Bengals And Taurine

What is Taurine and why do Bengals need it?

Taurine supports healthy heart rhythm, liver function and healthy vision in Bengals. Taurine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in the cats body’s. It is particularly concentrated in the brain, eyes, heart and muscles but Bengals in particular do not produce enough of this essential amino acid.

Taurine is an important part of the feline diet and is essential in preventing a disorder in cats called "dilated cardiomyopathy" (which is a failure of the heart muscle), as well as being very significant in helping feline reproduction and prevention of a progressive retinal disease called "feline central retinal degeneration" which causes blindness if left untreated.

In breeding queens that have taurine-deficient diets, there are more stillbirths, fewer live kittens born, and ultimately fewer kittens that survive to the weaning stage.
 
Despite the common belief, Taurine is not extracted from bull urine or bull semen. The name is derived from the Latin word Taurus, which means ox or bull. That may be the source of the confusion.

In the wild, rodents are a large part of the Bengals diet and the rodents have significant levels of taurine in their brains and organs.  

Bengals requires higher level of protein, calcium, and Taurine than most other breeds. Choosing quality foods and supplements is very important for their health. There are many choices to be made and many factors affecting them and often not only one right answer.
 
There are a number of quality dry foods available on the market, Remember you get what you pay for in the foods that you buy.  Foods that we recommend are Royal Canin, Instinct limited ingredient, Crave, Grain Free. 
 
Although it is controversial some Bengal owners choose to feed raw diets or partial raw diets and we at Bengaltime cattery feed a partial raw diet to our Bengals. Some choose to make their own meat mixtures using recipes available online and we have one on our webpage at this
link - (https://registeredbengals.com/products.html) It is about 1/2 way down the page under Homemade cat food recipe.

​We however do not have time to make our own food and choose to buy ours from Raw Paws. We have been Very happy with the quality and service of the team at Raw Paws!

There are several other quality Raw cat food companies and we have links to them on our site as well. There are a number of Facebook groups dedicated to Raw food diets. They have recipes for making your own Raw food at home as well
 
We keep a couple of food supplements around the house for our cats and Bengal Kittens, Acidophilus, and Nu-Vet Plus for cats. Bengals need higher levels of calcium and Taurine. Nu-Vet Plus is a great source of calcium and Taurine for your Bengal. The Acidophilus is good for digestive issues and diarrhea which happens from time to time and especially in kittens whose immune systems are still developing.

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NOTE:  We are NOT veterinarians, our experience comes from first hand knowledge raising and breeding Bengals as well as from online research. 
Make your own informed decisions about the health of your Bengals.
Your friends at Bengaltime Cattery
​Registeredbengals.com