Should I feed my 4-month-old cat fish or meat for best health?

Hi and thanks for posting on Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! No, meat by itself is really not good for cats to eat especially as an entire meal. Feeding meat by itself lacks a large amount of essential vitamins, minerals, and balance of nutrients that cats need (especially kittens) and require every day. I would stick to the cat food formulations instead and a tiny bit of meat can be given as a treat every so often.

Thanks for using petocach! I'm sorry to hear your cat is having issues with food preferences. Unfortunately, he will need to eat kitten food in order to get the nutrients, vitamins and minerals he needs to grow. I would recommend trying a variety of wet kitten foods to see which he may like, and occasionally warming them in the microwave to help it smell more enticing. He should ideally be eating two meals of kitten food a day, which can be supplemented with small amounts of additional protein but kitten food should be the mainstay of his diet. Good luck!

If you would like to feed a homemade diet, I would recommend using a website like balanceit.com or discussing a recipe with a veterinary nutritionist. Completely meat diets won't be balanced for all of their micronutrient needs. Wet cat foods usually have higher protein concentrations than dry food. Purina Pro Plan makes a good dry cat food that has 45% protein, my cat loves it! In the wild, cats don't eat just meat. They will snack on grass and eat entrails of herbivores, which give them fiber and grains.

The answer is up to you and your cat. Some cats prefer dry only, some wet only, some enjoy both. Kitten food is still needed at six months of age and will be until he is a year old. Cats are carnivores, and canned, pate-type wet food is the closest to what they would get in the wild. Dry food has to have some carbohydrates in the form of grains or vegetable pulp in order to be made into dry nuggets. Cats have a very low carbohydrate requirement and some gain excess weight on dry food. Feed the best food you can afford. My personal favorites are Science Diet and Royal Canin. Both offer excellent quality, specifically formulated diets that are nutritionally complete for your pet's life stage and condition and both offer money-back guarantees if your pet doesn't like them. Just make sure when switching to a new food to introduce it gradually. Transition your pet onto a new food by offering the old food in one bowl and a mix of 1/4 new food and 3/4 old food in another bowl next to it. Do this for a week, then offer 1/2-1/2 new/old food in the second bowl for a week. Change to 3/4 new-1/4 old for a week and gradually stop putting old food in the first bowl. By the end of the month she should be transitioned to the new food with a minimum of digestive upset.

It certainly doesn't hurt Her Khan to eat both diets. I do shy away from using any exotic meats such as rabbit or venison, just in case he were to develop IBD as an older cat. I think sticking to 'normal' proteins is just fine. I hope this is helpful and please feel free to post any additional questions

Yes, as long as the cat food you're feeding contains and AAFCO statement it should be fine to feed those flavors. You do want to make sure Oliver doesn't end up with vomiting or diarrhea as this may indicate he cannot tolerate a certain type of food. This article may be of interest to you: https://www.petcoach.co/article/what-to-look-for-when-choosing-your-pet-s-food/ Thanks for using PetCoach!

Many kind of fishes would be good but sardines and white fish like codfish would be great. Please carefully removed any fish bone inside. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.