Pet food. Proper feeding of pets

Having tamed domestic animals and settled them near his home, man took upon himself the responsibility of feeding them. The old peasant proverb “The cow has milk on her tongue” has not lost its wisdom today.

And today the amount of milk, meat, eggs that we get from animals depends primarily on feeding. How should animals be fed in order to get a lot of products from them? First of all, the feed must contain all the nutrients the animals need.

And their needs are considerable - for example, in the “menu” of a wild boar, zoologists counted 43 species of plants and more than 30 species of small animals - frogs, worms, snails. At the same time, the wild boar leads a “healthy lifestyle” - it moves a lot and chooses its own food. Its domestic relatives spend their entire lives in captivity, move little and therefore need special human care. So, the first requirement for feed is its nutritional value.

And what else? The second is their price. No one would think of feeding cows, pigs and chickens with expensive products, as well as bread and food cereals. The third condition is the safety of feed, because feed is stored for the animals for the winter, and a huge complex requires a lot of it. It is also necessary to think about how to distribute feed to animals. If the owner has 2-3 cows, feeding them is not so difficult. What if there are 2-3 hundred cows? This cannot be done without mechanization. This means that feed must be in such a form that it can be easily distributed to animals using special mechanisms. And one more requirement for food is its taste. It is known that cows, for example, are good at distinguishing between sour, sweet, salty and bitter. And they not only discriminate - like you and me, they prefer sweets and reject bitters. Of course, there is no secret that pets need to be well fed. They knew about this two centuries ago.

In the “Pocket Book of Agriculture and Household Economy,” published in St. Petersburg in 1791, you can read: “A decent owner should never keep more cattle than he can feed in a year, because unfed cattle do much more harm than arrived". But unfortunately, in tsarist Russia, in most peasant households in the winter, it was unfed cattle that mooed pitifully. And not because the owners did not take care of her - they simply did not have the means to stockpile food for the winter. Due to the lack of feed, peasants specifically tried to purchase smaller cows. In 1872, the “Agricultural Newspaper” wrote: “Our peasants think that a small cow requires less feed than a large one, so there are often peasants looking for smaller cows.”

There were no scientifically developed norms for feeding animals at that time. No succulent feed was prepared at all. Not only in peasant farms, but also in most landowner farms, they knew nothing about the methods of preparing silage. By the end of winter, cows in peasant households were sometimes so exhausted that they could not rise, and they had to be lifted on ropes. It is not surprising that the weight of most cows at that time did not exceed 200 kilograms, and the average annual milk yield per cow was 500-600 and only in the best years reached 800-900 kilograms. And now? In the leading collective and state farms of our country, one cow milks 5000-6000 kilograms of milk per year - 10 times more! And today's cows weigh 400-600 kilograms - 2-3 times more than their great-great-grandmothers.

These changes occurred in no small part due to proper feeding. During the years of Soviet power in our country, the science of feeding farm animals was formed. The problem of feed is dealt with by people of various specialties: livestock specialists and veterinarians, biochemists and agronomists and, of course, economists. And yet, what do they feed animals on modern farms and complexes?

Let's start with cows: they have the highest requirements for feed, both in quantity and composition. Dairy cows are especially picky when choosing food. To check the quality of their feeding, dozens of tests have to be performed! And it’s not surprising - after all, milk contains a huge amount of nutrients, and a cow can only get them from feed. What do they need first?

Let's remember what you and I eat. Dozens and hundreds of different products! The most basic products - meat, eggs, milk - provide our body with proteins. We also eat butter, sunflower oil, margarine every day - with these products we get fats. And of course, on our tables there is always bread, cereal, sugar - sources of carbohydrates. This means that the main components of our diet are proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Pets need the same! Of course, no one is going to feed cutlets to pigs and give butter sandwiches to cows.

