Formulating Suggestions

 

1. List of foods your cat should never eat

 

If you decide to add ingredients to your cat food outside of our ingredient database, please make sure they are OK for cats to eat. There are many food items that are beneficial for us humans but are poisonous to cats.

Examples of foods that cats should never eat include: onions, garlic and related root vegetables, tomatoes, chocolate, grapes and raisins, and raw egg whites. You should also avoid milk. Although milk is not toxic to cats, many cats are lactose-intolerant, which means that the lactose in milk and milk products produces stomach upset, cramps, and gassiness.

 

 

2. Meat and liver are mandatory items in your formulation

 

Cats are strict carnivores, and their nutritional needs are very different from dogs or humans. Therefore, their diets should be made of meat. Our recommended range for meat is 60 – 85%. Liver is a great source of vitamin A, and the food is not going to be balanced without it. Recommended range for liver is 4 – 10%.

 

 

3. How much carbohydrates ?

 

It is against a cat’s nature to eat diets high in carbohydrates. Unfortunately many of commercial cat foods are very high in carbohydrates. During your formulation work please keep them bellow 10% DM (you can find out more about DM - dry matter in FAQs).

 

 

4. Calcium-to-phosphorus (Ca:P) ratio

 

Providing the correct calcium to phosphorous ratio in the diet can be a challenging part of the formulation work, especially if the source of calcium in your formulation is bone. It gets somewhat easier with home prepared diets without bone where calcium is supplemented. The recommended range is from 1.0 to 1.3 parts of calcium for each 1 part of phosphorous. Our Nutrient Calculator will determine the (Ca:P) ratio of your cat's diet for you (boneless diets only).

 

 

5. Will Alnutrin with Calcium supplement work for any formulation ?

 

Alnutrin with Calcium supplement will work for most formulations under these conditions:
1. Meat content should be between 60 - 85 %
2. Water content has to be between 10 - 30 %
3. Liver (preferably from the same animal as the meat) content has to be between 4 - 10 %
4. Fat content of the diet should be between 9 - 25%. Higher fat content significantly increases energy density of the diet and because our Nutrient Calculator automatically adjusts rations with energy densities greater then 4.5 kcal/g dry matter to energy density 4 kcal/g dry matter, higher fat content will result in a decrease of nutrient content (other than fat) of the food.