What do you feed your cats? And why?
Click here for a LINK to an article on good/bad ingredients
Hope all of you are having a great week!
Debby in Arizona
4/15/13
Cat Food - What's Better?
We do not buy the most expensive food for our indoor cats. But we do read labels to look for dry food with higher amounts of protein and little or no fillers.
What do you feed your cats? And why?
Click here for a LINK to an article on good/bad ingredients
Hope all of you are having a great week!
Debby in Arizona
What do you feed your cats? And why?
Click here for a LINK to an article on good/bad ingredients
Hope all of you are having a great week!
Debby in Arizona
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7 comments:
I try to do the same thing as you do it sounds like.
Well, after trying to get the boys to eat every premium brand/flavour on the market (at the time, this was a few years ago), and wasting huge amounts of money, they get 2 TBSP of kibble a day each (no corn, soy or wheat), and some ProPlan chicken & liver canned, and some Fancy Feast (2 flavours that are grain-free). So not the bottom of the barrel, food-wise, but far from the best.
Of course the "best" is often filled with fat (the canned food, have you seen some of it? gross) or veggies and fruit, neither of which cats should have.
No matter what brand, the company will fill it with something (the fat or fruit/veggies) to reduce costs.
And no matter how good the food, it won't benefit your cat if s/he won't eat it. LOL.
We try to do the health, no junk too!
Great week to you too!
I manage a very small feral cat group of six. My health is poor. When I can no longer physically feed these cats (the day is coming), what is the best option for them? The house whose hillside upon which they live (although I've also provided straw-lined and covered Rubbermaid tub shelters) will be sold. I can't count on new and unknown homeowners to take over the care of six cats (after all, they could tell me anything; they could, in fact, be cat haters and have dogs, although I like to think the best of people). I haven't heard one good thing about transferring ferals to "cat sanctuaries" (hard to transfer them anywhere, but integrity of sanctuaries can be in question). I've been told, and it echoed my own thoughts, that the most humane thing to do rather than abandonment is euthanasia. These are cats which have been hand-fed by a human for a long time; one of the kittens has never had to hunt for food and he's just turned age 5; his mother was the first cat I fed, and she brought him to the yard as she was weaning him.
I don't know what to do. I have a possible terminal diagnosis and there is no one in my "circle" who is willing to take this on. I'm in California. Any advice would be much appreciated. I worked with a woman who'd fed a couple of ferals/strays for several years; they lived in her garage at night. When she moved to another town, she just left them. A renter in my mom's neighborhood did the same thing a few months ago; the poor cats were walking around in a daze. I had a guy do that once who lived over the fence from me in another neighborhood. He said, "I couldn't catch them; they belonged to my deceased wife anyway." Well, how hard did you try to catch them? It's life or death for the animal. It's your responsibility! Can you imagine the bewilderment and desperation for the poor animal? I can't bear to think of it. I knew something was up with that guy who lived behind me in my former house; the poor cats came over into my yard and stared a hole through me for two days before I realized what was up; I didn't realize he had moved away. I ran him down, which is when he told me, "I got a dog anyway." I said, "Well, can you at least tell me the cats' names or hold old they are?" Poor cats! Waiting, waiting, waiting...to no avail...for their human to give them food, their water; hungry, thirsty. These are living beings, accustomed to a routine. They don't understand...so they wait.
Again, any advice would help me. My six can retreat to the hillside if their yard is overtaken by people who wouldn't want them...large one- and two-acre, heavily-foliaged properties back up to mine...but a vet had told me once that, in the long wait for the occasional bird or rodent for food, weak from lack of sustenance and riddled with the diseases that lurk out there for feral cats who are malnourished, a feral cat not tended by humans can't really make it beyond about a 17-month lifespan.
Vicki - I hope you get this- you did not leave a way I could contact you. I have heard people who are responsible often find a person who takes ferals to be barn cats. The person who takes them to live in the barn also feeds them. Many have adapted to this. The best thing to do is contact a local animal rescue agency - they often have such solutions available. Or you could enlist a caring neighbor to take over for you.
Thank you. I did come back for any replies.
I wish there WAS a caring neighbor; instead, today, the neighbor next door says he is going to shoot and kill my cats if they don't stay out of his vegetable and flower gardens (they want the soft dirt to do their "business" in). I happened to be there today when he was yelling at them. I went to the garden store and bought 8 or 9 of those garden-stake whirlygigs/pinwheels and asked if he'd place them in the places where the cats are "going" because they would probably be shy of the movement/sound of the spinning objects. Anyway, no caring neighbors, that's for sure.
You're right; I'm going to start with an animal rescue agency; there's a good one that does a lot of trap & release (spay/neuter and return to the colony) which I've only just learned about. I'm also going to go to a new vet in town and see what he might say. I hadn't remembered about the barn cat idea until you mentioned it but now I'm having a brief memory of something I read. Actually, my ferals come from generations of ferals which were originally brought in for a new barn in the property above us, c. 1901. I guess they cut down on the rodent population which might be in the barn getting at stored grain, etc. I had spoken with the county Animal Control and he talked about helping me but how important it is to keep the ferals shut up somewhere...keep them contained/confined for a few days or weeks at transition/relocating...like in a shed (too small!) or outbuilding, so that the cats don't take off before becoming acclimated to their new home..and, of course, any barn is perfect for the transition.
I'll keep plugging away at this; I won't leave it hanging.
I've loved reading your blog stories. My one female couldn't have been more feral when I first saw her. I didn't think she was a cat...I thought I was seeing a ferret or something. What was amazing is how quickly she learned her name and how she seemed to like to listen to me talking to her. Five years later, she still will only come within three feet of me (and that took a LONG time) but she seems to sense that she belongs to me and I gained her trust.
Thanks for all the good work you do for the kitties!
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