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Feline essential nutrients

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Posted by: Bengkulubengals at Sat Jun 21 19:01:49 2003  [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Bengkulubengals ]  
   

I wrote this for the bengal forum but thought I would cross post it here.

All felines including domestic cats are obligate carnivores. Their diet must consist of whole animals including muscle, offal, liver, heart, brain etc for complete nutrition. A field mouse caught by a serval on the African plain is eaten whole, a zebra captured by a pride of lions is consumed to almost the last drop with only bones and scraps remaining for the vultures and other scavengers. The best foods for our house cats are those that are designed to approximate as closely as possible the nutritional value of whole uncooked animals. However, no single animal species alone can meet the nutritional needs of felines so cats will eat a variety of animals to insure a balanced diet. With the single exception of the Canadian Lynx that lives almost exclusively on snowshoe hares cats will eat a lot of different animals. For example the Asian leopard cat may eat several giant roaches, a few gecko lizards and several mice in one nights hunt. This variety will insure them the required essential nutrients. Essential nutrients are those that the body can not manufacture and must be consumed in the whole or active form.
Cats have very specific and unusual diet requirements that must be met or they will not survive. The essential nutrients we need to be most concerned with are Vitamin A, niacin, arachidonic acid, arginine and taurine.
VITAMIN A: Being true carnivores cats do not have the ability to break down and utilize most plant nutrients. Omnivores and vegetarians have the proper enzymes to break down the carotenoids in plants and convert it into retinol (Vitamin A.) Cats do not have these enzymes so plant material is of little use to them. Cats must get their needed vitamin A by eating animals that can break down carotenoids into retinol. Most of the vitamin A cats ingest is from the liver of their prey. But vitamin A can quickly become toxic to cats if to much is eaten, so, you must be very careful how much liver is given to cats.
NIACIN: Niacin is one of the essential B-complex vitamins. Most mammals can convert an amino acid called tryptophan into niacin. Cats however turn tryptophan into a type of sugar so they must get niacin through eating animal tissue.
ARACHIDONIC ACID: Arachidonic acid is one of the essential fatty acids. Essential fatty acids are most important for reproduction, kidney health and skin integrity. Dogs have an enzyme in their liver called delta-6-desaturase that converts linoleic acid into Arachidonic Acid. So, Arachidonic Acid is not an essential nutrient for dogs. However cats lack delta-6-desaturase in the their liver so Arachidonic Acid must be obtained through eating whole meat. There is no Arachidonic Acid to be found in vegetable matter which is just one of the many reasons cats can not survive on a vegetarian diet.
ARGININE: Arginine is an amino acid which aids in the removal of protein waste. Cats require a lot of protein and once it has been used by the body the left over waste needs to be swept out. You can think of arginine as part of a chemical broom that sweeps out this waste material. It is VERY important that each and every meal a cat eats has the proper amount of arginine. Even a single meal without arginine will cause ammonia toxicity and make a cat very ill. This is why it is very important to never offer your cat snacks of some human foods. Cats should only eat foods that are designed for their special nutritional requirements.
TAURINE: If you have had pet cats for any length of time you have probably heard of taurine and know of its importance to proper retinal function. Taurine is used to produce bile salts and if a cat does not get enough taurine it robs from other body tissues such as the retina of the eye and the heart to conserve enough taurine for bile salts. The end condition of a diet low in taurine is blindness and a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. But the importance of taurine does not stop there...it also has many other important functions throughout the body including skeletal development, brain function and reproduction performance. Again, taurine can not be obtained through plants. The best sources of taurine are fish and offals.
In conclusion I hope if nothing else we have learned from the above information that all felines must eat a variety of animal tissue for optimal health and survival.

Mark Dwight
--BENGKULU BENGALS


   

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