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Feline Immunodeficiency Virus & Your Cat

cat FIV infection

When I was young, like all kids, I wanted to know why everything happened. Having vets as parents, I can distinctly remember asking why male cats needed to be desexed.

“It’s because otherwise they fight so much that they get run down and die early.”

With the benefit of hindsight, this is pure folk wisdom. People could see that fighting was associated with sickness, but not yet why. Then, in 1986, hot on the heels of the discovery of the human AIDS virus, researchers in the USA put two and two together and found a feline AIDS virus in cats like these. We call it FIV.

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Getting Cats To Eat Raw Chicken Necks

cat raw chicken

Let me tell you a story that shows what we’re up against.

I met a very perplexed feral cat researcher recently. In his study area the cats generally hunt and eat one common mammal. However, suddenly the population of that species crashed.

There were lots of other tasty critters still hopping around, some of which look nearly the same. Despite this, the cats began to starve.

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Should Cats Be Fed Wild Foods?

wild cat diet

There are four key differences between most commercial cat foods and the diets that cats have adapted to eat in the wild:

  1. High carbohydrate levels: cats eat almost no carbs in the wild
  2. Low moisture content: wild cats get most of their water from prey
  3. Plant-based proteins: proteins from animal sources have a higher value to the body
  4. Lack of texture: only physical cleaning seems to work on cats’ teeth

Depending on who you believe, you could add a fifth: Safety. That’s what we’re hopefully going to fix with the pet food senate inquiry.

Right now you might be thinking, “if these cat foods are so bad, why does my cat seem healthy?” Our page on What’s wrong with cat diets covers what we know about the link between cat foods and diseases like diabetes and cystitis.

Good Nutrition For Cats

So maybe you want to start a homemade diet for your cat, or maybe you just want to improve what your cat currently eats. Either way, you’ve come to the right place.

Making A Homemade Cat Diet

Getting cat nutrition right is harder than people think. Read here why it’s not just a matter of giving them meat and offal. Cats are highly specialised feeders and that comes with very specific requirements.

If you really want to make a balanced home made diet, you need the help of a genuine animal nutritionist. We can put you in touch with some who will, for a fee, construct a suitable diet based on your needs.

For most cat owners, the diet below should tick all the boxes.

A Practical Compromise Diet

Here’s what I do recommend for normal, healthy cats & kittens. I’m going to take the best ideas, add practicality, and make a good diet that anyone can do. In doing so I aim to please exactly none of the warring camps and make enemies out of them all!

Step 1: Choose a low carb tinned food

The closest foods you can buy to what a cat needs are inside some, but not all tins. The idea is to find some quality ones with low carbohydrate levels. These are usually loaf-style without gravy or sauces.

Click here for my table of carbohydrate levels in Australian cat & kitten foods. You’ll see that there’s a tremendous variation between wet foods from very low to very high. There’s also a calculator so you can do it yourself. 

Step 2: Add texture

Tins alone will rot the teeth. Plaque removal is needed via either raw bones, dental biscuits or tooth brushing. You can read more about feline dental care here.

My kitty gets a raw chicken neck every day. If that sounds crazy, it might help to know three things:

  • I have never needed to clean or remove teeth in cats that get daily chicken necks
  • Although risks exist, I have never seen neck bones get stuck
  • Cats are usually unaffected by Salmonella

I’ve written a guide to getting cats to eat chicken necks. However, for many adults it’s very hard, and often impossible. For these cats, let’s move to Step 3.

Step 3: Choose a balanced dental diet

I also advise a cat dental biscuit, especially if you can’t feed chicken necks. This is optional, and best avoided with diabetes or urinary problems. You just can’t go past it for practicality. A dental diet:

  • gives extra dental care
  • won’t spoil on hot days
  • is safe around children
  • can be put in dispensers and treat balls
  • has minimal packaging or waste
  • isn’t smelly or messy

All dry foods, regardless of the marketing, contain a high carbohydrate level. However, by balancing it with wet food and chicken necks the amount isn’t excessive. If you can’t feed chicken necks I recommend Hills t/d as it seems more effective, but any are fine if you can. 

Step 4: Add grass

I keep two pots of grass on the go. One in the house and one in ‘grass hospital’ where it recovers from being chewed. Cats have a strong drive to eat grass so it makes sense that we offer it.

That’s the diet! Now, remember those four problems? Let’s tick them off:

  1. Carbohydrate levels are kept low by a carefully selected tinned food and chicken necks
  2. Moisture content is moderate (with dry) or high without
  3. Animal-based proteins come from chicken necks
  4. Texture is in the necks and biscuits

All while keeping the diet balanced and safe.

But let me say this in conclusion. There is clearly no feeding mistake as great as allowing obesity. If you can be strong enough to keep your cat at an ideal weight, you’re heading for an above-average lifespan. That’s almost regardless of the diet you choose.

Even though current diets aren’t ideal, it isn’t a disaster. Kittens and cats are far better off than before balanced diets were introduced and living longer than they ever did. Just talk to any retired vets, like my parents.

What would be a disaster is if cat owners are made to feel like they have to make their cats’ food instead of buying it. As I hope you can now see, it’s quite possible to feed your cat a biologically appropriate diet without reinventing the wheel.

Have something to add? Comments are welcome below and will appear within 24 hours of lodging.

Related: the unbalanced cat foods you’re not being warned about.

By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. These blogs are from a series regularly posted on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe via email here to never miss a story!