Meat for Dental Health

Hi-
I've been advised that I should give my cat meat to chew on to preserve the health of his teeth. He eats only canned food now. I've tried different things before, but either the cat didn't chew it (defeating the purpose [it was chicken livers, which I guess slide too easily down the throat to bother chewing]) or it was a lot of trouble for me (deboning, cutting up, etc.).
Pre-packaged portions of ready to eat meat would be perfect. I saw an ad for something like that (on this site), but they suggest mixing it with a dry substance, and I'm wary of the dry substance. Do you know of something I could give him that would get him chewing *and* that would be easy for me to prepare and that is nutritionally healthy?
Thanks.

 

A chunk of chicken thigh works well. Try to get free range, hormone free chicken.

 

Raw organic chicken necks are your best bet...

 

Not as good as chicken necks, but much easier for me to find are chicken/turkey gizzards. I lightly cook them (even though my three are raw fed they will not eat raw gizzards), cut them in pieces just a bit too big to be swallowed easily and give them to my cats. All three of mine love them.

 

So, it's OK to just give him the whole chicken neck or thigh? How often (for optimum dental care)?
With bone?
Raw is safe?

Thanks.


(PS: It was gizzards, not livers, that I tried before. I don't qualify them as 'easy'!)

 

I believe (but could be wrong) that Dr Lisa talks about this on her site www.catinfo.org?

I've no clue the frequency; first test and see if chicken necks are even acceptable in your household, as they are not in mine... ohmygod_smile and yes, raw is better than cooked, as cooked bones splinter. In a chicken neck though there will be little bone and more cartiledge.

 

As carnivores, cats are able to digest raw bones just fine - they have the stomach acids to do so. (Never used cooked bones - they will splinter.) Some here (and rightly so) get freaked about cats digesting raw bones and there is the possibility it could get stuck going down. I use turkey necks for that reason - they're bigger than chicken necks and the cats just gnaw and tear at the bone (cleaning the teeth), but the bone isn't digested.

 

mine do what Suzanne describes. i give them a piece of chicken, i.e. neck, leg, etc....and they just gnaw and gnaw and gnaw. i have yet to have them actually go near the bones though. they just chomp away on the meat & grissle parts

be careful though. something about the raw seems to bring out their wild instincts or something. i sit a piece of chicken on a plate and sit it on the floor. and that thing can disappear faster than you can imagine. what i mean is one of the girls will grab the thing and drag it away! it's like they have to protect their kill or hide it so noone else gets it or something. so i never put one out and leave or go to sleep. i'm afraid i could find the thing in a chair or under a blanket or something so i dole them out when i'm in the kitchen and can keep an eye on the thing :lol:

 

Thank you all for your help!

 

Buy a package of tough, raw stewing beef, usually already cut into cubes, so you can thaw them out one at a time.

 

Now that sounds easy! Thanks, KarenRamboConan. Just what I was looking for. Do the rest of you approve of this suggestion?

 

If your kitty is good with beef, that sounds fine to me. (A lot of cats, including one of mine, are allergic to beef. If yours is, you would need to find something else. If you don't know, maybe try a can of a beef cat food, see if there is a negative reaction, and if not, the stewing beef would be a wonderful solution.)

 

I have tried the beef chunks. At first he wasn't very interested, but now if I give it to him when he's hungry and before giving him the food he *really* likes, he'll gnaw nicely on it and eat it. He doesn't seem to be allergic.
Thank you all again for your advice.
:smile:

 

I fed Myrtle on raw meat regularly (plus canned) during her life, and she had really good teeth, even though she never actually had bones to chew on. Even just chewing the meat seemed to be good for her teeth. Twice in her life she had some tartar removed, but never lost teeth.

I was able to get raw horse meat steaks and hare or rabbit meat "backs" (these were easier to cut the meat off than the thighs - I didn't know then that she could have gnawed the meat off the bones quite safely!)
The horse meat was really lean and very easy to cut into diced chunks. I'd buy a lot and cut it all up and freeze it in meal sized portions. It was a bit of a drag, I suppose, to cut it myself, but I found the meat so tender, it didn't take much effort, and one big cutting/freezing session would last me a while.

 

Dio you think one beef chunk per day is enough to clean his teeth? He gnaws at it nicely, cocking his head, but he finishes with it in about a minute.

 

Once a day is perfect.

Any changes in the teeth yet? And it also improves circulation in the gums by stimulating them, and that's really important.

 

Once a day is enough even if he chews on only one piece for about 60 seconds? (I haven't noticed a change in his teeth; he won't let me see them.)

 

I LOVE the Raw Diet.. no less than the VERY BEST! Where do I get some of this stuff? I found some chicken necks.. but it was frozen & soooooo big!! You mean I need to just let it thaw & they attack?

 

It doesn't necessarily meant that a cat cannot eat real beef just because they have a problem with commercial canned beef cat food. My Cammie cannot eat any canned beef cat food w/o vomiting within minutes but she eats real beef with no problem as part of her raw food rotation.

Cammie has horrible teeth and she was seeing a dental specialist every 6 months until recently. Her heart condition has progressed to the point where her cardiologist discourages any elective surgery (and she considers dentals elective). Her breath was horrible so I added chunks of rabbit (some on the bone) to her diet and I have truly noticed a big difference in her breath (not to mention that she loves chewing on pieces of bone and eats most of what I give her).

 

Cammie will attack any size piece that I give to her but Chino and TinkerBella require that I cut it up into smaller pieces for them. I think part of it is teaching the cats to chew; I know that sounds funny but Chino will lick on any food that I give him before he finally picks it up and takes a bite and it took him at least 6 months to learn to pick up bites of food to eat. You have to "reawaken" their natural instincts sometimes.

 

hi guys, I just wanted to drop in on this thread because mocha went to her dental vet today and we bought some dental treats for her, but they are kinda pricey. On another thread someone mentioned raw meat would be just as effective as the dental treats but we have never used raw meat for anything in this house.

I guess I'm kinda nervous about giving mocha raw meat. To be honest, it really grosses me out, but I want her to have good teeth too. She already had 8 removed, but the vet assures us she still has her back molars which are good for chewing. I know out in the wild cats do eat raw "carcass" and they apparently don't get sick from it, but ... I don't know .. I guess I just feel like I would be putting mochas health in jeopardy? I know it's hard to understand cause it's hard for me to get the right words out but ... does anyone understand my hesitation??

 

Sorry... but I don't really share your hesitation!
I am of the "older generation", and when I was a kid, I don't think we even had canned pet food in NZ, let alone dry food!! All we knew to give cats was raw meat, and since they were indoor/outdoor, they supplemented their diet with mice and birds. We always knew they were carnivores, whereas dogs could have certain other foods besides meat.
All the cats I ever knew growing up lived well into their teens, were lean and lively (I mean, not obese) and never, ever went to the vet for teeth cleaning. They chewed up their raw meat using their back molars and loved it!
So, I have always seen a raw diet as the very best and most natural a cat can have, and we do have pet food stores here that supply raw meat and bones for cats and dogs, such as horse and rabbit and hare.
While canned food is better for cats than dry, who really knows just what might be lurking in that can, in the way of preservatives and fillers?
I guess for vegetarians (for example) it is gross to handle raw meat, but I do really believe it is in the best interests of a cat to get at least a partly raw diet.