Self fasting in cats in not to be feared. Yet vets will tell you that cats can’t go without eating for more than a couple of days without sustaining liver damage. This is untrue. 

To fully appreciate why fasting is not a problem for cats, as vets so like to have you believe, you need to understand who cats are and what their habits are.

Cats are carnivores. Carnivores hunt. The prey is just as determined not to be eaten as a predator is to eat. This means that hunts, in the best scenarios, are never likely to be more than 25% successful, if that. And that’s in the best scenarios, when there is plenty of prey and the conditions are supportive.

Most of life is not in the best scenarios. Weather can hamper scents and trails, as well as making for some discomfort. Heavy rain can block out give away noises where the prey is. Seasons and food for the prey can be unpredictable and cause big variations.

This means that a wild cat has evolved to be on the alert for prey a lot of their time, and may spend much of their day hunting, but the rewards are not always plentiful. In times of feast, they can do well, but in times of famine, it’s not uncommon for them to go days without a successful hunt. And that translates to days without eating.

This in one of the reasons cats only breed during the time that prey tends to be more plentiful. It’s one thing to do without food yourself, but a growing family have higher demands.

So you can see, that cats thrive well even when prey is not plentiful. Their digestive system has evolved to cope with that. In fact, when cats are allowed to graze all day (a herbivore habit), as is so common today with dry food left out permanently, cats frequently suffer with digestive problems. And that includes the liver, as it’s part of the digestive tract.

Cats self fast when they don’t feel well, just as we do. The digestive process takes up an enormous amount of energy and when we, or cats, are not feeling well, this energy is needed to help the healing process.

It’s common for vets to force feed cats who are self fasting. Or to recommend that you do. But that denies the wisdom of cats. It’s putting us on the pedestal, that we know best. Do we?

Cats have been here millenia. They have survived very well. Cats are successful in most climates, most areas of the world. To me, that means they know about keeping themselves healthy.

Of course, there may be a caveat:

That the cat is eating a natural diet, one they evolved on. Not the usual cheap ingredients of unsuitable food for carnivores, topped up with chemical preservatives and ‘nutrients’ that are hazardous to sensitive felines, that passes for commercial cat food.

This ‘food’, plus the endless veterinary chemical ‘medicines’ will always take its toll on the liver as that’s the main organ that eliminates toxins.

It seems more logical to feed a cat a natural diet, one that closely resembles the diet they do so well on in the wild, and keep the liver healthy. Not only is it more logical, the cat fares much better, and is far healthier without the need for all the drugs. And it’s much lighter on your pocket.

So self fasting in cats is a perfectly natural process and not one to worry about necessarily. Of course, you need to be very aware of what’s happening, by working out what the cause could be and to monitor your cat for all other symptoms.

Unless the cause is from ingested poison, which needs urgent professional support, most other reasons are from an unsuitable diet.

Force feeding a cat shows a lack of understanding and appreciation of what’s really going on. 

Allowing the self fasting in cats gives the body time to heal itself. Then offering a healthy raw diet, in keeping with their evolution, can tempt the return of their appetite.