I think I heard somewhere that a lot of dog and cat food features bugs because it's cheaper
pls don't force the animals in your care into a diet that is wholly unnatural for them. if it's stressing you out to have to buy meat for them then surrendering them to a shelter might be the best option; it's contradictory to vegan principles to try and force an animal into a diet based on human ethical standards. certain animals are gonna eat meat, that's just how it goes in nature, if you're not comfortable caring for an animal that needs to eat meat then you should give it over to the care of someone who is, but it's cruel to make that carnivore conform to a diet that it would never have in the wild
of course i wouldn't suggest giving them to a shelter that euthanises, i'd never suggest such a thing.
my point was that eating meat near-exclusively is how those animals have evolved and what they'd do in a natural environment, and yeah if they had an opportunity to eat beef in the wild they'd go for it. i fundamentally disagree that keeping them as pets is contradictory to animal rights, considering the process of domestication for these animals started with them initiating regular contact with humans and not the other way around.
if you feed a cat food it doesn't like wouldn't it just go and hunt mice instead
fair enough my main experience of cats is the neighbourhood cat that no one feeds and hunts mice
I know we have less neighbourhood rats and mice now so I say God bless the neighbourhood cat
It's a :reddit-logo: link, but the vegan pets page has a log of good peer reviewed articles on how one would go about this and a big summary of studies on the subject. Scroll through this page and check out the studies cited. People heard cats were obligate carnivores and are always happy to jump on the "actually you're the animal abuser" train, but their is significant research saying it can be done if carefully monitored and it can even be healthier for the animals, reducing obesity and other diseases in some cases. Link to the resources here
So many omnis here wtf. Here's a study on:
heart disease dental disease skin disease hormone problems stomach and liver problems urinary problems eyesight problems kidney problemsin vegan and non-vegan cats. Plant-based cats are healthier on all fronts.
I know of a couple very healthy plant based cats who are fed Evolution, here's an intro pack . I've also heard good things from Benevo and Vecado. There's a vegan animal care discord server here.
EDIT: more sources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5035952/
https://www.vegansociety.com/whats-new/blog/vegan-animal-diets-facts-and-myths
https://www.amipetfood.com/en/products/products-for-cats/amicat
https://vecado.ca/blogs/news/vegan-cats-live-long-and-healthy-lives-according-to-new-study
