Cats are delightfully fussy creatures with tendencies that can stress even the most laid back of humans. One feline tendency that’s genetically hardwired is a craving for salty, high fat foods. Feeding processed commercial foods filled with rancid fats and artificial flavorings exacerbates that craving to varying degrees of addiction. Also potentially addictive is the shape and texture of their food. Many commercial cat food manufacturers devote millions of dollars toward researching a shape and texture a majority of cats will find irresistible. Formulate a junk food in just the right shape and texture, and then fill and cover it in fat, salt and sugar. The cat will eat joyfully, and over time, will refuse anything else. The cat is now officially a junky, and would seemingly prefer starvation to eating anything else. But there is hope for those equipped with the proper knowledge. Cats have a unique and precarious metabolism that can be pushed off kilter with abrupt dietary changes.

Unlike dogs, cats should have very small amounts of raw food mixed with their kibble or canned food to help ease the transition and avoid physiological backlash. Before making any dietary changes, it’s sensible and prudent to take your cat to your vet for a checkup to make sure it’s in good health and address any discovered issues. Obtaining blood and urinalysis values will provide you a great baseline for tracking health, and your vet will be better able to extend dietary advice. After meeting with your vet and understanding your cat’s current health status and related dietary needs, stop by Natural Pet Pantry for samples of each of our Cat Meals. You may consider buying one package of each meal, and the samples will let you know which meal it most prefers without having to open an entire meal package. Once your cat picks it favorite, you can then open the larger meal packet to begin the transition with. Your cat may immediately prefer the raw over its kibble or canned food, but you must still adhere to a slow transition to avoid potential GI or metabolic problems.

If your cat is disinterested in the raw, you can flash sear any of our BONELESS Cat Meals in a pan to bring out its aroma. Heat a skillet to medium temperature and drop a sample packet size amount in. Top Rated T-Shirt Printing Mesa AzHeat for 15-20 seconds while stirring, and then quickly place on a plate until cooled to a safe-to-eat temperature. How To Make A Spare Tire Mount For TrailerPlace warmed food in a dish with its regular food and mix thoroughly. Dogs For Sale North DevonThe kibble’s coating will lace the healthy food with junk your cat is familiar with, making it more appealing. Do not allow your cat to go on a self-imposed hunger strike. Contrary to common belief, a CAT will not eventually eat out of hunger.

If a cat fasts for too long, it may become susceptible to developing a life threatening condition called hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). It’s also not unheard of for a cat to literally starve itself to death by refusing food it isn’t familiar with, or doesn’t like. Feed your cat two regularly scheduled meals per day and begin by replacing up to 1 tsp. of its current food with no more than 1 tsp. of NPP Raw Meal for Cats. You may use less raw to begin with, but do not use more raw than suggested. Continue the rate of increasing 1 tsp. of raw and reducing 1 tsp. of current food per week until the current food is entirely depleted. Due to the caloric differences of raw versus kibble and canned, please refer to your veterinarian for healthy amounts of raw to feed based on your cat’s current health status. It is very important when transitioning your dog onto a raw or cooked food diet to make sure they are digesting it well. To do this, take it in steps by giving them their kibble or other raw products with a small amount of the new food.

Incrementally increase the new food and decrease the kibble. To start, make their meal 75% old food and 25% new food. You’ll know it’s time to increase your dog’s ratio of new food when they have a solid stool. Increase the new food by another 25% in a few days or when you see that your pet is tolerating the change in diet. Some pets may take three days to transition and some may take three weeks. Observe your dog’s reaction to the new food and increase according to what you think is best, based on their tolerance. Look for firm stools before you make any new changes. If they are really sensitive to the change, add only 10% new food. Adding probiotics to their food will also help the sensitive pet to transition more easily.A cat diet is the best for the fennec. Because of this, adequate taurine should be added to the diet. Cooking destroys a lot of taurine, so raw meat is the best source. Mealworms are also an excellent part of the fennec diet. Male Fennecs rarely weigh more than 3 1/2lbs., or 1.75 Kilograms

