An obligate carnivore thread - cats don't yoga?

keto-cat
#1

Deception?

Each morning my wife gets up early to go to yoga class. She is incredibly fit and beautiful. Vegetables fear her. She won’t eat a steak, the yoga community is mainly vegetarian and vegan from what I observe and when I meet her crew.

Each morning I wake to the tinkling of dry cat food going into the bowl for Nancy and Eunice. Yes, they have names like 1950s Presidents (or First Ladies). When I hear the front door close, I get up (I am not a morning bear) and tip the cat biscuits back into the cereal container. Yes, the cat biscuits are in the re purposed breakfast cereal container (since the kitchen cupboard purge of 2014). I go and get the girls some grass-fed beef, or just recently some outback harvested feral goat. They love the goat. I make tiny, mouse size patties and put them in the bowls.

Dear wife asked if I thought the cats were sick because they don’t get up to pester her for biscuits, but they don’t seem to be hungry, but they seem to be losing some weight. I say it’s body fat and they like the beef I find them on special when shopping.

Cats are obligate carnivores. I also share some sardines with them, they don’t like oysters or mussels, we rarely have prawns, sometimes smoked salmon, lamb hearts, tiny amount of lamb’s liver (Spring lamb time is ending), chicken hearts, they like roast duck and some bone broth. They are starting to look like healthier cats.

My wife doesn’t realise that she is the only (low carb) ovopesci-vegetarian left in the household.

How do I break it to her? Have I broken a commandment or a marriage vow? #lowcarbkitties

#2

Your cats eat better than most people now.
After starting feeding my dogs more meat I feel guilty when they have to eat kibble…like I’m letting them down.
Last night I had some raw beef for them and my old lab was like a puppy she was so happy.
Hmmmm not sure what to tell the wife… Maybe wait until it’s obvious how much healthier and happier the cats are.

(John) #3

Unless you are feeding them whole mice or whole birds (where they would be ingesting organs and bones), you do need to be concerned about their overall nutrition and not just feed meat.

There is a fairly complicated process for making a raw-diet for cats - it involves chicken and/or turkey meat, light and dark, including skin and some ground bones, eggs, adding in taurine and several vitamins, and some organ meats (chicken liver and hearts).

Here is a good recipe: https://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/making-raw-cat-food-for-do-it-yourselfers

(bulkbiker) #4

Ours just goes out and harvests his own mice and birds…then leaves the bits he doesn’t like sitting on the terrace for us to step on… nice…

(Robert C) #5

Yes

(Windmill Tilter) #6

Honesty is among the most important virtues in marriage. I’m aware of only 3 exceptions to this rule; topics upon which the good husband is an obligate mute:

  • The disparity between how she regards her children and reality
  • Her waistline
  • The true nature of her cats

Doubtless there are 3 topics upon which the good wife remains mum, but mine has never spoken of them…:yum:

#7

I don’t know what to do, I am a honest person, especially with my SO, I couldn’t keep it a secret for a day, I actually wouldn’t see the point. They are carnivores. If I had meat (I don’t have enough even for myself now) and I could afford to feed it to the cats, I would do it. No matter my diet. Actually, feeding them dry cat food that contains some animal product I don’t approve is much worse, I have my standards and principles (the same ones as a vegetarian. I am against animal cruelty and animal death are something that an ovo-lacto vegetarian must accept as their diet depends on it) and I break them a bit when I must but try to keep that minimal.

So… The cats ate good meat. It’s quite fine, what is there you can’t simply say? The mouse sized patties part was even very cute and heartwarming (though the cats are fine with smaller bites, they usually prefer that but of course, they can deal with some bigger, not hard food if their teeth are fine) :slight_smile:

#8

Of course, he is a cat. Mice, voles, sometimes birds or lizards and their parts frequently decorate our doormat, we have 4 cats and lots of critters in the nearby fields.
We aren’t thrilled (I don’t even wake up when it’s dark but my SO goes out at 5am, he stepped on a whole bigger mouse last week) but what could we do?
At least we feed them the occasional small bones far away from the doormat because they love to eat all not too tiny food on it.

#9

She also has a veterinary degree. I’m on a losing hand when it comes to confession.

#10
#11

You can just tell her to research all meat, raw meat diets for animals. Any vet will do just that, check out the info and make a decision LOL

My little dog is pure carnivore…but I leave a bowl of IAMS small chunk kibble out. He eats an 11 lb. bag like once a year…he eats very little kibble and if I see him going to the kibble bowl he has all access to, I make sure I feel him his meat :slight_smile:

Cats want meat and fish. Who are we kidding here? Thing is cats and dogs will eat anything for survival as we all know. Plus cats and dogs are super resilient in their physical survival…their bodies can take nutritional punishment to epic proportion to ensure survival. So we feed them crap, but eventually they ‘get sick’ before their time and it is the ‘pet cycle’ of the world sadly.

I loved your post :slight_smile: :slight_smile: Truly it was so fun to read and just a great story to be part of!

(Central Florida Bob ) #12

Of course that’s true, but they’re also cats and if they don’t like something, they won’t eat it. I have two rescue cats. When we got them, the long, lean male wanted only canned food, which was mostly meat. The rounder girl cat only wanted kibbles (the brand “Science Diet”). We’ve had them 9 years and in the efforts to get her off kibbles, have come up with a grain free dry food that big guy eats. She’s, perhaps, a bit less round. He’s maybe a bit rounder.

If anyone should know they’re obligate carnivores, with short digestive tracts and ripping, shredding teeth as opposed to grinding molars for grain, it’s her.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #13

Hey Bob, just wanted to mention that I had a rescue cat a while back who had neuro problems. I switched him to a grain free diet after I had him for a while and he got pretty fat and sick. Something about the pea protein they use instead of grain causing heart problems in cats. Just wanted to share with you in case yours has the same ingredient. I found lots of articles in a google search. The vet made me put him back on good old fashioned cat kibble and he lost the weight and got his spunk back.

(Edith) #14

You could try a raw food diet. Just chicken and beef. It wouldn’t take much to feed a cat raw food/

(Justin Jordan) #15

My girl’s dry food is a mix of six dried fish, and basically not much else. I try to keep her away from carbs, basically.

(Central Florida Bob ) #16

Thank you, @PetaMarie! Never noticed any symptoms but pea protein is an ingredient I’ve seen listed.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #17

You’re so welcome. I’m not sure what the latest is on the situation. Best wishes keeping those fluffies healthy!

#18

My wife and I went to the pet food butcher today and bought a few kilos of ‘wild caught’ (someone shot feral goats) goat meat.

The way to prepare the goat meat is to roll it into prey size balls and put them on a tray to freeze. Then when frozen put them all in a container in the freezer and just pluck one out as needed (every time that cat meows while sitting next to an empty food bowl).

Our cats are adult overweight cats. I probably wouldn’t try this experiment in a growing cat. But I would have loved to have got them on to raw chicken drumsticks at a young age (for improving their mental health).

This is after we were at my mother-in-law’s house for some family meet-ups over the weekend and the lovely wife noted how well her mum’s cat was looking.

Rocco, that’s the MIL’s cat, was a vomity cat with a bad attitude when he was on standard cat dry food. Lovely wife advised a novel protein elimination diet for Rocco and it worked amazingly well.