Except for the occasional tiffs between Creamy, Gerald and Misty, all’s reasonably well at the porch.
Gerald and Misty come back for food 2-3 times daily. They are always here for breakfasts and dinners. And nowadays, they ask for lunch and a tea-time snack too.
So, sometimes they end up eating four times a day!
They get a combination of raw food and canned food, but they will not touch kibble! Smart cats, eh?
“We can get kibble elsewhere, so please don’t give that to us. We want something different.”
I was talking with a friend who is deep into holistic management of her cats. She opines that “junk” is sometimes good as it exercises their stomachs to a host of things. She often throws some junk in so her cats do not become immune and body can process a variety of different types of foods.
But having said this, others might disagree and say that cats, being obligate carnivores and descended from the wild cats, should be on a 100% raw diet and nothing else.
And they may well be right too!
In fact, I chose to convert all our cats to a 100% raw diet in 2019 and after doing so, I noticed that some gastro-intestinal problems were solved. I think it was Bunny’s and Indy’s. Before that, vomiting occurred quite often and with the benefit of hindsight, I attributed the gastro problems to having too many different types of food in the digestive system thereby “upsetting” it. Proteins need certain digestive enzymes while carbohydrates need yet a different type. Cats generally do not digest carbohydrates very well.
So I learnt that we should not mix proteins with carbohydrates for cat food. Kibble has carbs. So, it’s better not to mix canned with kibble, and much less, raw food with kibble. Unless it is just to entice the cat to eat, like for Akira, previously. Akira used to need the smell of kibble to make her eat her raw food, but now it is no longer needed.
Then, one might want to extend this concept to 100% raw food, without any kibble at all. So, no kibble snacks.
A holistic vet told me that raw food with canned food should be fine because both contain mostly protein. But she will not mix raw/canned with kibble (carbs). She does give her own cats a weekly snack of kibble, though. Even amongst her own cats, some eat raw while some eat cooked food.
Ultimately, I guess we won’t know what’s best because again, every cat is different. So, we play it by ear, we use trial and error and finally, give them what works best for them. In a multi-cat household, every cat’s food preference is different too.
Even amongst the Monsters, who are the best eaters in our house, they do have their preferences too. But they do not ask for kibble.