Can I Give My Cat Vitamins?

Perhaps you take a daily mutltivitamin and you’re thinking that it would be a good thing to supplement your cat’s diet with vitamins. But it’s a good idea not to get carried away and start adding things to your cat’s already sufficient food intake.

There’s a big debate over whether humans should take vitamin supplements, with many people saying that they aren’t absorbed, and end up getting flushed down the toilet via urine. There are also those that say that taking synthetic vitamins in large quantities actually does more harm than good. The same argument can be made for a cat, and even more so because they are smaller, and they don’t deal well with synthetic products.

Cats don’t need any extra supplementation, as long as they are getting a good supply of the right cat food. These foods are made for cats, and the good ones will have plenty of meat and other vitamins and nutrients that will make your cat as healthy as they can be. No supplementation needed.

Can I Give My Cat Vitamins? Answer: Not Necessary

Your cat should be getting all of the vitamins and minerals that they need from the cat food that they’re eating. These cat foods are specially formulated to be one stop shopping for cat owners. If you really want to do right by your cat you’ll take the money that you would have spent buying vitamin supplements and invest it in a quality cat food. Aside from that there are several other reasons why you don’t need to give vitamins to your cat.

Your cat likely won’t be able to process the vitamins that you give them, regardless of the form you choose. Their digestive system is rather fast, and the time it would take to have them absorb the vitamins and benefit form them is too long. They will have gone to the bathroom and passed them out in their urine or feces before they have any hope of getting a boost from that. Proof of this fact is that a cat is basically immune to things like salmonella because it doesn’t stay in their system long enough to do any damage.

A Cat’s Digestion
Since cats are carnivores they have different digestive enzymes, and a digestive system set up to handle large amounts of protein in the form of meat. If their cat food is not living up to this requirement they may be lethargic, and have any number of health concerns, making you think that they are not getting the right amount of vitamins. A lot of low-grade cat foods out there use fillers that are based on vegetables or grains, neither of which a cat has much use for. Just look at their cousins in the wild and picture a tiger or lion grazing in a wheat or corn field.

A Cat’s Needs
A cat doesn’t need the same things that we do, and the daily values that you see on the side of a box of vitamins, the ones with all of the 1000%’s on it, those would be totally different in regards to a cat, because they’re much smaller, in many instances more active, and they are a different species. While we may both be mammals you simply can’t apply the same requirements to a cat that you can for humans. There’s also great debate among nutritionists as to what is the best thing for humans, so if we can’t figure it out for ourselves, how can we figure it out for a cat.

Cat Food Concerns
The best bet as the owner is to get them the best cat food that you can afford, and then just make sure that they have a clean water supply and a clean litter box. Other than that you’re off the hook pending any major life event. Cat’s are notoriously easy to take care of, cleaning themselves and being potty trained, so you can put them on auto pilot as long as they have a premium cat food. You’ll notice that this simple upgrade will pay dividends in all aspects of their lives, and it will even mean less trips to the vet as they get older, since they will enjoy better health throughout their lifetime.

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