Tinned fish for cats?

BengaLover

My bengals are on a strict dried food diet, but for a change, twice a week I give them either a tin of tuna or mackerel to share.
The tuna in brine I rinse off first, to disperse some of the salt content, but would the mackerel/tuna in sunflower oil be better for them or TOO high in fat??
(when i give them the fish in oil I drain the oil off and give it a rinse too)

Zapperzy

Only twice a week and split between a few cats I can't imagine either the brine or the sunflower oil doing any harm, as you say you rinse most of it off anyways. Perhaps the sunflower oil might be a bit better for them for their coat. I think tuna also comes in spring water (well I think the john west one does) if your worried about the oil or brine. My cat will only eat tuna in brine, won't touch anything in sunflower oil.

Can I ask why they are on a strict dry food diet? I'm not really a believer of dry foods, especially not an exclusive dry food diet (unless they are on a prescription diet). Generally wet food is much better for their urinary health as it gets more fluids going through them and emptying their bladder more often. http://www.catinfo.org/

Themadhouse

TBH i would more concerned about over feeding tuna. Its not really good for cats on a long term basis. Fine every once in a while but thats it.Mercury poisoning and thiamine deficiency are 2 problems.
Sunflower oil is good. Not sure about makeral but probably still a high salt content. What about a chicken breast steamed in water. mine go mental for it! Chop up the chicken and serve it in the chicken water.

Sundew

I give my maine-coon tuna in spring water for a special treat now and again. I wouldn't give him tuna in oil or brine.

BengaLover

They are on a strict dry food diet because I dont believe that wet food is any good for them...
Low meat content and poor quality, ie whiskas, kitekat etc.
They drink LOADS of water from a water fountain too.
They are fed Go-Cat - I have tried Red Mills, IAMS, Hills etc and they all favour GoCat.
The tuna is not regular, twice a week is what they get, as well as titbits of cooked chicken when we have it.

Zapperzy

BengaLover wrote: »

They are on a strict dry food diet because I dont believe that wet food is any good for them...
Low meat content and poor quality, ie whiskas, kitekat etc.
They drink LOADS of water from a water fountain too.
They are fed Go-Cat - I have tried Red Mills, IAMS, Hills etc and they all favour GoCat.
The tuna is not regular, twice a week is what they get, as well as titbits of cooked chicken when we have it.

Have a look on zooplus, loads of high meat content, high quality wet foods such as bozita, smilla, animonda carny and porta 21. I also found this recently http://www.mobilepetfoods.co.uk/product.php/2029/25 A brilliant alternative to making up your own raw food and worrying about taurine content.
I agree with you about whiskas and kitekat, kittykrack I call them, my cat goes nuts for them, and the smells from her litter tray afterwards, as I say sh*t goes in sh*t comes out!

The Sweeper

Tinned fish has no taurine and a diet too rich in tinned fish can create pansteatitis. It can also contribute to cats being finicky if they're really picky about food.

Be careful about an all-dry diet, it seems to be indicated very strongly in the development of struvite and oxalate crystals, regardless of water fountains and drinking. Additionally as for whiskas and kitekat having no meat in them, the first two ingredients in Go-Cat are cereals and vegetable protein extracts. I think there is probably food colouring added as well, to identify the 'vegetable' from the 'meat' nuggets. What that boils down to essentially is pure crap. McDonalds with a vitamin tablet.

Bengals especially aren't designed to eat plant matter - the interbreeding used to create the breed includes cats that are evolutionarily designed to eat rodents, lizards and insects and were doing so quite happily right up to the last couple of decades. I'd do some reading on bengal-specific foods, and raw feeding if you want the very best out of your cats.

BengaLover

Trouble is, I dont want to order the good expensive food from zooplus and then have them turn it down...
I bought a huge bag of RedMills, the best one there was, and they point blank refused it so it ended up going to the hens..
They LOVED whiskas, kitekat, tinned food, but I stopped giving it them a long time ago, having heard that it was pretty much like feeding your cats McDonalds!
I was giving them Hills at one point but they kept going off it, and the GoCat seemed to be the one they really liked best.

I see what you mean about giving them the fish and it making them finicky about food - they scream like mad at the cupboard for me to open a tin, and even if i am opening a tin for my own use when I turn round all 3 cats are behind me as if my magic...

Themadhouse

Felix as food as it looks is a decent wet food. Applaws wet food is brilliant too, high meat content, rice and water. Applaws dry food is high in meat too. You might be able to pick up a 400g bag. I have started to see it stocked in some garden centres and pet shops.

BengaLover

I shall look out for that and maybe contact some companies for samples.

Zapperzy

BengaLover wrote: »

Trouble is, I dont want to order the good expensive food from zooplus and then have them turn it down...
I bought a huge bag of RedMills, the best one there was, and they point blank refused it so it ended up going to the hens..
They LOVED whiskas, kitekat, tinned food, but I stopped giving it them a long time ago, having heard that it was pretty much like feeding your cats McDonalds!
I was giving them Hills at one point but they kept going off it, and the GoCat seemed to be the one they really liked best.

I see what you mean about giving them the fish and it making them finicky about food - they scream like mad at the cupboard for me to open a tin, and even if i am opening a tin for my own use when I turn round all 3 cats are behind me as if my magic...

Haha all part and parcel of owning cats I'm afraid! I had to give a rather large donation of a load of tins of smilla and animonda carny to a local rescue because herself point blank refused to touch it. If they love fish then smilla fish pots they will love because there is literally big chunks of actual fish throughout it, unfortunately my cat won't touch fish other than tuna in brine. Eventually she finally settled on bozita (first she liked the turkey flavour now she prefers rabbit :rolleyes:).

All I can say is buy small amounts of a few different kinds and hope they like some of them! If not you local shelter will be appreciative of the food!