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Post by zombieferrets on Feb 10, 2011 22:25:07 GMT -5
Sorry if this isn't the right spot, I had no idea where to put this. I have a 16 year old kitty (she'll be 17 in July) who loves the raw. She's currently on vet food for her kidneys. The vet I got the food from said that she needs it for her kidney levels. Another one I saw said she has great kidneys and is in wonderful health for her age and doesn't need to be on that kind of food *yet*. So what I'm wondering is...does anyone have their cat on raw food? Does anyone have any idea if it'd be okay for a senior cat to go to? Also if this is the wrong area or I shouldn't be posting about kitties at all I understand and feel free to delete this. Thank you!
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Post by Heather on Feb 11, 2011 0:23:33 GMT -5
I've presently got 3 kitties who are 14 yrs of age or more. Samurai was my 4th who passed on just before Christmas he was 21 yrs of age. All are and were raw fed. I feed them exactly how I feed my ferrets, except they eat commercial ground all the time. They eat a wide variety that covers all their necessary needs except their tooth cleaning . Merlyn, my evil black kitty is the only one with serious health issues, now. He had been hit by a car before I got him and has a pin in his him and had his pelvis had been rebuilt. He's got some serious arthritis issues, other than that he's healthy. I would never feed my kitties anything else but raw. One thing to remember that raw fed animals run a slightly higher kidney value, it's not over the top just higher. Samurai was diagnosed with seriously elevated kidney values when he was 12. In fact in kidney failure. My vet told me to take him home and make him comfortable. Instead, I took him home and switched him to raw. He's my success story. His kidneys did eventually fail him....when he was 21 That's old age ciao
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Post by Sherry on Feb 11, 2011 1:23:28 GMT -5
If he will eat raw- give it to him! It will do him far more good than the prescription diets.
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Post by zombieferrets on Feb 11, 2011 2:53:12 GMT -5
Wow, that's amazing about Samurai, Heather! Precious has great teeth for her age too so it's not like that would screw anything up. If I can get my cats used to eating just raw and not having kibble anymore and get Mushu eating raw...man, I could have everyone on raw! Ahh, it still just makes me nervous. I know it makes sense with her system but at the same time...she was on Whiskas and the like crap for years before I started working at a pet supply store just over 3 years ago and switched her to higher quality stuff. I'm just worried that it will be a shock to her system or something. After so many years (13!) of crap will she really be okay just on raw? Her stool does have blood (light red, not dark) in it sometimes. Mainly it's when I haven't given her wet food or raw in a while. I guess raw would help with that. For 3 years at the pet store I was taught that this would be a bad idea for a senior kitty (or any senior animal, actually). It's hard to force my brain (and my heart when it comes to my sweet Precious!) to accept that it'd be good for her. Anymore convincing stories?
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Post by Heather on Feb 11, 2011 3:32:23 GMT -5
Samurai is amazing in that he was 12 when he was switched....from his favourite crap in a bag...Meow Mix and Science Diet. I can't believe that I gave him that garbage. There is no shock to the system only the same oh wow that you see in the ferrets when you take them off the garbage. It took me over 6 months to even get him to taste raw (mainly because it took me that long to get him off the kibble crack and switch him to some canned food. Guess what he decided was the canned garbage that he would eat (I did try to get him to eat the high end stuff believe me)...whiskas My experience anyway ciao
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Post by zombieferrets on Feb 11, 2011 3:50:26 GMT -5
Precious has always had canned food as a treat and she loved raw the first time I tried it on the ferrets. I guess I'm just worried since she is almost 17. At 12 I wouldn't be as worried, but almost 17...freaks me out.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2011 7:29:01 GMT -5
I agree with Heather, though I haven't experienced kidney problems with my cats. My 10-year-old senior kitty Figaro was tentatively diagnosed by three veterinarians with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, after $300 of blood-work, fecal, and urine testing that told us absolutely NOTHING. They had me put him on prescription diets, which only made him worse (his problem was chronic vomiting, 3-4 times a week). I put him on a 95% canned meat diet which was an improvement, but he picked at it and ended up losing 3 lbs. in 3 months. I was desperate, and remembered he hadn't had this much trouble with vomiting till I had moved from my parents place where he was forced to be an outdoor cat and did a lot of hunting, when I moved he became an indoor cat - on a whim I saw some turkey legs on sale at the store one day and thought, "Oh well, if the cats won't eat them the dog will," and when I got home to my utter shock and disbelief he started yowling as soon as he saw what I had and tried to rip his way into the package and claw a leg out! I haven't looked back since, and my cat is nice and plump, instead of at death's door like the veterinarian's would have had me believe. If you can, check out the RawPaws list on yahoo! Groups, both Heather and I are on there and that's where I learned for my cats and dog. I'm pretty sure I've seen several people there who have cats with kidney issues and they are all doing great. The list owner is very helpful about raw with cats who have health issues too, she gives out all kinds of reference info to back up what she says. Hope that helps, here's the link - pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaws/
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Post by goingpostal on Feb 11, 2011 8:36:47 GMT -5
My cat is likely around 15-17 and she's on partial raw, partial canned, I'd like to switch her entirely to raw but there's some meats she just won't eat or throws up so I'm working on finding a balanced diet she can eat. Like heather, I feed mine just like I feed the ferrets, she loves it. A lot of days she gets what the ferrets don't finish. If she has kidney issues she should be on canned if nothing else, dry is not good for cats at all and overworking her system.