Females weigh less than the males, usually 2-2.5 lbs, or 1-1.25 Kilograms If Fennecs are kept healthy, they can live 11-14 years in captivity. A fennec fox drinks water if available, but it can also survive for long periods of time with only the water content from its food. It is smart to keep water available for them at all times, though. A fennec’s diet in the wild is comprised of 90% animals/insects. They scavenge for the other 10%, and it’s mostly in roots that they find and dig up. Their diets usually consist of mostly protein from other animals and insects, with only an occasional bite of root or plant material. They actually get their leafy nutrition from eating the animals that thrive on what little is in the desert in the form of plant food. Specifically, in the wild fennecs eat beetles and other insects, lizards and other reptiles, rodents, birds and bird eggs, and other small mammals, with only some fruit and plant matter. A fennec is a canine, but their need to protein is as great or greater than a cat’s.

If you feed a fennec an omnivore diet you will have all manner of health problems. Their bodies are not made for so much fiber. They cannot utilize it, and this shows in their stools. Fennecs also have very unusual teeth for a fox. They are the only foxes known to be like this. Wildlife biologists study these anomalies and state that the teeth are like they are because of the large amount of insects and small boned animals they have in their wild diets. The closer we stay to the diet in the wild, whether it’s a fennec or another exotic animal, the better off the animal is going to be. If you remove the protein, meat or insects from a fennec’s diet, they can develop cardiomyopathy or liver disease. Your Fennec should be eating several dozen mealworms, crickets, silkworms or other insects a day, along with eggs, as they rob nests in the wild. Any type of bug or insect is great. You can also feed mice or pinky mice. Others choose to feed raw meat. If you choose to go with a commercial food, please make sure that it is one high in taurine and meat products.

There is a list of good commercial cat foods below. Your fennec should also receive a couple heaping teaspoons full of veggies (frozen mixed veggies, fresh broccoli, tiny tomatoes, and whatever veggie he will eat) per day, as well as a very few fruits as treats. They do scavenge for fruit/veggies and roots in the wild as a small portion of their diet. Cherries are a big favorite and also help to reduce urine odor. But their major diet should be the meat/protein. They need a diet high in protein. Watch the feces of your fox. If you feed a lot of grain and vegetables, it will be filled with those products. Waste is actually reduced when your fox is being fed an adequate diet. Corn is not well digested and neither are carrots. All manner of green stuff is passed. Grains especially are not used well by fennecs! Care must be given when feeding a raw diet to ensure it is 100% complete in nutritional value. Feeding only parts of an animal (legs, wings, thighs) can actually cause more harm then good.

When this is done it can lead to lack of calcium, or calcium absorption problems. This leads to brittle bones and other diseases. Even a raw diet must be monitored! If you are worried about your fennec’s diet, please give him extra taurine. You can simply empty a 500 mg capsule on top of the mealworms and veggies. You can also give Vionate (a vitamin recommended for foxes) a couple of times a week. These little devils have a sweet tooth. They also are willing to eat almost any human food that you offer them, but this is NOT good for them. To help neutralize urine odors, you can use cranberries or cherries. Buy them frozen and just thaw them. Cherries are usually more effective than cranberries. Unfortunately, there is little attention paid to the quality of the protein or the fats in commercially manufactured dog food. The cheapest possible sources are used. Pet food companies have also replaced fat and protein with starch because it is cheap. Higher quality protein stengthens the immune system.

Also, diets higher in protein actually enhance kidney function. If you choose to use commercial foods, rotating meat-based diets with various alternative meats, both raw, canned and dry food is one of the best things you can do for your pets. Prairie (Nature’s Variety): One of the very best commercial foods available for your fennec fox. They carry it in the dried, canned and frozen raw. Their foods are very high in taurine and have the least amount of grains of any out there. Wellness: They have a super5mix lite formula for cats with only 8% fat and the taurine is 2). The super5mix that is salmon, turkey and herring oil formula hass salmon, deboned turkey, herring meal, salmon meal, and menhaden fishmeal as the first ingredients. The preservatives are all natural. The 5 lb bag of Wellness is around 18.00 (pretty high). Azmira:Their food is very natural and well-balanced for a fennec. Mazuri Wild Feline: This is fairly high in taurine, which is good for your fennec.

