Most people feed their pets the same food at each meal.  A rotation diet is a feeding schedule wherein you vary your pet’s food.  Just as you eat a variety of healthy foods with each meal, your pet can benefit from this approach, too.  Your pet’s diet can be varied on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.  You can rotate different protein sources (such as chicken, salmon, rabbit, turkey), as well as different forms (kibble, canned) and brands. What are the benefits of varying your pet’s diet?

• Rotating a variety of high-quality balanced pet food will help ensure your own dog or cat eats a diverse diet, and receives optimum and complete nutrition.

• Rotating proteins can decrease the risk of your pet developing a food allergy, as food allergies can develop when a pet is fed the same protein over a long period of time.

• When your dog or cat tries new proteins, textures and flavors, he is less likely to become finicky about his diet and more likely to look forward to mealtime.

There are some pets with sensitive stomachs that may experience digestive upset when switching diets.  If your pet is sensitive to food changes, you will need to transition to the new food.  You can simply blend some of the old food with the new food over a period of about a week, gradually reducing the amount of the old food.

My own cats rotate between a raw food diet with different proteins (they eat chicken, rabbit, venison and turkey) five days a week, and a high-quality, grain-free canned food the other two days of the week, including a fish protein one day a week.

Have you tried a rotation diet with your pets?