In this section, I’m going to explain your three main options and recommend the one that I have found to be best for Lyo. It’s not hard to find these important sources of taurine for your cat. If you know what to look for, you’ll have no problem feeding them food that is rich in taurine and delicious. You don’t have to send your friend into the forest to look for adequate amounts of taurine. Unless you have a mouse problem, your cat most likely preys on the cans of food you provide them. Of course, your furry friend probably doesn’t use them quite the same way they would in the wild. Cats are obligate carnivores, which means they must have meat in their diets. This should come as no surprise, of course. In one word, the best source of taurine for cats is… What Are Good Sources of Taurine for Cats? Obviously, you’d want to speak to your veterinarian, too.
If you catch the deficiency soon enough, both of those scary problems are reversible with proper taurine supplementation. If DCM goes untreated for too long, it can result in death. They could even suffer irreversible blindness.Īnother common repercussion is dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), which means your cat’s heart muscles will start to weaken. That’s a fancy way of saying that your cat’s retinal cells will eventually degenerate to the point that they have trouble seeing. Once they’re born, kittens still need a regular supply of taurine to maintain healthy bodyweights as they grow.įor all cats, one of the main consequences of taurine deficiency is feline central retinal degeneration (FCRD). The kittens themselves may be smaller, too, or can even suffer fetal abnormalities. When mother cats don’t receive enough, their litter sizes tend to be smaller. Pregnant cats require adequate amounts of taurine to stay healthy and ensure that their babies are developing properly. Read our article, 8 Signs of Pain in Cats, to get ahead of future problems for cats and give them the necessary treatments to help. Depending on how old your cat is, it could be months before you finally realize something is wrong. So, they aren’t able to tell you when they’re running low on taurine.Įven worse, taurine deficiency in cats isn’t readily apparent. It’s a sad fact that cats can’t talk ( there may be some exceptions). What Happens When Cats Don’t Get Enough Taurine? If you’re not feeding your cat taurine, that may explain some of the issues I’ll tackle next ( Unfortunately, your cat’s judgmental side-eye is NOT an effect of lack of taurine…). While their amazing little bodies can make 12 of the 23 amino acids they require for optimal health, taurine is one of the 11 that plays hard to get.įurthermore, cats’ bodies don’t store large amounts of taurine, which is why they need a regular supply of it to maintain optimal health. Taurine is something they 100%, absolutely must have in regular amounts to support all of the following:Īs you can see, those are pretty critical.īut again, cats need to get taurine from their diet. Not the way they “need” to knock things off the counter or “need” to sit inside any container no matter the size. So, let’s talk about why your cats need taurine. You can’t see in the dark or jump six times your height into the sky, so there.Īnyway, the point is that you need to include taurine in your cat’s diet, or they have a very real case for disowning you. Ours actually do, but don’t go rubbing that in. In a moment, I’ll go into more detail about what happens when it’s not found in your cat’s body, but sufficed to say, their health will suffer.įor now, just know that while cats’ bodies do make sufficient amounts of many amino acids on their own, taurine isn’t one of them. It’s found throughout the body, including the nervous system and muscles. Taurine is one of these essential amino acids. In other words, they’re extremely important to overall health. What is Taurine?Īs you may remember from high school biology (I don’t, but good for you), amino acids are the building blocks responsible for protein production. Keep reading as I’m going to share everything you need to know about taurine to get fluffy back to fe(e)line fine. So, if you’re in the same boat, you’re in good company. When I began reading up on the benefits of taurine for cats, I had to start at the very basics: If you’re like I was, “taurine” doesn’t ring any bells at the moment. The Benefits of a Taurine Supplement for Cats
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