The animal body is designed in such a way that it absorbs proteins from plant foods well. Most plants contain a small amount of protein, but there are special food plants that contain a lot of protein. And some of these plants are well known even to city schoolchildren. These are the most common clover and peas. Alfalfa, soybeans, and rapeseed are also rich in proteins. A very valuable protein feed for animals is waste from the meat and fishing industry, which is processed into special flour. Animals also obtain fats from meat and fish meal. A good source of fat for animal feeding is waste from the production of sunflower oil - cake. Well, the substances that we get with sugar and white bread - carbohydrates - are acquired by cows and pigs with grain and sweet root vegetables - beets, carrots. In addition to proteins, carbohydrates and fats, animal food must contain many different chemical elements. Some of them are needed in large quantities - they are called macroelements (from the Greek word "macro" - "large"). Others are needed in very small quantities - microelements (from the Greek word "micros" - "small"). For animals, the most important macroelements are calcium and phosphorus. These elements are part of bones and teeth. Calcium is especially important for dairy cows - after all, this element is excreted in milk. Even if cows don't get calcium from their feed, they still excrete it in their milk, which causes their bones to weaken. Bones also weaken from a lack of phosphorus.

Such cows easily break their legs when they stumble in the pasture. Chickens also need calcium - after all, eggshells consist mainly of compounds of this element, and with each egg laid, the chicken loses approximately 4 grams of calcium. And to make up for such a loss, laying hens are fed with crushed shells, chalk, and shells. In addition to calcium, phosphorus and table salt, animals also need many trace elements: sulfur, potassium, iron, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, molybdenum - almost half of Mendeleev’s Periodic Table of Elements! And people must make sure that animals receive all this with food.

When there is a lack of potassium in the body, animals bite the wooden parts of machines and lick the fur of other animals. It happened that bald cows began to chew... rubber boots! Such quirks should alert the people who care for them - these are the first signals that the animals are lacking something in their feeding. Probably many of you know how much cows love bread sprinkled with salt. This is a real treat for them. But ordinary table salt is not only a delicacy - it is necessary for all types of animals. Animals, if they do not have enough salt, lose their appetite, lose weight, their eyes become cloudy, and their fur becomes coarse.

Their behavior also changes: cows begin to lick the stalls, the ground, and the clothes of the workers. Wild animals look for natural sources to satisfy their need for salt. And for domestic animals - cows and sheep - large pieces of table salt are specially laid out on farms, pastures and watering places, which they lick. These pieces are called licks. Interestingly, wild animals, especially those kept in captivity, are also susceptible to diseases caused by a lack of microelements in feed. At the same time, animals also begin to gnaw on various inappropriate objects and even swallow some.

In Poland, in the Poznan Zoo, the hippopotamus Bongo lived for a long time. It so happened that he fell ill, he developed sepsis, and the hippopotamus died. During the autopsy of the corpse, veterinarians found in his stomach a piece of leather from a mail bag, almost three kilograms of stones, more than a hundred Polish coins, a revolver bullet, a piece of wire, many other inedible objects and... a grenade. The latter is not surprising, given that during its forty-seven years, the hippopotamus had to survive two world wars. The conclusion from all that has been said is clear: so that our four-legged charges do not have to look for sources of microelements themselves, it is necessary that all this is contained in the feed. When talking about proper feeding of animals, one cannot, of course, help but remember vitamins. The word “vitamin” comes from the Latin “vita” - “life”. Indeed, without vitamins, neither people nor animals can exist normally. Insignificant amounts of vitamins - milligrams and even fractions of milligrams - can change the metabolism in the body and cure a serious disease.

The main “tasks” of vitamins are to regulate life processes in the body of people and animals. (Interestingly, animals need the same vitamins as you and I. People get vitamins from fresh vegetables and fruits. For animals, the best source of vitamins is fresh green grass, which they eat in the pasture. But this only applies to cows. And pigs and chickens in complexes are not grazed; they spend their entire lives indoors. What should they do with them? Sometimes they have to add vitamins to their regular feed. vitamins in their pure form, sometimes special preparations, for example, vitamin flour from pine needles. We want to tell you a little more about this inexhaustible source of vitamin C.

You probably know that a lack of vitamin C in the human body leads to the development of a serious disease - scurvy, which, by the way, killed many sailors and discoverers of the northern lands. In Russia, 200 years ago, pine needles were used to treat scurvy - after all, coniferous trees grow in the North, where there are no vegetables and fruits. Russia even exported needles to Western European countries. After many vitamins, including vitamin C, began to be obtained from chemical plants, they began to forget about pine needles. And they remembered again during the Great Patriotic War. In besieged Leningrad, pharmaceutical scientists developed a method for preparing a vitamin infusion from pine needles. To provide the body with a daily dose of vitamin C, it was enough to drink 100-200 grams of this infusion. With the help of this miraculous drink, it was possible to save the lives of thousands of exhausted people, relieve them of scurvy, and return wounded soldiers to duty.

