Can I feed my cat a vegetarian diet? Is it safe and healthy for them?

Cats are obligate carnivores and they cannot eat a vegetarian diet. A vegetarian diet will cause heart disease and an early death for cats. Feeding Theo a commercial diet for cats is the best way to ensure he gets the appropriate amino acids to maintain the best health for his body. Home cooked meals almost always lack appropriate nutirients as well as inappropriate ratios. Giving him an egg is fine and is a source of high quality protein. If he will eat vegetables, you can give him things like peas, carrots or green beans but he may not eat them. I hope this is helpful and please feel free to post any additional questions!

I would not recommend placing a kitten on a vegan diet. This is not the proper formulation for a cat. It is important for cats to eat meat to have proper nutrition and grow properly. IF it is for religious regions I would consult your vet about a prescription diet. Purina HA for dogs is a vegetarian based meal. It is possible that HA for cats is the same. However you will need a prescription to buy this food.

The problem with feeding cats a homemade diet is that it is very difficult to get the correct balance of nutrients cats need. They are obligate carnivores, meaning they have to eat meat in order to survive, and their diet has to provide essential amino acids as their body cannot make them on it's own. I can put links below to websites that provide recipes for homemade diets for cats, and I would check that out if you want to try making a homemade diet for Orieo. I hope this helps! https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com

People food is just that – food for people. Cats are obligate carnivores, and as such, have a delicate balance of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and vitamins and minerals that must be maintained. Cats should eat a balanced high quality diet in order to meet all of their nutritional needs. Unbalanced diets with vitamin/mineral imbalances risk a variety of health problems. Home cooked diets are not as commonly recommended, but are preferred by some cats and pet owners. If you opt to go down this road, a carefully crafted recipe by a specialist in veterinary nutrition should be used with proper vitamin and mineral supplementation. Even with a commercial diet, occasional treats of boiled white meat chicken, turkey, salmon, or tuna can be perfectly fine in small quantities.

Hello, I would not recommend feeding your cat avocado. A formulated diet made for cats that meets AAFCO standards should meet all of her nutritional needs without any supplements. Here is more information on what goes into a healthy diet: https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=8808771 I hope this helps. Thanks for using PetCoach.

I don’t recommend raw food diets as they can be very difficult to formulate, balance and also to safely provide without risk of gastrointestinal infection from contaminated meat. I would suggest a home prepared diet if you are interested in avoiding mainstream packaged food brands. Here is a link explain what a Home prepares siet it. There is also a source which will help you formulate a home prepared diet. https://www.petcoach.co/article/how-to-create-a-balanced-homemade-diet-for-your-pet/ For any diet change, we recommend slowly switching over to the new food by adding increasing amounts of the new food to the old food during meal times over a week. Hope this was helpful and thank you for using PetCoach!

Hi Jamie, There are a lot of people who advocate for a raw food diet, but you are right that there are a lot of risk factors. There is not a medical benefit to feeding raw food over cooked food. I think a balanced homemade (cooked) or canned food diet are the safest for cats. Making a homemade diet and keeping it balanced can be quite a bit of work, so I currently feed my cats canned. I have attached a link below that may be useful for you. It has a lot of great information about cat food. http://catinfo.org I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.