How to keep cat food away from baby

It’s great having a baby and a cat at the same time. They both provide us with a fun and unique experience, especially for first-timers. It’s also fascinating to watch them interact and grow together, but there are some drawbacks to keeping a baby and a cat together.

One of the possibilities is that the baby may try to eat your cat’s food. Most babies and toddlers enjoy exploring, and they satisfy their curiosity by putting whatever they find in their mouths. This can certainly become an issue if you have cat food sitting around your house.

How to keep cat food away from baby?

You can keep cat food away from a baby by using a door trap, choosing good location for the food, changing the bowl, and using proper storage.

A door trap is an entrance that is large enough for most cats to wiggle through to reach their food, water, and a litter box, but small enough to keep a crawling baby out. It also serves as a sanctuary for stressed-out pets.

This is a great solution if you keep you cat food in a small room or closet.

You can buy one for under $15 here on amazon.

Keep the cat food tray out of the way of common areas. Instead of putting the tray in the kitchen or living room, try putting it in the laundry room or bathroom. By putting this in a separate room, you can help prevent your baby from finding the food. You can also put the food bowl up on a shelf that your cat can climb up to.

Regardless of where you put the food tray, make sure that it is still easily accessible for your cat.

If your baby is drawn to the cat bowl, you can try using a more generic bowl that isn’t as colorful. They may be drawn to the bowl because it has bright colors and fun designs.

You could also try getting a deeper bowl that would make it harder for your baby to reach into.

It would be best to store unopened cat food out of reach of children. For example, putting it in the upper cabinets or a difficult storage box to open. I store my cat food in my coat closet.

Children should be taught what to eat and not to eat as early as possible. If they do get into your cat food, you should discipline so they know not to repeat the behavior.

Baby ate cat food: What to do now?

Although cat food does not contain inedible or harmful substances for humans, infections such as Salmonella can contaminate cat food and make your baby sick. It can also cause choking in children, and in the worst cases your baby might have an allergic reaction. If your child becomes ill due to eating cat food, contact Poison Control or your doctor immediately.

If your baby ate wet cat food, they will likely have digestions issues such as diarrhea.

If your dog ate cat food, you should check out my article on my dog ate cat food and is now sick.

Babies will get into anything and everything in your house if you leave them unattended for even a second. They appear to be drawn to the things you want them to avoid because they are fascinated by their surroundings.

However, we do not need to choose between the two; we can keep our cat, even if we have a baby.  In fact, children can learn a lot from pets. So embrace both, and as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. In this article, we have listed some steps that you must consider to keep cat food away from your baby.

Related posts:

what to do and what consequences it can have, is it dangerous to eat food for animals

Last night my one and a half year old child got to the cat bowl and ate cat food. Since he felt great at the same time, my husband and I did not call the doctor or do anything about it. But in the morning I looked on the Internet and found out that there is too much toxic vitamin A in cat food, and there are dangerous microbes in it - and now I'm worried.

My question is: how dangerous is cat food for children and should I do something if the child has already eaten it?

Daniil Davydov

medical journalist

Author profile

One serving of cat food will not harm a child. If he has already eaten from the pet's bowl, nothing needs to be done. But in the future, just in case, it is worth putting it in a place inaccessible to the child.

Although manufacturers of dry cat food are required to ensure that no harmful bacteria enter it, the control of pet food is still not as strict as that of human food. And there is also less risk that the child will choke on dry granules.

How cat food differs from human food

Cats are carnivores, so they should eat mostly meat. The main ingredient in cat food is organ meats. These are, for example, the lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, and bone meal. All this is taken from the carcasses of the same animals from which they prepare food for people. That is, the meat has passed veterinary control and is therefore as safe as human food.

Commercial and household diets for cats - Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery

In addition, small amounts of grains are added to food for overweight cats. This is necessary to reduce fat content, reduce calories and facilitate digestion due to dietary fiber. Therefore, in terms of basic composition, cat food almost does not differ from human food.

