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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2015 13:31:23 GMT -5
No worries. I was kind of at a point where I was putting off posting too and realized it was because I didn't have much motivation or desire to keep going further with the switch. what do you mean by "complete FDR"? She gets FDR most of the time, like in the morning before I leave for the gym/work, at lunch time when my bf comes home for lunch, and overnight. When I get home from work, I give her her raw soup. Weekends, she gets raw soup too but FDR overnight. Basically, if I'm not around to feed her while she's on my lap, she won't eat her soup and with her insulinoma, I won't leave her without food she will readily eat, which for whatever reason, is FDR for her. Obviously, I'd rather she was on raw (in whatever form) 100% rather than as much FDR as she gets but she just won't eat raw soup without sitting on my lap to do it..... So as far as proceeding further, how good or bad is it if we don't? Obviously, I want the best for her but if it involves waiting her out to get her to eat her soup/chunks, I just don't feel comfortable doing that to her. Is where she's at "good enough?" that's good to know about brushing her teeth. I was kind of wondering about that. How exactly do I do that? And how often? Another question I have is is she losing out on anything significant with not having to really chew her food? There are occasional chunks that don't totally puree in the magic bullet that she will chew on most of the time, but she mostly got so she'd refuse to eat her chunks once I started giving her FDR during the day. Not even when hand-fed. It was like she knew she could hold out for FDR bc she knew I'd give it to her. I did think maybe I'd try giving her some bone in goat meat I still have, and/or some chicken wings this weekend and just see what she does with it. No word on biopsies. I'm hoping today. They had to do a second try because the first set of biopsies came back saying they didn't actually get any lymph node tissue the first time. So she went in a week ago yesterday for round 2. They took an entire lymph node from her back leg and had to be on a pain med for 5 days. They took quite a chunk out of her little leg Thanks again for all your help and concern through this process.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2015 13:35:12 GMT -5
Ive still been tracking her intake every day and have made my own spreadsheet so I can gather even more data from it. I've turned into quite the data nerd through this I think her breakdown last month was something like 53% FDR, 32% raw soup, 15% egg/soup mixture. (within the past 3 weeks or so, she will only eat the egg/soup mixture if I add FDR in there too) So she is still getting quite a bit of raw soup and my goal is to have her have as much of that as possible as opposed to FDR. The all soft food, little chewing though is a little concerning to me. I haven't checked her teeth lately to see the state of them but will do that now that it's on my mind.
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Post by bitbyter on Oct 30, 2015 13:45:11 GMT -5
By "complete" FDR I meant is the FDR balanced or is it only meat? Does it have bone, heart and organs in it as well as meat?
The only thing she will really lose out on by not chewing is the action of chewing bones cleans their teeth. That's why you'll have to brush. I've never had to do it but I believe you can buy pet safe toothpaste (oxyfresh I think) from most pet stores. Then you just use a baby toothbrush to clean as best you can. Once a week or every other week should help but you might want to have your vet do a dental every year if they get bad.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2015 14:55:14 GMT -5
Oh gosh, I didn't even think of that.....I just looked at the label. The first ingredients of Duck Duck Goose Stella and Chewy's are Duck (ground with bone), Turkey, Turkey liver, goose, turkey Gizzard, Pumpkin seed, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Phosphate Monobasic. Idk what the last 2 ingredients are so I don't like that very much.....But it might be the best we can do considering the circumstances. Roger on the tooth brushing. I'll look into it. I'll probably post on the facebook page to get feedback from people who've had to do it. We got the biopsy results back.....Unfortunately, they did not get lymph node tissue again this time. They've tried twice now So the vet is just going to assume she has lymphoma because of the swollen nodes and we are going to treat with an oral chemo therapy drug. Idk what you know about chemo with animals but apparently its not a big deal with animals, unlike how horrible it is with people. So we are going to do that starting whenever he can find where he can get the drug compounded into an oral med. He says her prognosis is probably about 6-12 months. She is going really strong so hopefully it's on the longer end of that but I know how quickly things can turn with these little guys. Pretty sad stuff.... So I'll keep an eye on her teeth and experiment with brushing them but unfortunately, I don't think she will be around long enough for her food to cause an issue in the area of dental.
