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Day one of Tiger's kidney diet, and history



 
 
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  #11  
Old June 6th 12, 08:39 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
Bill Graham
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Posts: 1,065
Default Day one of Tiger's kidney diet, and history

Rene wrote:
Well, there is no reason why I couldn't grind up a whole chicken and
feed it to my cats. - They could do a lot worse, and the cost per
pound would be significantly better than canned cat food.


FYI, you need to include the organs too. Feeding cats a raw diet is a
tricky things. They are obligatory carnivores and need a delicate
balance of nutrients. I'd strongly suggest feeding a tested, balanced
raw recipe. This great website has one:
http://catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood


Yes, but those, "balanced diets" are quite expensive. We have 5 cats and
taking care of them gets kind of expensive. One of the reasons why we feed
them chickens is that they are quite a bit cheaper than canned cat food. One
chicken, roasted, costs about $5.00 and it will feed both my wife and
myself, and our five cats. (5-1/2 actually....My wife started feeding
another stray last week, and it showed up again yesterday, so its only a
question of time before we have 6 of them)

  #12  
Old June 21st 12, 11:56 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
FragSinatra
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Posts: 48
Default Day one of Tiger's kidney diet, and history

Brian Link . wrote in
:

I'll explain what we're trying in a bit, but first some background.
Apologies for the long post.

Tiger's a 17-year old Maine-Coonish moggie (long hair, ear-tufts,
tabby markings). My son picked him from a litter of farm cats. He's
always been very healthy.

I thought it was time for a physical, so we brought him in to our
regular vet. The vet was impressed at how well he's doing - coat is
very good, strong, and he's only lost one tooth, which was extracted a
few years ago (he also said that cats Tiger's age usually have lost
25% of their teeth! Can that be right?). He was a little concerned
that he'd lost a pound over the last 3 years.

Unfortunately, our relief was followed by the results of bloodwork,
which showed anemia and elevated BUN and Creatinine levels, which
indicated renal failure. The vet prescribed the moderate-protein,
grain-based diet which is the norm, apparently. I've recently read
Elizabeth Hodgkins' book "Your Cat", which says that's backwards, and
the "kidney cat" should get good quality real meat protein (wet), but
with phosporous managed either by cutting the food with cooked egg
whites (high protein, no phosporous) and/or the addition of phosphate
binder. Tiger's always eaten Wellness wet food.

There was a lot of soul-searching. Hoo-boy was there soul-searching. I
called several vets, most of which echoed our vet's advice. I reached
out to Facebook friends, and many reported good results with the
low-protein approach. A few agreed with Dr. Hodgkins, though.

So I thought, the most conservative approach is to follow the vet's
advice for a while and see if he improves. If not, we go to plan B. We
picked up the prescription food, and gave it to him for a few days. He
bacame quite lethargic, and resumed gulping down water and barfing it
back up. And wow, the farts.. His younger "brother", Louis the Bengal
age 10, wouldn't touch it. I thought: "well, this must be acute kidney
failure", and we should start planning for Tiger's demise.

Then I posted (under google groups) here and asked for advice, and
found sympathy with the good-protein, wet, no-grain strategy.

Finally, I had a long conversation with a "conventional" vet who's
begun to suspect conventional wisdom, and a holistic vet that thinks
conventional wisdom is barbaric. The former almost teared up when he
admitted that before his change of heart, he was basically starving
his kidney cats to death. I also reached out to a local big cat rescue
center that I trust, who said they just feed their big cats with
kidney issues raw meat, with some electrolytes added to their water.

What settled it was a response from an old cat advisor who saw that
post and set out very forcefully that prescription diets are indeed
barbaric. I trust her judgement; she's worked with a lot of cats.
Also, I made the calculation that one makes with terminally ill cats:
is discomfort worth a few extra months of life? As in, sure you can do
chemo for a cat with cancer, but then you've got a miserable little
beast that lives a little longer for your selfishness. Even if the
prescription diet preserves renal function, is it worth it to have a
longer-lived miserable cat?

BLink


I admire your persistence as well and I'm sure Tiger does too.

How much does Tiger weigh? I've always heard Maine Coons are the
biggest breed of cat.

I can't read the rest of this thread, the grinding up of whole birds
kinda makes me sick to my stomach.


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