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Post by Ritzie/Admin on Jul 19, 2004 3:08:44 GMT -8
Vegetarian techni-cal dog food? What is that? Just vegetarian dog food, without meat? I didn't know that it existed!
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Post by queenofthenile on Jul 19, 2004 5:23:51 GMT -8
Technical is a brand name food in Canada. Yes Peter, they do produce vegetarian dog food. Although dogs in the wild are omnivores, they can be quite healthy on a vegetarian food as long as the protein is well-balanced. Cats, on the other hand, are strict carnivores, and so *cannot* be placed on a vegetarian diet.
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Post by crazycritter on Jul 19, 2004 14:44:35 GMT -8
Actually, there are vegetarian cat foods...the ingredient that cats NEED from meet that couldn't be found in plants before, but now it is. I found a site about it, and here is an excerpt:
What is missing in vegan food
Of what we have read, the nutrients cats in nature can get only from animal sources are taurine (an amino acid), vitamins A and D, and a certain fatty acid; these are essential for the cat's nutrition. All animals need those, but while some other carnivors can synthesize some of these themselves, cats cannot, and thus depend on their food. How to get what is missing
Taurine, vitamins A and D and the necessary fatty acids are found in certain algae, or may be synthesized from vegetable sources. Commercial foods enriched with these or nutrition supplements added to homemade foods can do the work. The foods and supplemensts we use meet the requirements of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) Cat Food Nutrient Profile. What sorts of food are we talking about?
Our cat gets a commercial type of vegan kibble, which he likes, and a home made treat - Seitan (see below) mixed with a commercially available nutrition supplement (made according to the recipe we received with this food supplement). This is his absolute favourite, he has never been so enthusiastic about any other food. In terms of nutritional value, each of these two would be sufficient and a fully nutritious food by itself, according to the manufacturers. We give him both kibbles and Seitan daily. We mix Seitan for him once a week, it only takes a few minutes, and lasts for 7-8 days.
Our cat also likes most kinds of commercial soy-cheese and soy-meat slices (soy-ham, soy-pastrami and the like). It took a short period of trial and error, experimenting with different kinds of commercial and home made foods until we found his favourites.
The kibble we give our cat is manufactured by Evolution, and we bought it over the Internet (see the links below). It may seem relatively expensive -- we paid around $70 for a 40 lb. sac -- but it lasts very long (it took our cat almost a year to finish one sac). On their website they offer an introductory package, that includes both a small container of the kibble food, and a can of moist food. We tried the two types of canned foods, but our cat did not like them (he did like the avocado-pea type, but only the first time he tried it. The next day he wouldn't touch it. The vegetable stew did not appeal to him at all). However, he did like the kibbles very much.
The nutrition supplement we use for food we make ourselves is Vegecat. We got that over the internet too (see the links below). It is a powder one adds to different kinds of foods. It is not very expensive, and lasts long. They also offer a kibble mix, to which one only has to add flour, knead, bake and cut into kibble. We tried that, and it required quite a bit of work to make, and our cat was not enthusiastic about the outcome (he only ate it when we mixed it with cooked squash, which is, by the way, one of his favourites foods). However, the suplement we add to Seitan according to the recipe that came with it is a huge success. They add a recipe booklet to every package, and we were simply lucky enough to succeed with the first we tried, so we cannot recommend any others. ;D
My kittens are not vegans, but my dog is! (well, kind of....) I would like to have vegetarian cats, but I think that if I did, I would supplement the diet with eggs, soy cheese, and fake meat. Despite this...I don't have any plans to attempt a vegan diet with my cats. It's interesting though...
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Post by queenofthenile on Jul 20, 2004 14:03:07 GMT -8
I don't know Devon, something about that just creeps me out . It seems sort of 'too good to be true' and I have a hard time believing that the food duplicates *all* the essential and trace nutrients found in meat. I guess I'm just stubborn.
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Post by Ritzie/Admin on Jul 23, 2004 14:02:26 GMT -8
Personally, I would feed my dog or cat just food made from meat! especially for cats. They cannot digest plant material, or not good! They need the bacteria in the intestins to do it for them, and carnivores lack them. That is why they have such a slender body, not a big belly as herbivores have. Dog can indeed eat plant, but only plant is not good enough. But I can imagine that there a some supplement, as their are for human vegetarians.
Carnivores like cats can in fact not live on only meat (mussle) either. In the wild they eat the intestins of their prey that contain some digested plant material. I know that they give in zoos supplement to their (big) cats. Or whole animals.
Gerbils however are omnivores, like us humans, pigs, rats, etc. But they can live on a plant materials!