Nowadays, pine needles are not used as a source of vitamin C for people - after all, fresh vegetables and fruits are brought even to the far northern regions. But in the diet of animals, pine needles are a necessary product. They feed it in the form of pine flour or just small spruce paws. It is necessary to collect coniferous paws when it is frosty, then they contain less harmful substances. A cow can eat 1-2 kilograms of this vitamin supplement daily. With pine paws, animals receive not only vitamin C, but also carotene, from which vitamin A is then formed. True, our four-legged feeders have a lucky gift: they can synthesize many vitamins in their bodies. For example, vitamin D is formed in the skin of animals under the influence of sunlight, and B vitamins are formed in the stomach and intestines. But this does not apply to all vitamins.

Animals, like you and me, can only get many vitamins from food. Lack of vitamins causes a wide variety of deviations in the appearance and behavior of animals. For example, if chickens do not have enough vitamin D, their bones soften and even their beak becomes soft like rubber, when chickens lack vitamin A, their comb turns pale, and the neighbors in the chicken coop stop respecting such a corydalis and begin to peck at it. Of course, the absence of many other vitamins is not so easy to notice, but experienced livestock specialists, carefully observing animals, can determine which vitamin is missing?

Love for your pet, be it a cat or a dog, presupposes caring for it. Proper nutrition of an animal affects its life expectancy. You must take care of your pet's proper nutrition with full responsibility and knowledge. There are two main types - commercial and home feeding.

Homemade feeding is natural food that has vital energy. Let me break it down: Unprocessed foods contain more vitamins and minerals. This includes meat, fish, poultry, vegetables and dairy products, eggs. Let’s immediately draw a sharp line - cats are carnivores, which means: there is no initial fermented digestion in the oral cavity; they have a short digestive tract; The cat’s body does not convert linolenic acid, which is present in plant foods, into arachidonic acid, which is found in animal foods. Natural cat food includes animal products. All other products are added in consultation with the veterinarian. The quantity and in what form is required.

A dog, by definition, eats everything, i.e. is an omnivore with a different digestive process. To properly prepare a dog’s diet at home, it is necessary to take into account the breed, age, climate, living conditions, etc.

Very important advice for all pet owners. You cannot mix natural products and manufactured feed. They have different digestion times, the composition of one food affects another and an imbalance occurs in the body. If you feed your animal dry food in the morning, then natural food can be given only in the evening and vice versa. Break - at least 6 hours between different foods.

In our fast-moving age, feeding pets with manufactured food is easier, faster and... But this is what we are learning about now. To immediately dismiss all thoughts about cheap food, you need to know that they are made from low-quality ingredients, sometimes containing no more than 5% meat, and they contain chemical additives. Immediately think about the sausage for your loved ones - which one you buy and which one you don’t! Feeding cheap, low-quality food leads to a decrease in the functioning of the immune system, weight loss, deterioration in coat quality, etc. A pet is a member of your family, and treat it with the same dignity as other family members.

Therefore, we will only talk about professional and high-quality food.
What information should the food packaging contain? First of all, this is the company logo, barcode, factory series number, name and address of the manufacturer. Product name, net weight, information about the composition of the feed, its energy value. Important information will be an indication of the special purpose of this type of feed and its compliance with this purpose. A good company selects suppliers according to strict criteria. Conducts quality checks before using ingredients. A good manufacturer uses only high-quality meat flour, which is obtained from the meat of healthy animals and is suitable for human consumption.

The world leader in dog and cat food is Hills:
Hills Science Plan™ series (regular Hills food)
Hills Prescription Diet™ series (Hills medicinal feed)
The companies Eukanuba, Iams, Eagle Pack, Royal Canin, Purina Pro Plan, Canidae are some of the most famous manufacturing companies.
The packaging of high-quality feed contains research data on the effectiveness of the product and the results of its use. In order for the product to be given a full and balanced characteristic, it is also necessary to comply with the standards and requirements of research centers that have very large and reputable manufacturing companies.