Some links in the article cannot be opened from Russian IP addresses. We hope you know what to do

There are only two ingredients that are more in dry food than in typical human food. Vitamin A is added to all cat food. Food for kittens and cats with certain diseases is also enriched with taurine. But this does not mean that the child will receive too much of these substances from one serving of food.

Nutrition Guidelines for Cats and Dogs - European Pet Food Federation, FEDIAFPDF, 1.3 MB

You did not write how old your cat is, what breed it is, how many times a day you feed it, and what kind of food she eat. Therefore, in the calculations, I assumed that this is an adult outbred animal weighing 5 kg, in the bowl of which there was a daily portion of cat food. According to the serving size recommendations from the Purina website, this pet needs 55g of dry food per day.

Cat food has more vitamin A. The Association of American Feed Control Officials, AAFCO, recommends that adult cat food contain a minimum of 1 mg and a maximum of 99 mg of vitamin A per kilogram of food. For these animals, it is very important to get a lot of vitamin A, since the health of their visual and cardiovascular systems depends on it.

Recommendations for the content of vitamin A in cat food - AAFCOPDF, 228 KB

Dry cat food, consumer tests - GOST R 702.5.002-2020

At the same time, in foreign dry food, the content of vitamin A usually does not exceed 10 mg/kg, while in Russian it can range from 1.5 to 120 mg per kilogram of dry weight.

Suppose a child ate 55 g of dry food, which contained the maximum amount of vitamin A, i.e. 120 mg/kg. Under such conditions, the child will receive the maximum possible dose of the vitamin - 6. 6 mg. This is about six times more than a child's daily allowance.

Vitamin A is necessary for the synthesis of the visual protein rhodopsin, but in high doses it is really toxic to the body. If you get too much of it, the symptoms will be similar to any other poisoning: nausea, vomiting, dizziness and blurred vision.

/guide/vitamins/

Vitamins: what foods contain and how to take supplements . Therefore, despite the excess of the norm, the shock dose of vitamin A will not affect the child's well-being. This will not lead to health problems in the future.

Cat food contains more taurine. Both humans and cats obtain taurine from food. But if in the human body it can be synthesized from the essential amino acid cysteine, then cats are incapable of this. And since taurine is needed to prevent blindness, heart problems, tooth decay and hair loss, food for fast-growing kittens, pregnant cats and animals with chronic diseases is enriched with it additionally.

Why cats need taurine - VCA Veterinary Hospital

An adult cat is estimated to need 35 to 56 mg of taurine per day. But most commercial feeds, including those fortified with taurine, contain about 500 mg of taurine per kilogram of dry feed weight. This means that with 55 g of dry food, the child will receive approximately 28 mg of taurine.

Taurine Requirements of Adult Cats - Journal of Small Animal Medicine

In very high doses, amino acids and chemically similar substances can be difficult to digest, and therefore sometimes cause digestive disorders: nausea, pain and heaviness in the abdomen. But there is too little taurine in the feed for this: according to the European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, people of any age can eat up to 6 g of taurine per day without harm to health.

What to do if the child has already eaten cat food

One serving of cat food will not harm the child. If he has already eaten it, most likely there will be no health problems. But in the future, it makes sense to protect the child from encounters with cat food. And that's why.

Harmful bacteria can get into cat food. Dry food is usually free of harmful bacteria because it is made from microbiologically safe meat, cooked at a high temperature that microbes cannot withstand, and tested for safety before being packaged.

How dry cat food is made - Global Alliance of Pet Food Associations, GAPFAPDF, 441KB

However, the control of pet food is still not as strict as that of human food. Therefore, occasionally harmful microbes, such as salmonella, get into them already at the factory, the infection of which is especially dangerous for young children.

Salmonella Infantis Human Multi-State Dry Food Outbreak - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC

But more often, bacteria get into cat food through damaged packaging or improper storage, such as an open jar or food leftovers from an unwashed bowl. Cases are described when children became infected, even just by playing with dirty dishes from which animals ate.

The child may choke. Children under five have a very narrow trachea. Small, hard pellets of cat food that are difficult for a child to chew can get caught in the windpipe and cause suffocation.