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Post by lizzy on Jul 25, 2004 12:02:07 GMT -8
I only just got my gerbils recently, so I haven't tried them on many foods yet. They get PAH food for gerbils&mice and as a treat, millet seed. I've tried them on cornonthecob but they don't seem to like it much. I'm going to give them some fruit and vegetables tonight though =D
Thanks for the grape/transport tip Darren, I'll need it next month.
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Post by blackie on Jul 27, 2004 9:24:35 GMT -8
Do you really have to give your gerbils worms? I'm sure that in the wilds gerbils are happy to eat worms and small insects, but I would find it really disgusting to have mealworms in my fridge. But if your happy with it and the gerbils are happy... I give my gerbies a dry gerbil diet with all the vitamins they need. The first few months I had gerbils I gave them a hamster/gerbil mix based on seeds. One of my gerbils became overweight,because he picked out all the fat stuff. I didn't want to give my gerbils vitamins in the water. It seemed messy. I give them carrot and apple pieces sometimes, and a few sunflower seeds each day. Sometimes I give them hay and they also use it in their nest. I have problems finding hay that is not very coarse. So I haven't given them hay lately.
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Post by queenofthenile on Jul 27, 2004 12:14:20 GMT -8
It's fine if you don't feed them mealworms. I only fed them to my pregnant gerbs or ones that looked a tad underweight. My gerbs usually only ate 1/2 of the mealworm and then let me find the dead bodies when I cleaned the tank . So if you *do* buy mealworms, get the small ones. The jumbo size are too big and they just waste half of it (unless their preggers of course, then they'll eat anything ).
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Post by floppy on Jul 28, 2004 4:13:24 GMT -8
I feed my gerbils Gerri Gerbil mix. I have started to occassionally mix it with some rat food (Reggie rat) or the Pets at Home own brand of Hamster/Gerbil Meusli. Once or twice a week I give them porridge oats, rice krispies, and they get some grapes and or brocolli. I have tried them on other fruits and veg but they are fussy little buggers! They also like celery. They get melon seeds, sunflower seeds as treats, and some of the ready made treats you can get at the pet shop: egg biscuits (with berries) milk drops, yogurt drops, raviolos, happy dino biscuit things, vegetable biscuits and chocolate covered raisins! The latter are all only given occassionally as treats though. When I have pregnant/nursing females and young pups I give them dry cat biscuits (IAMS). They will only eat the chicken flavour! I think it's important to give them a varied diet (ie treats etc) I know too well that we'd get really bored if we had to eat the same thing day in day out and I imagine it must be the same for them. Has anyone here got the egg biscuits with berries in them? They smell delicious! I had to try one myself...they taste yummy too ;D
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Post by sweetie on Aug 2, 2004 12:26:04 GMT -8
I feed mine a hamster/gerbil food mix and pick out the sunflower seeds. I also mix with it rolled oats. My females really love the oats and the males tend to throw it around while picking for the good stuff HA HA I am reading about bird seed which is included in the mix I buy, but there is not a lot of it. I may add more Also I feed some meal worms YUCKY . I have read plain yogurt is okay but have not tried that yet. I tried Multi grain cheerio's but I don't think they like the honey coating on them. Also they don't like the cat food I offered them. Do you think it has some thing to do with the fact they themselves could be cat food. tee hee ? I may also try dog biscuits!!
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Post by floppy on Aug 3, 2004 3:24:15 GMT -8
I assume it was dry cat food you offered them? Maybe just try a different flavour...mine won't eat lamb or fish...just chicken!
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Post by j on Aug 3, 2004 7:51:23 GMT -8
Personally, I would feed my dog or cat just food made from meat! especially for cats. They cannot digest plant material, or not good! Pfft. I wouldn't even feed food made from meat. I have my dogs and cats on a raw diet, which is way more natural to them. ;D
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Post by veronic on Aug 3, 2004 11:04:19 GMT -8
Do you give them peanuts in their shells as treat? Also I pick out sunflower seeds from their mix to give as treat but if I want to buy a packet of sunflower seeds should I buy the ones from healthfood shops (for human consumption) or the ones from garden centres (for planting) or does it not matter?
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Post by floppy on Aug 3, 2004 15:50:11 GMT -8
I don't know! I always get my sunflower seeds from the pet shop! I know that some seeds for human consumption have added salt in them and I think it's bad to give those ones...you should find them in the bird section of your pet shop. I'm sure other here will be able to help you better regarding ones for humans!
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Post by queenofthenile on Aug 3, 2004 15:56:59 GMT -8
Bulk nuts usually list whether they are raw/roasted, salted/unsalted. I personally would go for the raw/unsalted ones.
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