The important components (ingredients) for dry and canned food are the same, only dry food also contains natural antioxidants. The ideal composition can be considered: the presence of meat at least 35%; the filler should be about 20% egg or milk protein; about 10% bone meal, natural and vitamin supplements, no more than 20% plant fibers. The list of ingredients should be compiled in order of weight content.

What is better, dry food or home-cooked food? Why can't you feed your pet "human" food? How to feed a very small puppy or kitten? You will find answers to these questions here. In addition, you will learn what consequences poor nutrition can have - this will help you avoid mistakes and troubles, as well as give your pets good health and excellent well-being.

Types of feeding

The owner of a dog or cat should adhere to one of two feeding regimes for his pet: feeding ready-made food or food prepared with his own hands. Which method is right for you - decide for yourself, and we will give some recommendations for each type of nutrition.

Ready-made feed

Animals fed a commercially produced diet are provided with all the necessary nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Manufacturers strive to ensure that your pet's nutrition is balanced and healthy. As a result, dogs and cats eating this way are less likely to have intestinal disorders and are less likely to gain weight, have dental problems, and have diseases of internal organs.

With this type of feeding, several rules should be followed:

1. Follow the food allowance indicated on the package.
2. Before purchasing, look at the production date.
3. Try to avoid economy class feeds, as well as loose feeds.
4. Provide the animal with free access to clean water.

We prepare the food ourselves

If you decide to prepare food for your pet yourself, then remember that its digestive system is different from yours, and therefore feeding your pet “human” food is harmful. The diet of a carnivore (dog or cat) should not be varied, although many pet owners think the opposite. As a general rule, the ingredients in this diet should not be cooked and generally include raw meat (and/or organ meats), dairy products, and moderate amounts of vegetables.

When preparing such a diet, the animal owner is simply obliged to calculate the weekly diet according to the needs of the dog or cat, balance it, and introduce additional vitamin and mineral supplements. The main advantage of this regime is that you will know exactly what your pet eats, but the main disadvantage is the difficulty of creating a balanced diet that meets the physiology of the animal.

What not to do:

1. Mix different types of food. In factory feeds, the ratio of nutrients is clearly adjusted. By giving your pet additional “treats,” you inevitably upset this balance, which can lead to illness.
2. Provide foods such as: pork, fish and seafood, sweets, canned food, smoked meats, milk, potatoes.
3. Feed the animal table scraps. In addition to digestive problems, your pet may develop a bad habit of begging.
4. Overfeed.

How to feed a kitten or puppy?

The answer is simple - there are special diets for animals from the first day of life. If you decide to choose such an animal, or there is no possibility of maternal feeding, then you can use them. From the age of one month, puppies and kittens are almost able to eat the diet typical of adult animals. You definitely shouldn’t feed newborn kittens and puppies with cow’s or goat’s milk, this will lead to problems with the digestive system and will not allow your pet to grow into a full-fledged, healthy cat or dog.

Veterinarians remind: you need to approach homemade food wisely.

Dominique Grandjean, Doctor of Veterinary Sciences, author of books and studies on pet nutrition: “Of course, you can cook it yourself. The only problem here is that pets need certain nutrients: there are 52 of them for dogs, 54 for cats. And it’s not so easy to balance homemade food so that all of them are present in the diet. And poor nutrition shortens the life of animals, this has been proven.”

Experts advise against experimenting on pets: there is no guarantee that homemade food will provide everything you need. Moreover, some of our products are simply poison for them. And others slowly but surely cause harm to health. A lot of people give their cats milk. Simply for the reason that since childhood we are accustomed to seeing it in pictures.

Natalia, breeder: “Cow’s milk is not digestible by cats at all, and it can cause diarrhea in cats, that is, indigestion, that is, this is the wrong diet, the wrong milk.”

Another trend is BARF feeding, which stands for “biologically appropriate raw food.” It is also called evolutionary. The system is based on the fact that dogs and cats are predators that in nature feed on unprocessed food. Therefore, BARF diets consist primarily of raw meat, bones and liver, with the addition of fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs and some dairy products. There are also ready-made foods - they are sold frozen. However, there are no clinical studies on this yet. And many experts are suspicious of such nutrition: science does not confirm the idea that dogs and cats are wild. In addition, raw meat can contain pathogenic bacteria.

