What is the best cat food? A novel and different answer!

The question has been asked a million times on the Internet and there are a million answers and therefore this page will not be seen when I provide my answer which I think is the best one (!) as there will be too much competition. I'll press on nonetheless.

The answer must be this: a mouse, yes, a live mouse that does not have any worms in their gut! The mouse is the ideal food for a domestic cat. As cats are obligate carnivores, their ideal diet is 40% protein, 50% fat and only 3% carbohydrates. And inside the stomach of the mouse there is some vegetation - a bit of roughage when combined with mouse fur. This is the ideal diet. But the problem is that mice sometimes have worms in their gut and the domestic cat acquires these worms when they eat mice.

It's no big deal as you can administer deworming pills but it is not ideal. However, in terms of a balanced diet a living mouse attacked and eaten by a cat is very healthy. 

Next in line would probably be home-made raw cat food [link to a full page on this] which meets all the requirements of a balanced diet with all the required nutrients added in (you can buy a nice mix online). The problem here is that many people don't know how to make home-made raw cat food and neither are they sure about how to store it to avoid cross contamination. It is a bit tricky and the vets say cat owners should not try. Too risky.

But certainly, a genuine expert who is also a cat owner could make some excellent raw cat food themselves. There are many people who promote this kind of diet particularly some breeders who have acquired the expertise to do it properly.

And then next in line after that, would be the highest quality wet cat food on the market because it should replicate exactly a whole living mouse! And there may be some added nutrients as well which will be of benefit to a domestic cat. It must be balanced and complete.

And then last in line would be poor quality dry cat food because it's just too dry and domestic cats don't compensate for this dryness by drinking enough water. Plus, the carb content is far too high. It is very unnatural albeit convenient for the owner. Some vets think that dry food promotes feline diabetes and obesity.

There is actually another option in respect of dry cat food which is vegan dry cat food. A lot of people will wince at the thought of it because they have this firm belief that domestic cats can't be vegans but commercially made vegan dry cat food contains all the nutrients that a domestic cat requires. The only difference is that the protein is plant protein rather than animal protein. There is little difference between the two in terms of nutrition for the cat.

And there are advocates of this kind of dry cat food who say that their cat's health has improved. I am going to try it out myself and I will report back.

Do hungry domestic cats hunt more than well fed ones?

There is or was a belief that a domestic cat's desire to hunt is divorced from his hunger or lack of it. In other words whether a cat is well fed or not does not affect his desire to hunt prey animals as the desire or motivation to hunt in innate. It is instinctive and the feline will always do it when the prey is available.

This article refers to a study on cat food ingredients and hunting desire but before you read that it has to be common sense that a hungry cat will be a more committed hunter for the simple reason they need to eat to survive. They will kill and eat what they need to survive.

And on the other side of the coin a well-fed cat is less likely to hunt provided the food is balanced and contains all the nutrients but a fed cat will still hunt instinctively with the caveat that each cat has their own desire to hunt. Some cats just don't want to do it. I lived with a female cat who was disinterested for instance.

High quality wet cat food which is grain-free plus play will curb your cat's desire to hunt. Graphic provided by the scientist conducting the study. 

There is no doubt that there is some truth in this but a recent study  might be considered to undermine the theory or perhaps it supports the theory? The scientists found that complete diet cat food as described i.e. wet cat food which is considered by the manufacturers to totally complete, might not be quite so complete as expected as it might be omitting some micronutrients (unspecified). Domestic cats instinctively sense this and hunt mice to make up the deficit.

The scientists decided this because when they fed cats grain-free wet cat food their hunting behaviour diminished by 36 percent. Playing with your cat can reduce hunting by 25 percent.

Martina Cecchetti, a PhD student also of Exeter University who conducted the trial said: 

"Some cat foods contain protein from plant sources and it is possible these foods leave some cats deficient in one or more micronutrients, prompting them to hunt."

So there is some potential deficiency in 'complete cat food' which contains grain. Perhaps the presence of the grain in some of these foods triggers a message in the brain of cats to tell them that the food is not quite up to scratch and drives them to hunt for the real thing: a small rodent, their preferred prey animal.

Play also helps to deter feline hunting. This indicates that when a cat has hunted he pauses because he has satisfied his desire to hunt. This is the likely conclusion because playing with a domestic cat is a hunting substitute for the cat. All cat play is play-hunting.

Most cat owners who allow their cats free access to the outside would wish to curb their cat's hunting. Some find it disgusting, others accept it but dislike it. Here are two things that can be done to curb it. Select grain-free wet cat food and play with your cat a lot more.

Click here to read the study.