My 10 year old, indoor cat needs a high fiber diet. Is there something I can add to his food?

9 Comments

1. josie says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   try canned pumkin ..I gave it to my cat when she was constipated…very high fiber
2. redd_rvt says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   There might be, but since cats have such specific dietary requirements, I think it is safer to do with a specially prescribed food.
3. zamarel says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Try a little bran from a health food store. Yes, canned pumpkin is good also.
4. J C says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Try unflavored Metamucil powder from the drug store. You may need to special order it, as most of it comes in either orange or mint, neither one of which is very appealing to cats. Or get psylium husks (same thing) from the natural food store. Sprinkle that on his food each day. Start with a quarter teaspoon, and adjust the dosage as needed. Another high-fiber alternative is canned pumpkin. Some cats love it, others won’t touch it. You can freeze it in tablespoon sized blobs on a cookie sheet, then put the blobs in a plastic freezer container to thaw as needed.

   ** Edit – note that there are conditions where even the best all-meat diets cause problems with a cat – one such condition is called idiopathic megacolon. I’ve seen and fostered some in rescue, and have had one of my own. Without the high fiber diet, they plain and simply can’t poop on their own. The alternative is laxatives and enemas, which isn’t pleasant for anyone. By adding the fiber to their diets, it buys them quite a bit of time before surgery is required. No, cats don’t normally need a high fiber diet, but if they do this is a better way of providing it than the prescription junk diet route.
5. Ken says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   NO CAT needs or should they get a high fiber diet. Your cat is a carnbivore
   Why do you feel your cat needs that? You can email if uyou want and I will find a solution for the problem
   More info on food
   Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
   Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
   Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?
   http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Read_a_Pet_Food_Ingredient_Label
   Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms
   The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process them. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in
   Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don’t use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
   You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bpo_ch4a.php

   Please read about cat nutrition.
   http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html
   http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm
   http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food_vs_Canned_Food.__Which_is_reall

   To Riverkat
   However, it is quite clear that cats are unique in all conceivable ways, particularly in their nutritional biochemistry. Cats are strict carnivores that rely on nutrients in animal tissues to meet their specific and unique nutritional requirements. This statement is news to few, yet the importance of these nutritional differences is often underestimated, especially during periods when cats are ill or have prolonged anorexia. In their natural habitat, cats consume prey high in protein with moderate amounts of fat and minimal amounts of carbohydrate (CHO); thus, they are metabolically adapted for higher metabolism of proteins and lower utilization of CHOs (starch, not soluble or insoluble fiber) than dogs or other omnivores. Although cats can use CHOs as a source of metabolic energy, they have limited ability to spare protein utilization by using CHOs instead.
   Here is the link
   http://home.earthlink.net/~jacm2/id1.html
6. babygirls2007 says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   You can feed him/her 3-5 green beans with each meal!
   Take and buy frozen beans and heat them up a little bit just so that they are not cold and put them with her/her food.That well help him/her a lot .That is What i did for my cat!!
7. riverkittyblue says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Ken, where in the world do you get 1/2 your information? Please do more homework before turning in your advice, alot of it is incorrect and can misguide users. Sorry but there are alot of cats out there who DO need a high fiber diet, I’ll leave it at that.
8. redsox261982 says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Medimusle is a good thing to give a cat. Those pills have only the plastic coating on it and you can open them and spill out the powder in the food.
9. kananaskis95 says:

   December 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Why does he need fibre?