instincts.
If you want to learn more about feeding raw, go to Yahoo groups and search for raw feeding. There are several groups out there where you can get more information – from people who actually know what they’re talking about (unlike several of those who have answered here).
Raw feeding is not rocket science. There are a few different methodologies (e.g., whole prey v. ground) but it isn’t that hard to get it figured out.
There are also some commercially prepared raw diets such as Nature’s Variety. They’re not as good as true raw meats, but they’re still far superior to some other things on the market.
It is a completely natural instinct for your cat to hunt, before they were domesticated they relied upon this skill to survive. I do not believe it is possible to ‘remove’ this behaviour from your cat how ever you could provide him with an alternative form of ‘hunting’ through toys and play. Whilst providing him with this diet may satisfy his hunger for raw meat his natural instinct is to hunt.
He will still hunt. It is prey instinct, not hunger that makes him do that.
Here is a link for foods that cats should not eat.http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1…http://mainecoonrescue.com/new/poison.ht…
There is a tremendous difference between a raw food diet for a dog and for a cat. The requirements for supplementing a raw food diet for a cat can be rather extensive. You can prepare a raw food diet for your cat (there are websites that have information) but it is not trivial, and then there is the problem with contamination. For almost anyone, it really is not worth the effort.
And for the last part, it will probably make no difference on his hunting. Keeping him inside is the only way to do that. And, I hope you realize that when he partially eats any prey, that is the first step in getting all sorts of worm infestations.
You may want to tempt him with a different food (designed for cats, of course).
A raw diet is good for your cat but cats have a natural instinct to hunt, even if they are not hungry. Try to train your cat to be an indoor-only cat and that will delete any chances of finding dead animals to the garage door.
A raw diet is much better for your pet, but I don’t think it’ll stop them from hunting. Cats have a natural instinct to chase, “play”, and devour prey.
I think you should try raw buy it from someone that’s up with hygiene just like human, also you can use priobiotics on your raw food and take the remains of the raw food after 30 min..Maybe you can also try to keep your cat inside more.
Hi
It probably won’t stop the hunting but it would be much healthier then what you are feeding now. A bell around his neck may help for that problem. In any event a raw diet for cats has to be specially prepated for cats. They need things that humans don’t usually eat and are different then dogs in a few respects. Quality Canned food, a raw diet is good for their coat, energy, and all around health
Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don’t use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics…
Cats hunt for pleasure or food. If you are providing food then he is hunting for pleasure. It is a natural instinct. What you must realize is that all these critters he is killing and eating carry disease and parasites. Cats can get all sorts of things from eating animals they kill. I would also NEVER advise feeding him raw meat. They can get fluke worms, and all the same things people can get from raw meat. Try giving him more smelly canned cat food and even cheap tuna. Offer him lunch meat and cooked meat but not raw. I’ve never known ANYONE to do this and I know a lot of reputable cat people. That’s disgusting.