So what should you feed? The author of numerous encyclopedias on animal nutrition, Professor Grandjean from the French National School of Veterinary Medicine, insists: it is good ready-made food (it is not so important whether dry or wet, but most importantly, not the cheapest) that should now form the basis of the nutrition of any cat or dog. These pieces have the best combination of all the right ingredients.

The main complaint about inexpensive food is that there is usually too little meat, which is critically necessary for former predators - cats and dogs. It is necessary to correctly understand the manufacturers' formulations. According to current standards, if the package says “turkey” or, for example, “lamb”, it must contain at least 26% meat. If it is indicated “with meat” or “contains such and such meat” then at least 4%. The inscription “with taste” means that such a product may not contain meat at all.

Biologist Olga Levtsova, who has been developing food for pets for many years, gives specific advice on choice. Meat and offal should be at the top of the list of ingredients. Dry food may contain meat meal and dehydrated meat; they are also not dangerous. And if there are cereals at the very beginning of the composition, it’s better to pass by. In addition, good wet food should contain at least 10% protein and no more than 710% fat, while dry food should contain at least 25% protein and no more than 20% fat.

The main recommendation is to regularly show the animal to the veterinarian and adjust the diet in accordance with his advice, not forgetting to control the volume. Dogs and cats always tend to ask for food, and you shouldn't give in to them every time. Unless, of course, you really love your pet and want him to be with you as long as possible.

You must choose for yourself what to feed your pet - ready-made food or home-cooked food. The main condition is not to switch abruptly from one type of feeding to another.

