To Middle Child---I would like to clarify a few details regarding our conversation re Sydney a few days ago. Sydney is not a Ragdoll. He is a Balinese--blue and lynx pointed. HE IS 14.5 years of age. We do have a Ragdoll who is a kitten, 8 months of age and another Bali, Ashley who just turned 14. The best article that I have read to date on Cat Nutrition is the following, a blog by a vet who is not promoting any brands.
https://weethnutrition.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/i-love-cats-and-cat-nutrition/
Hi Joy, thanks for your reply!
I wasn't talking about Syndey though. You said you were feeding Ben a "special dry" food because he was a ragdoll. I said ragdolls are just like other obligate carnivores, they do best on a more species appropriate diet, and those RC "breed specific" diets are not only poor quality, they are a marketing scam.
Thanks for the link! I'll have a longer look when I have more time, I've only browsed it briefly but this quote from the article is very old thinking and no longer thought to be true:
While this may be ok for a young healthy individual, animals with specific medical conditions such as liver or kidney disease can become very ill when fed a high protein diet.
In fact, cats who have health problems need a high MEAT protein diet high in moisture, just like any other cat. Limiting the protein a cat gets leads to muscle wasting. Those "kidney diets" are very bad for cats. A cat already sick, needs all the species appropriate nutrition she can get. Meat
is high in phosphorus, so the cat may need a phos binder or blocker, but she does still need high quality meat protein.
Now, you don't want to give a sick cat a "high protein" diet where the protein comes from corn and other grains. But then, no cat should have that kind of diet, anyway.
This is just not a comment that instills confidence in someone's knowledge of feline nutrition
wet food is also more expensive than dry kibble.
Cats can be fed fairly cheaply on canned foods, one just has to learn to read labels and shop sales. And when the vet bills get high, from all that cheap dry kibble, the savings is gone, plus.
Anyway I will spend some more time reading the article more closely, I'm sure I will find it interesting, there is always something new to be learned. I do hope that you will spend time with Dr Pierson's site. She gives a lot of information, and is very wordy, it
canbe very overwhelming.
How I manage her site is, I started just going in, reading a little from one page or another, give that some thought, go in, read a little more and so on. Some parts I have more interest in than others, at different times. There is such a wealth of information there.
There are also a number of other sites with terrific information on feline nutriton in this seciton of our forum.
Pet Care Websites
http://parenting-furkids.com/index.php?board=94.0