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Chicken: The Complete Protein Source for Your Cat

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Chicken: The Complete Protein Source for Your Cat

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Chicken is a key ingredient in IAMS™ cat food. Its protein can help maintain healthy muscle structure, and it naturally provides each of the amino acids essential to carnivorous animals. And chicken adds great taste.

 

 What Chicken Ingredients are Used in Cat Foods?

  • Common chicken ingredients include chicken, chicken meal, chicken by-product meal, and chicken fat.
  • Chicken is flesh and skin without internal organs or feathers.
  • Chicken meal includes flesh, skin, and bone that have been cleaned, dried, cooked, and ground.
  • Chicken by-product meal is flesh, skin, and internal organs, including intestines and bone, that has been cleaned, dried, cooked, and ground.
  • Chicken fat, a high-quality energy source, provides essential fatty acids that help support skin and coat health.

 

What Is Natural Chicken Flavor?

Another common chicken-based ingredient is natural chicken flavor, also called chicken digest. Natural chicken flavor adds palatability and nutrients. It is high-quality protein and fat material that has been reduced to amino and fatty acids to improve taste through an enzymatic process.

 

Why Are Internal Organs and Bone Included in Chicken By-product Meal?

Internal organs are a rich source of protein, fats, and minerals, such as iron, that are essential to cat health and they add a taste that cats enjoy. Including some ground bone provides a good source of minerals, such as calcium. Some pet food manufacturers formulate their products without such ingredients to appeal to cat owners, rather than for the health of the cats themselves. However, the nutritional needs of cats are not the same as those of humans.

 

The IAMS Difference

Dried (meal) chicken protein sources contained in our chicken-based cat foods, such as IAMS ProActive Health™ Healthy Adult - Chicken, undergo an extra refining process and contain each of the amino acids that are essential to cats.

 

  • How Nutrition Can Help Manage Your Cat’s Hairballs
    How Nutrition Can Help Manage Your Cat’s Hairballs
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    How Nutrition Can Help Manage Your Cat’s Hairballs

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    Why Make a Hairball Management Formula?

    • Most cats are susceptible to hairballs due to continual ingestion of hair during regular self-grooming.
    • Cat owners have told us that hairballs are one of their top concerns.
    • According to IAMS™ consumer research, a number of cat owners and their cats have found hairball treatments to be an unpleasant experience.

     

    How Were the IAMS Hairball Formulas Developed?

    IAMS nutritionists were looking for a way to control hairball formation while maintaining optimal feline health and well-being. They evaluated risk factors for hairball formation in cats fed diets that varied in fiber source and content.

    • 98 cats were studied.
    • Nine groups were fed test diets and three were fed control diets.
    • The test-feeding period was six to seven weeks, following a five-week control-feeding period.
    • Total cat-days of testing = 9,968.

     

    Researchers found that feeding diets that contained a blend of beet pulp and cellulose was more effective at moving hair through the digestive tract, compared with the same diets containing beet pulp as the only fiber source.

    • There was an 80% to 100% increase in fecal hair excretion with beet pulp/cellulose-blend diets, compared with the beet-pulp-only diet.
    • By promoting the passage of hair ingested by the cat during normal self-grooming, an important risk factor for hairball formation is minimized.
    • Hairballs were not evident in cats fed the beet pulp/cellulose-blend diets.

     

    How Do IAMS Hairball Formulas Work?

    • The fiber system (blend of beet pulp/cellulose) gently moves hair through the gastrointestinal tract while maintaining healthy digestion.
      • Beet pulp, a moderately fermentable fiber, promotes optimal intestinal health.
      • Cellulose helps to enhance the passage of ingested hair.
    • An optimal fatty acid ratio enhances skin and coat health, which decreases the likelihood of excessive shedding, a factor related to hairball formation.

     

    How Do IAMS Hairball Formulas Compare with Other IAMS Cat Food Formulas?

    IAMS hairball formulas provide high-quality nutrition and taste, like our other adult formulas, with the added benefit of reducing the risk of hairballs.

    • High-quality nutrition for adult cats
      • Optimal protein and fat levels
      • Higher fiber content due to added cellulose
      • Excellent stool quality, skin and coat condition, and taurine status
    • Great taste
      • Similar acceptability and palatability test results as other IAMS adult formulas

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