Cat Food vs Human Food

[LexieLoos]

Hi, we've recently adopted a cat/teenage kitten, and I'm after some advice on feeding her.
After reading threads here I've made sure to buy her good quality wet foods with a high meat content (she does have dry as well), but was wondering whether there is any nutritional benefit to feeding her cat food over plain chicken breast, etc. We tend to buy in bulk, so cost wise it wouldn't be an issue, but would she be missing out on added nutrients from cat food?

Yes. Cat foods that are "complete" have added nutrients that cats need. I'd stick to high-quality complete wet foods as the main part of the cat's diet. You can feed "human" foods but they need to have supplements added to keep a cat healthy in the long-term.

I think Felini seems to be the favoured supplement if you're feeding raw/human food. It has ground bone as well as the added nutrients, such as taurine.

*... Animonda Carny is a good wet, complete food. Full of hearts and tubes! Can be bought online from Zooplus and the like.

Chicken is fine as a treat but doesn't contain enough taurine for cats on its own.

Generally you can feed up to 20% of a cat's diet with ynsupplemented raw food, as long as the other 80% is 'complete' cat food. The main thing that needs to be supplemented is taurine, which is low to absent in much meat. It naturally occurs in chicken hearts, for example, so we feed Archcat chicken hearts once a week unsupplemented. Raw bones are also great for their teeth, but NEVER cooked bones. Another importAnt point is eliminating or reducing grains in cat food, as many cats are intolerant.

The other thing to consider is if your new 'boss' is going to be an outdoor cat, and how much hunting she'll do. archcat is a big hunter in the summer months, and a mouse is the ideal cat food, with meat, bones and taurine. So hunters who eat their prey (and don't bring it into the bedroom as a prezzie) will have a good nutritional basis in any case.

Thank you for all the advice!
Chicken is kept for when she gives DP the 5am wake up call treats then.
We've had her a couple of months now, and although she's very outdoorsy and active we haven't had any presents. Yet....