nutrition

Kitten nutrition information:

          Your young kitten (12 weeks old) requires at least 1.5 times as much protein and 3 times as many kilocalories per pound as adult cat.
They need complete and balanced GROWTH FORMULA to get enough nutrients for growth and development of bones, muscles and other tissues.
          We feed IAMS or Royal Canine dry kitten food, which our kittens have available for 24 hrs.
But whatever balanced kitten formula would be OK as far as it is AAFCO certified.
Some kittens at this age still prefer rehydrated nuggets to dry ones. ( Works faster when hot water is used to rehydrate them.)
          Twice a day they get Friskies canned food and they love it!
And of course - clean, purified water must be available to them all the time!
          They will love you even more if you give them from time to time fresh chicken meat, cooked in small amount of water with skin and all the fat. (Cats do not have cholesterol problems.) But they do not really need this. I use it mostly when I want to bribe them.

SOME feeding problems:

          Feeding dog food to a cat is a main feeding error. The nutritional differences between OMNIVORE ( dog) and CARNIVORE (cat) diet is significant.
Cats are strict carnivores and require much higher percentage of protein. They need arginin and taurin, B-complex vitamins, vitamin A and arachnoidic acid and they cannot get all this from dog food.
          Sugar and starches (carbohydrates) are not dietary necessity for your cat. In spite of carbohydrates making up about 40% of commercial dry food - your cat would be happier without them. Protein and fat ( Attkin’s diet!) is what your cat needs, likes and prefers. The basic rule is: protein - YES, fat - YES, carbohydrates - NO.

          MILK is the main food source for kittens and they love it! It contains LACTOSE - a milk sugar (carbohydrate). SOME cats (as well as some people) develop later in their lives a deficiency of LACTASE - an intestinal enzyme, which digests LACTOSE. This often causes diarrhea if cow's milk is used. When you buy our kitten, it still has enough of lactase. With adult cat you have several choises: You can buy inexpensive cat milk (in Wal-Mart), you can use evaporaated milk, which is easier to digest or the lactose free milk would also be a safe choice. And again - PROTIEN and FAT are good for cats. Do not buy fat free milk . If your kitten has a diarrhea, you have to avoid milk.
But some of them love it and they can digest it successfully till the old age. I am lucky, because none of my Persians or Napoleons are alergic to milk. They all digest it very well. So sometimes they get the whole milk with all the milk fat I cannot afford.
           If you are not sure about your cat's tolerance of lactose and you do not want to risk any diarrhea while finding out, you are quite safe to use the mixture of lactose free milk with evaporated milk. Or lactose free milk mixed with "Half and half".
My pregnant and lactating queens are getting all that, often mixed also with egg yolk.

Higher Survival Rates For Heart Attack Victims Who Own A Cat
One of the first studies indicating the heart benefits from cat ownership appeared in "Public Health Reports" in 1980. It showed that the survival rates of heart attack victims who had a cat were 28 percent higher than those of patients who didn't have an animal companion. "The health effects seem to be very real and by no means mystical," says Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University. "Contact with companion animals triggers a relaxation response," he says.
More recent studies have shown survival rates for heart attack victims who had a cat are 12% longer than for those who did not have one, according to researcher Erica Friedmann.

In that study, only 5.7 percent of 53 pet owners, compared with 28.2 percent of 39 patients who did not own pets, died within a year of discharge from a coronary-care unit.

“The effect of cat ownership on survival was independent of the severity of the cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Erika Friedmann, who worked on the study. “That is, among people with equally severe disease, cat owners were less likely to die than non-owners.
In fact, according to a study of how psychological factors contribute to recovery rates for heart-disease patients, cat ownership ranked highest – above even such factors as a spouse or a supportive family – in determining the patient's prognosis for long-term survival.

Lower Blood Pressure
Studies have shown that owning a cat can:
Lower blood pressure
Lower cholesterol levels
Lower triglyceride levels

Less Doctor Visits
People who own pets, have been shown to be less stressed and require fewer visits to their physicians than non-owners.
Reduced Stress
Rebecca Johnson, a professor of gerontological nursing at the University of Missouri at Columbia, showed that interaction with cats does, in fact, reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The ability of companion pets to reduce our overall stress level probably accounts for most of their life-extending qualities.
Purring Can Improve Healing
The type of frequencies that are found in the cat's purr are good for healing muscle, tendon, and ligament injuries, as well as for muscle strengthening. Cats purr during both inhalation and exhalation with a consistent pattern and frequency between 25 and 150 Hertz. Various investigators have shown that sound frequencies in this range can improve bone density and promote healing.
This association between the frequencies of cats' purrs and improved healing of bones and muscles may provide help for some humans.
Seniors and Pets
Numerous studies have shown that just visiting with a cat or dog results in decreased feelings of loneliness for seniors in nursing care facilities. When they go to a nursing home, the seniors lose all their possessions. They need to belong, love and be accepted. The dog or cat gives unconditional love.
In Conclusion
Studies prove that owning a cat, or a pet in general, not only contributes to a person's feelings of well-being and overall happiness,
but people who own a cat actually live longer than people who don't have a cat! The reasons are most likely related to an array of
psychological factors, such as the facts that owning a pet decreases loneliness and depression, encourages laughter and nurturing,
and stimulates exercise.
These medical studies perhaps just prove what most of us already know, that life is much better with a favorite animal pal.