What do cats eat in the wild

Whether they’re a huge Siberian tiger stalking their prey in the Russian mountains or the tiny rusty-spotted cat hunting small rodents and lizards in the forests of India and Sri-Lanka, cats all have one thing in common – they need meat to thrive. 

And just like their wild cousins, your house cat also needs to eat this ancestral diet to live a long, happy, healthy life.

The menu for wild cats varies but consists of one common thing – meat. No matter their size or location, wild cats will spend the majority of their waking time hunting. A cat’s digestive system was designed to digest meat for energy. They can’t digest plant matter well at all. So they will hunt small mammals like rabbits and rodents. They might also snack on small reptiles, birds, and even insects if they can get their paws on them.  

According to a study done by the Zoological Society of London, the favourite food of wild cats in Europe is rabbit. Which makes sense – rabbits are everywhere. And populations can replenish quickly. Because they reproduce like… well, rabbits. 

Cats have a pretty low thirst drive. (This is why some house cats are bad at remembering to drink from their bowl.) So they don’t often stop to drink from rivers or lakes. Instead, they’ll get the majority of their fluids from the water content in the meat they eat.

Cats are obligate carnivores. They’re natural hunters. And built to eat meat. So their nutritional requirements are largely about getting enough of it. Lots of supermarket cat foods get around this by artificially adding nutrient mixes and supplements to a grain-filled meal. But this is like only eating junk food all day. And then remembering to take your vitamins.

KatKin doesn’t take shortcuts when we replicate your cat’s ancestral diet. We formulate our recipes to a cat’s needs – not around them. That’s why our meals are 100% meat.

Grains are made from plants. And cats can’t digest these very well. Their sharp teeth are made for tearing away at meat, not chewing away at plants. And their digestive tract is much shorter – built for absorbing the pre-packaged nutrients you only get in animal flesh. In fact, cats only produce small amounts of the enzyme that digests starch in the pancreas – quite far down in their digestive system – as opposed to humans who start breaking down starches from the moment they enter the mouth.

Meats, on the other hand, they digest like they were made to do it. Because they were. So we keep our cat food recipes meaty. And cats can absorb far more nutrients from our ancestral diet-inspired meals.

When you think about it this way, it’s easy to see why cats have so much energy after switching to KatKin… and why there’s less poop in their litter boxes. A 100% real meat diet, with no grains, means more nutrients are absorbed. And less waste comes out the other end.

As carnivores, cats are also used to getting water from their meals. Not a bowl. (You might have guessed from how inefficient their drinking method is). They don't have the natural drive to drink water. Which was okay when they got most of their moisture from prey in the wild. For example, mice are 80% water, and common prey for cats. But because kibble is so far away from natural, the dryness creates a risk for cats.

Our fresh, 100% real meat content meals are naturally high in water. And our gentle cooking method stops most of it from escaping during cooking.

Following the expertise of our board-certified vet nutritionist®, our fresh cat food recipes are guided by the ‘ancestral diet’ – what cats are meant to eat. Before kibble and cans took the ‘food’ out of cat food. Switch to KatKin to help your cat feel like the mighty lion we all know is deep down beneath the fluff.