# Cat Food For Ducks



## oregon woodsmok

I was wondering if it is OK for ducks to eat dry cat food. So I took the list of ingredients in a bag of game bird starter and compared them to the ingredients in a supermarket brand of dry cat food.

First off, the cat food contains way too much protein, so it is automatically limited to an occasional treat.

Both feeds contain animal proteins and plant products (grain and soybean). The cat food contained fish, which is good for ducks.

The cat food contained artificial colors and the game bird did not. I guess people don't care what color their game bird feed is. However, a little bit of food coloring probably isn't going to make the ducks sick.

The long list of vitamins and chemicals is very close to being the same in both products. The differences are:

Game bird contains Zinc and I didn't see that in the cat food.

Game bird contains cobalt carbonate, and the only information I could find about that is that it used for ruminants. I couldn't find anything about its use in poultry

Game bird contains lactobacillus acidophilus, in short, yogurt culture which aids in digestion.

Game bird had an iodine precursor, but the cat food had kelp, which contains iodine (and might contain zinc)

Cat food contains Taurine, but there is a taurine precursor in the bird food. I checked and Taurine additive has been proven to be beneficial to poultry.

Cat food contains salt, and since it is not in the game bird, birds must not need much salt. A quick little google search shows that 0.25% of the ration is the recommended amount for ducks.

I did not see anything in the cat food that was harmful to ducks and most of the vitamins and minerals are the same in both foods.

I'm not a vet, so don't take advice about feeding your animals from me, but I am going to toss my ducks the occasional handful of fish cat food. Fish is one of the natural foods for ducks and so far I haven't found fish in poultry food.

I need to hunt down the % of salt in cat food. The salt content and the % of protein are the restricting factors.


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## Caprice Acres

If I had extra laying around for some reason, I'd do the same. Otherwise, it costs more to feed them cat food, so I don't.  Then again, I feed a custom grain mix from the mill so I feed mine pretty inexpensively.


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## KSALguy

the protien isnt going to hurt them, alot of us on here feed both cat and dog food to help boost the protien level up to a good level,


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## 6e

A neighbor down the road from us feeds his chickens cat food and swears by it that it makes his hens lay more and bigger eggs.


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## GrannyCarol

"Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks" mentions using cat food as part of the diet to raise protein and condition birds for show or breeding. If it weren't more expensive than the duck food, I'd add it in myself.


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## oregon woodsmok

[[[....the protien isnt going to hurt them,...]]]]

With the one exception that excessive protein fed to baby ducklings can cause them to grow too fast and possibly result in angel wing.


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## KSALguy

yes ducklings need to be watched when it comes to protien, but ducklings shouldnt be eating kibble anyway,


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