Pet house owners’ calls for for ancestral diets for pets hardly ever go all the best way to complete animals, a lot much less reside prey. In any other case, the marketplace for complete rodents and rabbits would have expanded from pet reptiles to cats and canine. Numerous boundaries stop the widespread adoption of whole-prey diets for canine and cats.
First, feeding a reside rodent to a cat or canine appears merciless to many. Even reptile house owners have largely moved to frozen and thawed prey gadgets, apart from choosy pythons who will not strike on a jiggling mouse corpse. A reside rodent could be harmful to the predator as properly since a meek mouse can nonetheless chunk and scratch.
Moreover, mammals are usually messier eaters than snakes. A corn snake or ball python can chug a rat complete. Canines and cats aren’t so fastidious. Canine and cat house owners could need to really feel like they’re offering their pets with a “biologically applicable” weight-reduction plan like that of a wild cat or wolf. Nonetheless, few individuals need to thaw a lifeless rat of their fridge, a lot much less clear up the blood and scraps of flesh. Regardless of an “ick issue” that makes insect protein appear mainstream, some pet house owners do select to present their cats complete prey.
Analysis on complete prey diets for cats
These cats could acquire from their house owners’ robust stomachs. Scientists have discovered potential gastrointestinal well being advantages to feeding complete animals to cats.
“Whether or not this impact is brought on by the chemical or bodily nature of complete prey is unknown,” wrote a group of researchers within the British Journal of Vitamin. In different phrases, does the mouse should be intact, or can floor rodents present the identical intestine well being benefits?
To check the consequences of complete prey on pet cats, researchers carried out an experiment utilizing 15 home cats. After consuming an extruded weight-reduction plan for ten days, the cats ate both minced mice or complete mice for 19 days. The scientists collected and analyzed the cats urine and feces to decide the impact of meals construction on digestibility, urinary operate, intestinal microbiomes and intestinal fermentation merchandise.
When evaluating minced to complete mice diets, the scientists didn’t observe any impact on massive intestinal fermentation. Complete short-chain fatty acids, branched-chain fatty acid, and most biogenic amine concentrations have been the identical with each floor and complete mice. Nonetheless, the preliminary shift from extruded diets to mice did affect cats’ digestive programs. The cats’ intestine microbial group composition shifted from carbohydrate-eating Prevotellaceae to protein-preferring Fusobacteriaceae microbes, with a lowered fecal acetic to propionic acid ratio.
“The outcomes of this research point out that meals construction inside a whole-prey weight-reduction plan is much less essential than the general weight-reduction plan kind, with main shifts within the microbiome and reduce in probably dangerous fermentation merchandise when weight-reduction plan modifications from extruded to mice,” the scientists wrote. “This urges for cautious consideration of the penalties of prey-based diets for intestine well being in cats.”
Complete prey diets for cats
In different research, scientists noticed that complete prey diets can fulfill cats’ dietary necessities, maybe extra successfully than processed meals. Moreover, complete prey diets could promote dental well being, since cats must chew on bones and cartilage, lowering the threat of dental points like tartar buildup.
Nonetheless, complete prey has drawbacks too, particularly the potential for pathogen transmission, together with parasites and micro organism, from the prey to the cat or to pet house owners. Economically, complete prey could be pricey for pet house owners and distributors. Preserving and storing a complete rodent is rather more tough than dry or canned merchandise.
Whereas whole-prey diets could supply well being advantages, in addition they current challenges associated to pathogen transmission, provide chains and price.