DO NOT feed them the omnivore feed from Mazuri unless they are getting all kinds of raw meats or insects along with it. Innova, Felidae,Solid Gold and Eagle Pack Holistic are other brands that you may want to try for your fennec. Taurine is found in protein foods of animal origin. Juvenile cataracts in cats and wild canids usually is caused from lack of taurine in the diet. Without taurine, these same animals have reproductive problems. Also, cardiomyopathy has developed in wild animals who have not had taurine in the diet. When fed taurine, the symptoms, if caught in time, are reversed. Some newer research is showing that we have a number of breeds of domestic dogs that need it…each time cardiomyopathy has occurred, there has been a reversal in the symptoms when this has been fed. Some of the dog food companies have begun adding taurine to the dog foods, simply because of the breeds that need it. A cat diet is the best for the fennec. Cooking destroys a lot of taurine, so raw meat is the best source.

Cats needs large amounts of taurine in their diets. In many ways, fennecs are like cats when it comes to taurine…they need it, as do wolves. A fennec’s eyes are like the eyes of a cat. Even their body structure is much like that of a cat…and as such, much protein is needed. Cats have reproductive problems, cardiomyopathy, juvenile cataracts, etc., due to low amounts of taurine being fed. Some of these same things have occurred in our fennecs. In studies by Dr. Francis Pottinger, it shows that over several generations, cats on a raw diet were normally healthy while those on a cooked diet demonstrated allergies, heart problems, arthritis, various infections, neurological diseases and shortened life span. One paper cited a case where a theraputic dose of taurine was given and the heart returned to normal after that. The study seems to suggest the recamended daily taurine be about 250-500mg/kg which I beleive is the same as parts per million when reading lables on food.

1000mg/kg would a a theraputic dose. This was fur farm foxes though. The California Natural cat food has 2933ppm of taurine and tha mazuri feline small has 2600ppm but you need to have more if your feenec gets things like veggies or fruit on the side since the 250-500mg/kg is amount needed in the total daily diet. Mice, which are usually plentiful, supply this needed amino acid taurine(and it is only found in animal protein, not in vegetation). It is believed the average mouse has about 2000 to 2400 mgs of Taurine in it. Another nice benefit of taurine: It can can protect animals from endotoxins. This also means that your fennec urine will be less odiferous, because toxins produce odor. Foods with high taurine content: Not cooked unless specified…all equal portion servings: Beef muscle: 362 mg Beef liver: 192 mg Beef kidney: 225 mg Lamb muscle: 473 mg Lamb kidney: 239 mg Pork muscle: 496 mg Pork liver: 169 mg Chicken muscle: 337 mg

cooked Squid: 766 mg cooked Octopus: 871 mg cooked tone: 954 mg cooked crab: 450 mg pasteurized milk: 15 mg cooked clams: 889 mg cooked scallops: 1006 mg cooked moule: 596 mg The only problem with tuna is that it has enough mercury in it to threaten humans, let alone something as small as a fox. You can never tell how much is in any given can either. One can can be a lot and the next a lot less. You can raise mealworms in a big Rubbermaid tub. Fill the tub with a few inches of wheat germ as a base. You can feed your mealworms powdered milk, corn meal, apples, potatoes & carrots. The powdered milk is supposed to raise the protein content in the worms. Monkey biscuits are high in protein and the mealworms just love them. There is also an increase in size. You should probably not feed giant mealworms to your fennec, as they are raised on hormones, and are less healthy for your fennec. Your fennecs can also eat the adult black bugs, but make sure they get a change to lay their eggs first!