Cat treats recipe

Nippy waiting to be served

Have you ever made cat treats at home? We searched up cat treats recipe and have found a variety of titbits on offer. We’ve brought a few of them together here, so you can see if there’s anything your cat will fancy.

Trusted sources

We’ve stuck to information from trusted organisations including Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the RSPCA and the PDSA. When you’re looking up treat recipes to feed to your cat, it might be best to avoid random posts on the internet (not this one, obviously). If in doubt, call your vet’s surgery for advice or ask next time you’re visiting.

Battersea reminds us on its recipe page:

“You should only give these to your cat as occasional treats, alongside a well-balanced diet and they’re not suitable for cats with special dietary requirements.”

Ingredients

Most recipes use fish such as salmon or tuna as their base, but a couple use a can of cat food or dry food. One even includes catnip! All ingredients are easily available, and the recipes simple to put together. Here’s the list:

• Battersea Dogs and Cats Home: Homemade Cat Treats
• RSPCA: Cat treats
• PDSA: How to make tuna treats for cats
• Prime Pet Insurance (Australia): Organic treats with spinach and chicken
• Hills Pet Insurance: Suggestions on treating your cat in a healthy way (cat food-based treats)

Let us know how you get on! What did your cat think of the treats? If you tried a couple of recipes which one was more popular. If you have several cats, did they like different things?

Cats with extra toes

Polydactyl cat

Technically, cats with extra toes is called polydactyly. Cats with this genetic trait can have varying numbers of extra toes. Some have a distinct thumb, such as in the photo here. Others just have lots of regular toes. Extra toes are more common on the front feet.

A cat without polydactyly has five toes on each of its front paws, and four on each back foot. A polydactyl cat can have as many as nine toes on each foot. There’s even a Guinness World Record for the cat with the most toes! It’s very unusual for a cat to have extra toes on all four paws.

Where does polydactyly come from?

Some cats’ polydactyly results from a genetic mutation. The gene that regulates toe spacing allows for far more toes than usual. The mutation seems to have spread on ships’ cats. This is borne out by the clusters of polydacytly in south west England and East Coast USA. Cats were very popular as ship’s cats. Wikipedia tells us:

sailors were long known to value polydactyl cats especially for their extraordinary climbing and hunting abilities as an aid in controlling shipboard rodents. Some sailors thought they bring good luck at sea. The rarity of polydactyl cats in Europe may be because they were hunted and killed due to superstitions about witchcraft.

Famously, the novelist Ernest Hemingway adored polydactyl cats. His home in Florida is now a cat museum and home to 50 or so cats. About half of these have extra toes. There are now two polydactyl cat breeds officially recognised in the USA – Maine Coon Polydactyl and American Polydactyl.  Any cat can have extra toes – any breed, either sex, big or small.

Looking after cats with extra toes

Cats with extra toes don’t usually need any more care and attention than an ordinary cat (which is to say lots). The main area to pay attention to is their nails, to make sure they are all keeping to a healthy length. There is a condition known as feline radial hypoplasia which can sometimes resemble polydactyly. It results in what re often termed ‘hamburger feet’ – very wide flat feet rather than the many-toed but otherwise normally shaped polydactyl paw. Feline radial hypoplasia needs to be monitored by your vet, so if you have any doubt about which condition your cat has, if it has extra toes, then see your vet.

Make sure you have a robust scratching post for your polydactyl cat – you’ve seen how much damage regular paws can do so imagine what those extra claws can get up to.

Vegan Cat Food

Veganism has gained a high profile lately, and some cat owners are interested in feeding their cats vegan cat food. Is this a good idea?

Taurine in the vegan diet

One vital ingredient of standard cat food is taurine. Taurine is an amino acid vital to cat health. They can’t produce enough of it themselves, unlike other mammals, so are reliant on finding it through their food. It can only be found in animal proteins, so vegan cat food needs to be carefully formulated to contain it. This article on Pet Central goes into details, but essentially cats need taurine for a healthy heart, digestion and vision, among other functions. Blindness and heart disease are just two of the problems that arise from insufficient taurine in a cat’s diet.

As Vegan.com acknowledges, switching a cat’s diet is notoriously difficult. Cats are fussy and tend to make snap judgments. There is no guarantee whatsoever that your cats will co-operate with the changes you might want to make. That aside, the site makes this interesting point:

Fortunately, taurine and arginine are both easily synthesized from vegan sources. Any reputable brand of vegan cat food will therefore feature taurine and arginine in their ingredients. But taurine and arginine alone won’t cover a vegan cat’s nutritional needs. Cats typically obtain most of their vitamin A and D from animal sources.

Evidence

As yet there is no real evidence about the effect of putting a cat on a vegan diet. As well as taurine cats need vitamin A and arachidonic acid, which some vegan cat foods are including. Long-term studies don’t exist yet, so it’s impossible to say categorically how a vegan diet will affect a cat. Anyone planning to put their cat on a vegan diet will need to do take great care to ensure their cat takes in all essential nutrients and be vigilant to any change in their cat’s health and condition. The RSPCA recommends putting a cat on a vegan diet only under the supervision of a vet.