This is a thread by and for cat lovers! You can also find its sister, dog-themed thread here.
CAT TIPS:
FOOD TIPS:
Feed your cat food (both dry and wet) that is as high in meat content (as a percentage) as possible, without cereals, sugars, salt, fruit or animal subproducts. Cats are sometimes allergic to chicken, while more exotic meats like ox, rabbit, boar, etc. are usually better tolerated.
These are good, balanced food brands that you can safely feed your cat (some make dry food, some make wet food, and some make both). These are mostly brands available in Spain, so check for availability in your country. ^ = particularly liked by most cats, but try several and see what yours prefer.
THREAD TIPS:
I asked my SO to send some of them to me, and added a few of our own cats (four of them, not counting the three we're currently fostering). Here's the gallery:
https://imgur.com/a/0fuW0J2
Let me comment on just a few of them, too:
The adult cat is Ratón (no, I didn't name him), my own cat, the sweetest thing in the world (Abyssinian owners will understand what I mean) and who I love with all my heart (yes, he's also my avatar). A breeder kicked him out once he was unfit to breed; we fostered him but I fell in love with him (a very recurring occurrence among foster homes :) ).
The kitty he's hugging is Jack, one of a litter of five that were born in our house (we picked up the mom when she was pregnant in winter). They've all been adopted and grown to be healthy, quite huge cats. :)
This is Tigris, another mom we rescued in freezing winter along with her kittens. The kittens were adopted, but nobody wanted her (this was before my SO got her adoption page going), so she's one of our four cats. She's such an incredibly good cat, never bit or even scratched us, even when we captured her and manipulated her kittens.
This is Arcee, my SO's spoiled little princess. Our first cat together, my SO found her right in front of our house at about one month old, apparently abandoned, and meowing for help. She has a fur that's incredibly soft as mink.
This is Yami, the fourth of our cats; my SO's parents found it alone as a kitten (we think some kids separated him from his mother).
These two are Gunther and Jake. We rescued them from the neighbourhood too. Jake had a severe eye infection, but the worst scare was Gunther's: he came up with panleukopaenia, a highly lethal disease, especially on kittens (90% death rate, even with treatment). We though he'd die and cried or damn eyes out, but he pulled through like a champion! They're now both in families that regularly tell us how much they love them.
I'll add more pics from the gallery to this post a bit later. In the meantime, feel free to post cat pics, either of your own or that you just love in general!
CAT TIPS:
- Keep food and water as separate from each other as possible, because cats associate proximity of food with the fact that the water may be tainted (dead animals rotting in it), and tend to avoid it. This is very important because lack of proper hydration can lead to a lot of health issues like kidney stones.
- Probably more obvious, but also keep water and food separate from litter boxes; like everyone else, cats don't like having their food near their poop, or viceversa.
- Don't use laser pointers to play with your cats, or if you do, make sure to let them catch something tangible at the end. Otherwise it can lead to severe frustration.
- Absolutely never, ever, declaw a cat. It's illegal in most developed countries, and for good reason: it's a crippling mutilation that involves chopping out fingers' bones and, besides severely impairing their mobility, balance and quality of life, often causes permanent chronic pain.
- It is recommended by the vast majority of cat experts to never put a bell on a cat's collar. It can lead to severe chronic issues like anxiety and hearing impairments, and its usefulness as an early warning for wildlife has been debunked, as birds mostly react by sight, and cats learn to prowl without making the bell ring.
- Collars themselves can also become a life-threatening hazard if they become caught in anything; if you absolutely must use one, make sure it's a specialized break-away one.
FOOD TIPS:
Feed your cat food (both dry and wet) that is as high in meat content (as a percentage) as possible, without cereals, sugars, salt, fruit or animal subproducts. Cats are sometimes allergic to chicken, while more exotic meats like ox, rabbit, boar, etc. are usually better tolerated.
These are good, balanced food brands that you can safely feed your cat (some make dry food, some make wet food, and some make both). These are mostly brands available in Spain, so check for availability in your country. ^ = particularly liked by most cats, but try several and see what yours prefer.
- Acana
- Almonature
- Applaws
- Carnilove ^
- Cosma Nature
- Fitmin
- Inne ^
- Leonardo
- Nature's Menu
- Owna
- Porta 21
- Purizon ^
- Taste of the Wild
- True Instinct
- Majestic Adult ($$) — e.g. Beef: Meat products (70%, consisting of 65% beef and 5% beef heart).
- Leonardo ($$) — Meat and animal by-products (65% poultry + poultry meat stock 34%).
- Mac's ($, º) — meat (at least 70% beef, of which 30% head meat) and animal by-products (beef heart, cattle rumen, beef liver, bovine lung).
- Animonda Carny ($, º) — Beef (35%, lung, heart, kidney, meat, udder), chicken (30%, liver, meat, stomachs, neck).
- Catz Finefood ($$$, *) — chicken (50%) (consisting of muscle meat, heart, lungs and liver), pheasant (20%) (consisting of heart, muscle meat and liver).
- LandPartie ($$$$) - 70% meat product (consisting of 50% beef (beef hearts, beef, beef livers, beef lung, beef rumen) and 20% lamb (lamb hearts, lamb, lamb livers, lamb lungs, lamb rumen).
- Terra Faelis ($$) — Turkey Hearts (38%), muscle (20%), stomachs (19%), liver (10%).
- MjaMjam ($$$, *) - 96% meat and offal (48% game meat and 48% rabbit meat, heart, liver, egg, kidney).
- Ropocat ($, º) — Meat and animal by-products (96% poultry).
- Feringa ($, º) — 50% consisting of turkey heart, turkey meat, turkey liver, turkey necks.
- Purizon Adult game & fish ($$, *) - grainfree.
- Purizon Adult duck & fish ($$, *) - grainfree.
- (other Purizon foods can have potatoes, check ingredients).
- Applaws (has potato content).
THREAD TIPS:
- Don't actually put your pics in quote tags like you would on GAF: Era resizes images automatically without them. In fact if you quote tag them they become a bit unconfortable to see, as they're very small by default but when you click them they become full size, which can be huge.
I asked my SO to send some of them to me, and added a few of our own cats (four of them, not counting the three we're currently fostering). Here's the gallery:
https://imgur.com/a/0fuW0J2
Let me comment on just a few of them, too:
The kitty he's hugging is Jack, one of a litter of five that were born in our house (we picked up the mom when she was pregnant in winter). They've all been adopted and grown to be healthy, quite huge cats. :)
This is Tigris, another mom we rescued in freezing winter along with her kittens. The kittens were adopted, but nobody wanted her (this was before my SO got her adoption page going), so she's one of our four cats. She's such an incredibly good cat, never bit or even scratched us, even when we captured her and manipulated her kittens.
This is Arcee, my SO's spoiled little princess. Our first cat together, my SO found her right in front of our house at about one month old, apparently abandoned, and meowing for help. She has a fur that's incredibly soft as mink.
This is Yami, the fourth of our cats; my SO's parents found it alone as a kitten (we think some kids separated him from his mother).
These two are Gunther and Jake. We rescued them from the neighbourhood too. Jake had a severe eye infection, but the worst scare was Gunther's: he came up with panleukopaenia, a highly lethal disease, especially on kittens (90% death rate, even with treatment). We though he'd die and cried or damn eyes out, but he pulled through like a champion! They're now both in families that regularly tell us how much they love them.
I'll add more pics from the gallery to this post a bit later. In the meantime, feel free to post cat pics, either of your own or that you just love in general!
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