Cat food is dangerous for children with allergies. Approximately 86% of pet foods contain at least one common allergen, and 43% contain at least two. These are, for example, wheat, fish and soybeans. In some children, the first allergy symptoms appear in the year, so contact with a potential source of allergens without parental supervision may be unsafe.

Frequency of food allergens in pet food - Journal of Allergology and Clinical Immunology

How to stop your child from eating cat food

Place the bowl out of the reach of the child. The easiest way is to put a cat bowl in one of the rooms and install a child safety gate on the door. Then the animal will be able to get to its food, but the child will not.

Buy an automatic bowl with a lid. Cat food bowls with lids that open only on the signal of an electronic chip or key fob on the collar help to protect cat food from encroachment when the animal comes to eat.

A conventional automatic feeder that dispenses food on time can also help: the less food there is in the bowl, the lower the risk that the child will have time to get to it.

What to do? Readers ask, experts answer

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How and where to store dry dog ​​food

Contents:

• Dry food storage: recommendations from manufacturers
• Rule #1 No free air access
• Rule #2 No moisture or heat
• Rule #3: No temperature fluctuations
• What does dry food look like when stored incorrectly?
• Terminals

Most owners choose dry food for their pet's diet for a variety of reasons: ease of use, balanced composition, positive impact on dental health. But many do not think about the fact that the quality of the feed and, as a result, the health of your pet depends on the storage conditions.

Due to the structure and processing features of food in industrial packaging, they can be stored unopened for up to 18 months (these figures may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer). But once a package of dry food has been opened, it must be used up within 4-7 weeks, and it is important to follow the correct storage requirements for dry food. It is necessary to avoid moisture, heating by means of a radiator or direct sunlight, free access of oxygen. Failure to comply with these rules leads to the fact that the feed quickly loses its characteristics, fats are oxidized, and in rare cases insects can even appear in the feed. Let's look at some simple storage rules.

Most manufacturers have considered the convenience of using food bags in terms of storage. Most packs of dry food for cats and dogs of small volume are equipped with convenient zip-lock fasteners that can be easily unfastened and fastened, reliably protecting the food inside from external influences.

In the case of more economical large packages, such fasteners are not provided. It is recommended to use special tanks for storing dry food. But here there is a secret: in order to minimize the contact of feed with air, it is recommended to use a small container along with the tank. For example, once a week, transfer food from the tank to the container in the amount you need for several days. This means you'll need to open the sealed tank less often, and it's easier to place the smaller container closer to the feeding area.

A small poll. Where do you think dry food is stored in most apartments? Of course, closer to the bowl of food and a convenient storage cabinet. We bet that most of the answers are "kitchen". And this is the wrong decision for dry food. High humidity, heat, often storage cabinets are placed near heating appliances, water pipes, so this room is not the best choice for storing dry food, even if an airtight plastic container is used. Consider placement options in the hallway, pantry, corridor, or even on a warm glazed loggia.

We dealt warmly. But what about the cold? It would seem that with negative values, nothing will happen to the food, but they should also be avoided. Any temperature fluctuations are undesirable for feed of a similar consistency, this will negatively affect the taste characteristics and quality of the product. In addition, you should not feed your dog cold food, wet or dry.

• Foreign matter: dust, dirt, mold, insects and other pests.
• Pellets heterogeneity, dry food kibbles of different colors and density.
• Pungent, unpleasant odour.

• Store the food in its original packaging or in the special sealed container .
• Ideal conditions: constant air temperature 22-25 degrees, humidity not more than 70%.
• Avoid sudden changes in temperature, do not store food near a heat source or in the refrigerator.
• Air is the main enemy. Oxidation processes occur in the feed under the action of oxygen, when vitamins, natural preservatives lose their properties, and oxidized fats give the feed a rancid taste.
• Large packs for small quantities, should only be purchased with a quality storage container. Otherwise, you simply will not have time to use all the food before it loses its taste and quality characteristics.
• The easiest way is to use the "Subscribe" function on our website, so you can be sure that you will receive your pet's favorite dry food on time.

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