Jane. Not had time to read all the replies but responding as you addressed this to me. My wife is a strict vegan and has been for 23 years, I've been veggie for nearly 20 years and I'm about 98% vegan these days. At the start of 2018 we had three cats but sadly last year we lost two cats, Jim and Alf, from ailments associated with their advance 17+ years of age: Felicity is going pretty well at 19 and seems to be doing better now she's Queen of the household. We've never tried to force veganism or vegetarianism on our cats, it seems unfair and unkind. It's a dilemma but we've always bought high quality, if possible organic, free range, cat food. We once tried some vegan cat biscuits which have the necessary additives but although the cats quite liked them they seemed to upset their digestive systems, so we ceased that (my wife said they were quite tasty though 🙂). I take a pragmatic view on this (as I do with most things) that given there's so much waste from the meat industry the cata may as well have it; hopefully, in the future, lab grown meat can fulfill this need. Also, I'm sure cats will refuse to agree to veganism and hunt the odd bird, rodent, etc for sport if not food. Of course extreme vegans believe one shouldn't keep cats as pets anyway because that's a form of animal exploitation.
Michael Ixer ● 2706d