If you have adopted a baby, be sure to feed him the food he is used to for the first few days, otherwise there will be problems with digestion.
If you want to switch your animal to ready-made food, do it gradually over 10 days. It is better to ask your veterinarian for advice on the quality of food and which food is best for your pet.
Adding vitamins and mineral supplements to an animal's food should only be done on the advice of a veterinarian. Do not feed dogs and cats sausages and sweets from your table! These excesses lead to severe animal diseases!
Feeding frequency for puppies and kittens:
* At 2.5-4 months of age - 4 times a day;
* 4-6 months of age - 3 times a day;
* from 6 months and adult animals - 1-2 times a day.
If an animal suffers from food allergies, kidney and liver failure, urolithiasis and other diseases, it needs a diet. Be sure to consult your veterinarian about this.
Feeding old, weakened, pregnant and lactating dogs and cats also requires correction. Your veterinarian will tell you what to add to your diet and what needs to be excluded. And remember! Proper nutrition is the key to your pet's health!
Some of the most common misconceptions
(Everything below is incorrect)
- The cat should eat fish and drink milk,
- A dog needs bones,
- Milk is a water substitute,
- Dry food is a vitamin supplement for the animal,
- The best porridge for dogs is oatmeal,
- Animals should eat the same as their owners,
- A dog should only eat meat,
- Animals need a varied diet,
- The animal itself knows what and how much to eat.
Feeding dogs and cats
Here we are talking about feeding healthy animals. Some diseases require special dietary nutrition.
The first thing an animal owner should decide on is the type of feeding.
There are three main types of food:
- “homemade food” - that is, the same products that people eat (meat and dairy products, cereals, vegetables, etc.). In order for an animal to feel good with this type of feeding, it is necessary to carefully balance the diet in terms of basic nutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals) and energy.
If you still decide to feed your dog or cat homemade food, here is a list of products that are suitable for animals:
* cereals - rice, buckwheat, corn. They should be boiled in water.
* meat - beef, chicken, turkey, lamb;
* white fish; * offal and eggs - no more than 2 times a week;
Meat and fish should be boneless and without fat. It is advisable to focus on one or two types of meat (beef, poultry, rabbit, lamb). To diversify (and reduce the cost) of the diet, you can give your dog offal: heart, lung, liver (once a week), tripe.
* vegetables – (carrots, cabbage, zucchini) must be included in the diet. Vegetables can be any, except legumes and potatoes;
* fermented milk products with no more than 4% fat content (milk should be given to animals only under 4 months of age);
* vegetable oil - corn and sunflower.
When feeding at home, to provide the animal with vitamins and minerals, it is necessary to use appropriate industrial supplements (not to be confused with ready-made feeds!). You can choose vitamins and mineral supplements for your animal’s food only on the advice of a veterinarian.
If you choose a natural type of feeding, then it will contain two dishes - meat and fermented milk.
The meat dish is simple to make. Lean beef, without bones and veins, chilled (preferably not frozen at all, this way there is more blood and tastes better), raw, scalding is not necessary, cut into pieces the size of a fingernail (later, as the cat grows, the size of the pieces can be increased to, say, pieces 2x2x2 cm ). Add half a spoonful of olive oil, some vegetables (mashed boiled cauliflower, regular white cabbage, mashed boiled beets, spinach, lettuce, cat grass, cut like “onions in a salad”) or buckwheat or rice, in a proportion of 3-4 parts meat for 1 part of the “filler”, there are also mineral supplements, vitamins, probiotics agreed with the veterinarian.
If you want to diversify the range of meat your cat eats, you can give beef heart cut into pieces once a week (with all the additives listed above). Cats should not have liver. It is not advisable to serve chicken as the main meat component.
Fish can be given once a week. Raw, “noble varieties” (cod, pollock, haddock, without bones, skin and films).
Fermented milk products acceptable for cats are more varied. The basis is one percent kefir and low-fat (up to 9%) cottage cheese. Attention, about fresh kefir, the animal can “weaken”. You can also give unsweetened yogurt without fruit, sometimes, 2 times a week - 10% sour cream diluted with boiling water (it turns out to be a warm food, even post-operative animals do not refuse it), as a treat - you can give fermented baked milk. But remember that the base is kefir!
Most cats can drink milk only when they are young; it often makes adults weak.
Grass for cats should be within the reach of the animal at all times. It can be grown from a special bag with the same name, or it can be sprouted and sown in sand or soil with oats or wheat. When eating “naturally,” you need to take a urine test every three to four months.
- industrial feed - dry and canned. There are a large number of companies producing food for animals. It is better to use food from well-established companies that have research centers or cooperate with them.
Dry pet food
There is no unified classification of dry food for animals, however, in general, the following groups of dry food are distinguished:
1. Super premium class.
These are the most complete and balanced foods produced taking into account the latest scientific developments of large nutrition centers. The components used to produce the feed are of the highest quality. The meat used for the production of feed is dietary, eggs are also used as a source of protein, and rice is used as a plant component. The preparation of feed of this class is carried out using special technologies. Due to this, the nutrients in the feed are closest to natural and are well absorbed by animals. Although these feeds are expensive, they are easily digestible and have high nutritional value, so their consumption is economical.
2. Premium class
High quality products are used in the production of this class of feed. The meat included in their composition is dietary (chicken, lamb, turkey). The plant component of the feed is usually rice. Feed is well digestible and its consumption is economical.
3. Regular food.
These foods are balanced, complete, but contain food coloring and flavoring additives. Feed is made from low quality raw materials. The protein in the feed is mainly of plant origin; dietary meats are usually not included in the feed. Although these feeds are inexpensive, the nutritional value and digestibility of these feeds are low, so their consumption is higher.
Conventional feeds by some companies are divided into the following categories:
middle-class food that has good taste, but is not always fully balanced,
economy class feed, affordable to the widest range of consumers and being the cheapest and least quality.
It is advisable for a cat to always have dry food freely available. The approximate amount of feed is indicated by the manufacturer on the bag and measured in a measuring cup, different for each manufacturer. When feeding dry food, your cat should always have fresh water within reach. An adult cat on dry food should drink 120-150 ml of water per day. Milk (kefir) is not considered water.
Until 8-9 months (or even up to a year, if there is no obvious excess weight), the cat should be fed kitten food. After a year - regular “adult” food. The transition should be carried out gradually, over 7-10 days, reducing the portion of kitten food and increasing the adult dose.
Canned food should not be left for your cat all day. They put it in, she ate, what she didn’t eat goes into the refrigerator.
You can combine dry and canned food only within the same line of one manufacturer.
When feeding with ready-made food, you need to take a urine test either after changing the food, or once every six months to a year.
- mixed type of nutrition - feeding both ready-made food and homemade food. In our society (after the appearance of ready-made food on the market), this type of feeding has become the most common, although there is no scientific basis for it. Quite the contrary, all serious manufacturers of complete ready-made food do not recommend adding anything other than water to the industrial diet.
Here we should stop and remember that in addition to the widespread complete food feeds, there are non-complete foods. Therefore, read food labels carefully. They always indicate how to use the food and whether it can be combined with anything else.