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Post by bitbyter on Nov 1, 2015 18:33:53 GMT -5
I don't see any heart in those ingredients. I'd make sure to add heart chopped up fine to her diet.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2015 11:50:59 GMT -5
Ok, good idea. Thanks. Do you have any specific recommendations as to how much and how often? Probably just in with the FDR since her soups already have it, right?
What kind of deficiencies happen with too little heart in a diet?
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Post by bitbyter on Nov 2, 2015 13:26:43 GMT -5
To little heart can lead to a lot of problems but mainly eye sight and heart issues I believe.
I'd add some heart slivers to the FDR maybe twice a week as long as you are feeding the soup regularly.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2015 15:48:06 GMT -5
Ok. Sounds good. I can definitely do that. Do you have a "ballpark" idea of how much she should get? it would probably need to be a certain proportion rather than an amount since her amounts will vary season to season. If a complete batch of the soup recipe is about 12 oz and of that, heart is 1 oz, heart should be about 1% of her diet. Am I right? So if she is averaging about 8 oz a day right now (that seems like a lot, I know!!), she should get about 1 oz of heart total in a day (a little less) including in her soups. Does that make any sense to you? It makes sense to me but me and math = disaster usually
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Post by bitbyter on Nov 3, 2015 16:34:04 GMT -5
How liquidy are you making it? Can you post a pic of the FDR (rehydrated) and the soup?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2015 12:11:29 GMT -5
Yes. I can do that. I'm at work now but will do that within the next couple days or so.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2015 14:15:34 GMT -5
I have no idea why I took this long getting this pic loaded but here is a good example of how watered down her FDR tends to be. Might be even a little more watered down when my BF makes it. He says she "likes it better that way."
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Post by bitbyter on Nov 10, 2015 15:17:38 GMT -5
Honestly that looks to watered down to me. It should be more like a mush. Remember that the more watery you make it, the faster she gets full on just water.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2015 17:39:09 GMT -5
Ya, I've kind of wondered that. She seems to eat more the more watered down it is though. Like when I make it, I weigh out one scoop, which is about .4 oz before adding water. Then, when I add water, it totals about 2 - 2.5 oz. When my bf makes it, he makes it even more watery. The same amount before hydrating is the same, but the total after adding water is like 3.5 - 4 oz. I've told him I don't think that's probably very good and he says she gets the same amount of food, which is true, it's just more water.....I'm still not sold on the idea but I've let it slide. She does get the same amount of food, if not more, because she loves the way he makes it more than the way I make it and eats a ton.
But also, she is beginning to be like a little brick and I'm a little concerned about that. Of course, that's probably due to the pred and also that I feed her many meals rather than wait for her to get food herself. (She always has access to food but doesn't readily eat it on her own unless I'm holding her (raw) or its freshly made (FDR).
With the fact that she is getting the same amount of food whether he makes it his way or I make it mine, do you still think we should make it less wet? (btw, the pic is my version.)
Also, back to the original question, how much heart do you think I should add into the FDR? Another option might be to make the soupies with a tad more heart? right now, that makes up about 30-40% of her diet. the rest is FDR and egg.
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Post by bitbyter on Nov 18, 2015 23:43:37 GMT -5
As long as the food is weighed BEFORE the water and she is eating it all it shouldn't matter. I'd increase the heart in the soup a bit.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 9:54:43 GMT -5
Ok, that's what I was thinking. The next batches I make, I'll just add a little more heart and we should be good. If I put it in the FDR, with my luck she'd look at me like, "Why you put heart in my soup, mom? I'm not going to eat this crap!" haha
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