Pet Food – 3 Things Every Pet Owner Ought to Know about
Good food is one of the cornerstones of good health. This is true for us humans and also for our pet companions. Choose your pet food wisely.
Diet plays a very important role in your pet’s health. Just like your own diet, the diet of your cat or dog should also contain a variety of whole foods containing essential proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. You may also need to add natural supplements if you want to promote optimal health and performance or if you want to address some health issues of your animals.
1. Understanding Your Pet’s Diet
Understanding your animal’s’ eating habits and what they would naturally eat, is very important because it allows you to make smart diet choices for them.
For example, most household animals, like dogs and cats, are hunters by nature. They are carnivorous animals and their digestive systems work best when they eat raw meat.
Most birds like chickens or parrots will eat seeds, fruits, peanuts, corn, and so on. Some wild birds hunt and eat dead animals and most household birds can eat live food like bugs and worms, as well.
If you have herbivorous animals like rabbits, goats or sheep, you can feed them fresh leaves, grasses and microgreens.
Your pet fish can also be carnivorous as well as herbivorous. Besides fish meals and pelleted foods from the store , you can feed them a lot of your food from kitchen and pantry. However, ideally an ecologically balanced system will not need any inputs.
2. Understanding Common Pet Food Ingredients
Generally speaking, all commercially available pet foods contain proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, fats, minerals and preservatives. Each ingredient plays an important role in development and health of your pet. Combination and source of these ingredients depend upon the product and their producers.
Protein builds your pet’s body. If you have a growing pet, it will need more protein in its diet. Protein can be sourced from various types of meat like chicken or beef. They can also be made from ground-up parts of animals that are not used for human consumption. Grains and vegetable-based proteins are also used in pet foods. Carbohydrate can come from the most common sources like bread and pasta. Soy is also commonly used as a carbohydrate source.
Carefully read your pet food labels and consider buying foods produced from ethical and environmentally sustainable means. The pet food industry is an extension of human food industry and they often used wastage or foods “unfit for human consumption” to feed pets.
3. Prescription Diets & Supplements
More and more veterinarians are recommending prescription diets today. There are many commercial prescription diets available, formulated for animals with special needs. These foods are often made with highly processed ingredients and nutrient additives, designed to help your pets maintain good health.
However, make sure to research the product you purchase. Sometimes they are prescribed to help your pet lose weight. But if they contain questionable ingredients, the food may cause more harm than good.
The best way to support your animal’s health is through a natural holistic approach, and it would be to feed it natural foods. Nothing can replace the goodness of whole and natural well balanced foods. However, a proper natural supplement would enhance the effectiveness of a well-balanced diet even further. It would support your animal’s immune system naturally, so that they get sick less often and recover faster.
Your pet’s health depends immensely on the types of food you offer them. It’s important that you learn about your pet’s eating habits and behavior and feed it for its optimal health. It’s also important that you learn about what you purchase for your pets.