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Post by Heather on Feb 11, 2011 14:55:07 GMT -5
One of the things about Samurai was the constant vomiting. It was a daily occurance, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. He was starving to death, even with all the kibbles available to him. I took both him and his brother Ninja into the vet. Ninja was now diabetic. Only one kitty came away and the vet gave Samurai maybe 6 months ... make him comfortable she told me. As she said she could put him on KD (I think that was the moist food) but he was too far gone and it would be too stressful and she didn't like the food anyway. At that point Samurai weighed 5 lbs (he's not a small siamese, he looked ghastly). I turned to the rawpaws list, Marnie and some of the others helped me switch him. I did discover there were proteins that he could not, never was able to digest. In fact resulted in projectile vomiting, disgusting. He never seemed to figure out these for himself, I just had to make sure that food wasn't available. Initially, because of his "death sentence" we decided because he could tolerate chicken, it didn't really matter that all he ate was chicken. We worked out some supplements and let him eat chicken. Well....a year later my kitty is now weighing in at 9 lbs and is playing with stuffed mice and thriving. Guess it was time to find another protein source . We discovered that if it had hooves, he threw it up but he could eat turkey, rabbit, chicken and quail. One day I realized that my kitty who was only supposed to live for another 6 months was 18 yrs old, he was going blind but still going strong, still jumping up on the counter (the brat). He was still jumping up on the sofa at 21 but he was tired. It took too much effort to go to the food bowl. The litter box was becoming optional (preferred the dog's bed) The end was the amount of pain he was in with arthritis, and that his kidneys were no longer functioning at all. It was time, he said it was time . The vet came out and he passed in the company of his friends around him. I don't think he was even aware of the transition. I know of a number of people who've switched their kitties a lot older than Samurai without any issues at all. The one thing is, if you indeed suspect kidney issues then get rid of the kibble, even if you decide that you have to feed the stuff in a can. Anything is better than the death in a bag ciao
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Post by zombieferrets on Feb 11, 2011 15:39:45 GMT -5
Wow, thanks everyone. And Heather, dang you and your sad story! Well, not really sad, but losing pets always sucks. Either way I somehow managed to hold back the tears. Why can't they just live forever? I'm going to check out that group right now. Awe, there's a ferret looking in a dogs mouth on the first page! How cute! Haha. Yeah, I'll post there, but I think I'm at least going to give raw a chance and see how her stool is and how she does on it. I know she loves it and she's always been a moocher when it comes to human food, especially anything meaty. Thanks so much for all your support guys.
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Post by Heather on Feb 11, 2011 15:47:18 GMT -5
Those are my guys Dr Pooka Dooks, she's that furry again, thanks to the des implants, I'm going to nickname her Methuzla and Mithrandir (who at the time of that photo was about 6 or 7 months old) ciao
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Post by goingpostal on Feb 11, 2011 19:08:41 GMT -5
I did discover there were proteins that he could not, never was able to digest. In fact resulted in projectile vomiting, disgusting. He never seemed to figure out these for himself, I just had to make sure that food wasn't available. ciao This is really interesting because the foods my cat so far cannot eat raw are pork, venison and beef. Beef she won't even touch, raw, cooked, canned. The other two she pukes, but she can eat Evo canned vension. She has no problem with turkey, chicken, mice, CGH, fish. She also used to throw up 3-4 times a week on kibble, of course the vet sold us "rx" SD kibble, once I got her on canned she was like a whole new cat.
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Post by kristinb on Feb 25, 2011 16:41:51 GMT -5
No to hijack this thread, but I wonder if this is why my one kitty throws up sporadically. He got very ill 5 years ago with a UTI and the vet at the time wasn't much help but after alot of reading I realized it was the incredibly overpriced dental dry food he was eating that had caused this problem. So he's eating 80% wet canned food now but the vet insisted he stays on a vet food that controls the pH in his urine. But every now and then, he will puke, and 9 times out of 10 when he pukes, its kibbles because as much as I know I shouldn't, I give him a few kibbles throughout the week because he loves them.
The other cat has never been ill and just has one of those constitutions where nothing phases her. But she is also a garbage disposal and would eat absolutely anything if you gave it to her.
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Post by kristinb on Feb 25, 2011 16:50:23 GMT -5
*heads off following this link*
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Post by Sherry on Feb 25, 2011 18:28:27 GMT -5
I know our elderly cat quit throwing up nearly as often once we got him off the vet food. He also hasn't had a problem with crystals ever since either. And he had them almost yearly for the first 14 years of his life, poor lad
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