Whether it is lunch or dinner time, beef jerky has always been a delicious food to eat. If you are a cat owner, the first thing that would come up in your mind after seeing a plate full of beef jerky is whether if you can share some beef jerky with your beloved cat or not. Can cats eat beef jerky? Is it good for their health or not? Let’s explore that in this article.
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Can cats have beef jerky
The short answer is no! It is not a good idea to feed beef jerky to your cat.
Why? Well, there are two reasons.
- First of all, beef jerky is enriched in sodium and it may cause sodium poisoning in cats. Beef jerky may also cause dehydration, kidney problems, fluid accumulation, frequent thirst, seizures, and make the cats choke.
- Beef jerky is primarily a human’s food only and its inventors never made it keeping the cats in their mind. So the ingredients, flavors, and spices present in beef jerky cannot be tolerated by the digestive system of the cats and lead to serious medical complications.
Can cats eat teriyaki beef jerky?
Although teriyaki beef jerky is one of the least harmful flavors of beef jerky but still we don’t recommend feeding teriyaki beef jerky to the cats.
It’s because there is just too much sodium content in beef jerky and consuming it can lead to serious problems like sodium poisoning, internal bleeding, frequent thirst, weakness, and much more.
Can cats eat organic beef jerky?
Yes, cats would love to eat the delicious organic beef jerky but you should not feed it to them.
The reason is that beef jerky contains a huge concentration of sodium present in it. When your cat will consume beef jerky, it will have an excess of sodium present in its blood that can lead to sodium or salt poisoning, vomiting, frequent thirst, dehydration, and much more.
Does cat eat beef jerky
Yes, cats can eat beef jerky but it is not a good idea to feed it to them.
Always keep in mind that cats will likely eat anything they find edible in front of them. They do not know what’s good for them and what’s bad for them because they are simply not humans like us. Therefore, it is your responsibility to offer the right food to your cat and keep it healthy.
The problem with beef jerky is that it is enriched with sodium and preservatives to make it more delicious and preserve it. Although humans can smoothly digest these salts, spices, preservatives, and flavors the digestive system of a cat is not made to process these items. That’s why we recommend you not to feed beef jerky to your cats.
Is beef jerky safe for cats
No, beef jerky is not safe for cats at all!
As we have mentioned above that beef jerky has a lot of sodium, salt, spices, preservatives, and flavors. All this stuff cannot be tolerated by the digestive system of the cats and can lead to serious medical problems and even death.
Can cats get sick from eating beef jerky?
Yes! Cats can get sick from beef jerky.
Beef jerky contains high levels of sodium, salts, spices, preservatives, and flavors that cannot be processed by the digestive system of cats. Think of it this way, what will happen if you start eating cat food every day? Your health will start degrading within days. Similarly, if you start feeding beef jerky (which is human food) to the cats every day, it will have a terrible impact on their health.
Sodium poisoning is a very dangerous condition among cats that is caused by eating beef jerky. Sodium poisoning leads to severe dehydration, fluid accumulation in the body, kidney damage, and even death of your cat. Sodium or salt poisoning occurs when there’s an excess of sodium in the blood of the cat.
Following are the symptoms of sodium poisoning in cats:
- Vomiting & Diarrhea
- Fluid accumulation in the body.
- Frequent thirst and urination.
- Damage to the kidneys.
- Seizures & Comma.
- Death if left untreated.
If your cat has eaten beef jerky, these are the signs to watch. If any of these symptoms appear, immediately call your nearest veterinarian.
Can beef jerky kill cats?
Yes, beef jerky can kill cats.
How? There are two probabilities.
- Salt or Sodium Poisoning : We are repeatedly saying that beef jerky contains a high concentration of sodium, salts, spices, preservatives, and flavors that cannot be processed by the cat’s body. When the cat eats beef jerky, the sodium levels in its blood go high and cause sodium poisoning. Sodium poisoning in turn leads to many other serious and dangerous problems like severe dehydration, weakness, accumulation of fluids in the body, damage to the kidneys, coma, seizures, and death at the end if left untreated.
- Choking & Suffocation : Beef jerky is not the primary diet of cats. So there chances that if you feed them beef jerky, they will think that you just have to swallow it without chewing and may choke.
Another possibility is if you feed them a big piece that is hard to swallow. That will also make the cat choke and lead to its death.
How much beef jerky cats can eat
Now as you have learned all the drawbacks of feeding beef jerky to cats, one thing is clear that you cannot add beef jerky to the everyday diet of your cat. The sodium, salt, preservatives in beef jerky are harmful to the health of cats.
So how much beef jerky can you feed to the cats?
After seeing all these health risks, we do not recommend feeding any amount of beef jerky to the cats.
Can you give beef jerky to your cat as a treat
Some people suggest that it is okay to feed a small piece of beef jerky to your cat once in a while as a treat.
But our take is that why risk the health of your cat when there so many better and healthy foods out there that you can not only offer your cat as a treat but also add in its regular diet, such as:
- Fish
- Healthy & safe meat
- Rice
- Banana
- Carrot
- Cheese
- Oats or potatoes
Conclusion
Beef jerky is made for human consumption and feeding it to cats can have a terrible impact on their health. There are certain ingredients and nutrients in beef jerky that can cause serious medical problems among cats such as salt or sodium poisoning, extreme dehydration, frequent thirst, urination, choking, and even death. Therefore, you are advised to keep your cat away from beef jerky. There are too many healthy alternates of beef jerky and you can try any of them.
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