Yet another post about the frelling cat and her digestive tract

[raincitygirl]

Oh f-list, my f-list, talk to me about the raw food diet. Positives, negatives? My google-fu is failing me because every source I read is either "a raw food diet will change your cat's life" or "a raw food diet will kill your cat". I have neither the time nor the inclination to make my own cat food, but I'm told there are commercially prepared frozen raw foods out there with a balance of ingredients. You just defrost and serve. Is it worth trying? My local pet supply store has a freezer section.

As of today, I am supplementing YMW's Medi-Cal Gastro-Intestinal Cat Food diet with bits of cooked chicken breast, because chicken breast seems to be the only thing besides the Medi-Cal that she can keep down right now. And she hates the Medi-Cal, eats less of it with every day that passes (not hyperbole. I'm recording exactly how much she's eating and how much she's leaving in the dish until it spoils, and there's a steady decline). But I can't afford to feed her on chicken breast until the end of time, not to mention the fact that it's hardly a balanced diet. Also, I have a conceptual problem with cooking my cat human grade chicken breast while I eat an egg salad sandwich for supper! Maybe I should keep her on the Medi-Cal alone, on the assumption that sooner or later she'll get hungry enough to eat it in the amounts the vet said she would, but in the meantime she's losing weight.

If you don't have an opinion, or are bored silly by YMW's gastric shenanigans (and hell, *I'm* bored silly by them), feel free to scroll on by. I feel bad about inflicting yet another post of this kind on my long-suffering dwircle/f-list, but I can think of little else given that she's basically on a hunger strike. She is not a political prisoner in my home, though, I swear! Stupid animal.

Comments

[loligo]

If I had only one cat, I would totally try a species-appropriate raw diet for a couple months to see what happens. But I am not going to pay for, or spend time preparing, raw food for six cats.

[raincitygirl]

Yeah, I'm going to stop by the store after work tomorrow and pick up a small bag of frozen raw food, see if it stays down. However, I *totally* understand not having the time or money to do that for six of them. Good for you! I don't envy you the litter box, but it's great that they've found homes with you. Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) has seven cats, apparently, so you've got one more to go before you beat her. We had six when I was young, because my mum was a sucker for a hard luck story.

I have one cat. My building has a two small pet policy, strictly enforced. I've toyed with the idea of getting YMW a companion, but held off because she seems perfectly happy on her own. Plus, if anything ever happened to my mum, I'd have to take her dog, which would bring me up to two pets. My brother couldn't take him because he's terrified of men (he was a rescue and they didn't have a lot of background on him, but I'm guessing there may have been abuse). My sister couldn't take him because....reasons. And my mother would come back and haunt us if something happened to her and we abandoned her dog to the SPCA.

[minim_calibre]

We raw feed the dogs, because they don't need as much in the way of additives, and it's been great for them. We did do freeze dried raw with the cat for a while, but she was too picky to eat much of it, so we went back to high-end canned. It's worth trying.

[raincitygirl]

Thanks. I'm going to give it a shot. I mean, YMW is already *on* the high-end canned and can't tolerate it. Or suddenly can't tolerate her brand all of a sudden (she's been eating Natural Balance grain-free since I adopted her). When Im popping by the freezer section, I will also pick up a selection of other high-end canned foods, in hopes one of them doesn't make her puke.

[loligo]

Do you have Tiki Cat available anywhere locally? I've heard great things about that one.

[raincitygirl]

I will ask at my local pet food supply store when I'm in picking up raw food and Almo Nature. I just googled Tiki Cat and the reviews look excellent I hesitate to buy it in bulk over the internet, though, without knowing if it'll stay down. My pet supply guy is really nice. If he doesn't stock it already he might be willing to order it. I'm in the middle of Hipsterville, BC, so there are plenty of other people feeding their cats high end food.

[sollers]

Your conceptual problem: my daughter and I have from time to time found ourselves in that situation with our dogs. Our attitude has been that we have taken responsibility for them, therefore it is up to us to do our best for them even if it means living on lentils for a month.

Having said that, cats are not dogs and seem to thrive best on a more "natural" diet, which may well include raw food (I always cook my dogs' meat, but that is so they don't get ideas)

[raincitygirl]

Luckily, I’ve never had to eat lentils to pay for pet food. I’ve eaten lentils (actually, probably chick peas. I’m not fond of lentils, but curried chick peas are delicious and nutritious) to pay for vet bills in the past. The conceptual problem was mostly a joke. The egg salad needed to either be finished up or thrown out, so an egg salad sandwich was a sensible dining option. It just struck me as funny that she was getting the skinless bonless chicken breast cooked from scratch, and I was getting the leftovers.

No, you definitely wouldn’t want the dogs getting any ideas. I seem to recall that Toby once made a valiant attempt to grab a duck or a chicken or something straight out of the roasting pan. Or perhaps I’m thinking of someone else’s dog. But if it was Toby who had that particular adventure, then he probably already thinks anything edible in the kitchen is up for grabs, without any encouragement from you.

[lexin]

I feed Smokey on a mixture of high end kibble and medium end wet food. She seems to do fine, which is fortunate.

However, a colleague I used to work with fed her cat on raw food she bought frozen and thawed, and her Ruby seemed to do very well on it. She said she found it easy to persuade Ruby to eat it at first because Ruby had been starved in a previous home (there had been serious abuse) and would eat anything left out, including things cats shouldn't eat.

[raincitygirl]

Poor Ruby. I'm glad she landed on her feet with your colleague, but that's terrible about her previous home.

I'm going to give the raw food a shot. The worst that can happen is it comes straight back up again, and I'm getting to be a dab hand at cleaning up vomit lately.

[wanderer]

I've had luck with Almo Nature - it's basically shredded chicken or whatever other meat/fish is on the tin. I seem to remember it being available at the local pet shops in Van, too. Good luck!

[raincitygirl]

You are the second person to recommend Almo Nature, and I called my local pet supply shop, and they stock it. I think a trip there is in my near future.