Expert: Ali - 5/29/2009

Question
QUESTION: A couple of years ago we took in a starving, half-grown cat that people had left in a snowbank. This little cat didn't know when to stop eating, she was so starved and put on a lot of weight. Soon after we got her our older cat was diagnosed as being diabetic and put on a straight, strict regime and injections. Whe was feed the same way and lost some of her weight. She also tends to get constipated and we were told not to feed dry food because she doesn't drink. We recently lost him and I am now at a loss on how to feed our little 'left-over'. I have read that cats should have food available at all times but how can you do that if you can't feed dry food? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ANSWER: Gigi,

I do apologize, the allexperts site allows experts to specify how many questions they're able to answer in a day, unfortunately you happened to catch me when I was maxed out. I'd be more than willing to answer your follow up question if you're still interested.
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I have a few questions for you to help me understand a bit more about this situation so that I can provide you with the best possible advice to help you and your kitty.

- What food are you feeding your kitty?

- Is there a specific budget you have in mind dedicated to feeding your cat?

- Are you familiar with high quality holistic foods made from human grade ingredients?

- How have you treated the cat's constipation in the past?

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I finally got through! :o)
I noticed you are in Canada, so this would be more relevant because so am I.
I am feeding her Natural Balance (wet), I was told that this is a very high grade food, and I have Nutram for indoor cats (dry) I don't know anything about holistic food, but try to get advice from people who know more than I do.
I give her a tablespoon of cooked pumpkin with every meal (1/4 of a 170 g can) I have been giving her this twice a day but am not sure how I should space the feedings since I adhered to a very strict schedule with the little diabetic cat I just lost and she was on the same schedule. This cat also tries to eat plastic, I am very careful but every so often she gets something anyway.
The vet has also told me to give her lactulose and I give this only when I think it's really needed. She also told me not to feed dry food?
I only have a small pension but would never try to save on food for my cat.
Thank you.

Answer
Gigi,

Natural Balance was one of the foods recalled during the Menu Foods pet food recall, so was Nutram. I'm not comfortable feeding or recommending any food that's been recalled because my eldest resident cat, MC almost lost her life to kidney failure during the Menu Foods pet food recall due to an ingredient from China being tainted with melamine. Luckily although it was touch and go for awhile MC managed to recover much of her kidney function with a combination of IV fluids, homeopathic remedies and sheer will to survive. Presently MC still requires ongoing vet care, regular blood work and extra careful observation so we can catch any further health problems she might experience early enough to treat them. My family vet is a holistic practitioner and I think the homeopathic remedies likely played a significant role in MC's recovery - her kidney values on blood tests were so high that the vet at the 24 hour emergency clinic and my vet's practice partner told me to be prepared to have MC euthanized if she didn't begin to improve. Luckily although she got worse initially MC began improving in leaps and bounds, now we're in the process of trying to wean her off the subcutaneous fluids and see if her kidneys are able to function without the help of extra fluids.

The reason that I've shared this experience with you is that I wouldn't wish it on anyone which is the reason that I recommend foods that have never been recalled for any reason. In my opinion a properly balanced homemade raw diet is probably the next best thing to providing our cats with live mice and small birds, I feel that it's really best to keep things as close to nature as possible when caring for our cats. I know what it`s like to live on a small pension so I`ll do my best to keep a close eye on prices and recommend appropriate, high quality products that hopefully won't break the bank.

I understand why your vet has recommended against feeding a diet exclusively made up of dry food, in nature cats' diets are composed of birds and small mammals. Essentially 90+% of a prey animal's body is made up of water, however feeding a high quality diet made up only of canned food can be quite expensive. I feed my cats a combination of the raw diet recommended at catinfo.org and Spot's Stew Sensitive Cat by Halo. A 6 lb bag of dry Spot's Stew lasts my 3 resident cats roughly a month if that's all they're eating, that works out to roughly 28 cents per day, to feed each cat.

Feeding canned recipes made by Spot's Stew or Wellness (a similar quality cat food) could get a bit expensive depending on what your cat's ideal weight is and what she weighs right now. Spot's Stew suggests 1 oz of their canned food for each pound your cat weighs. Wellness recommends that you feed an entire 5.5 oz can per 6-8 lbs of body weight each day. In terms of large cans both companies are expensive - a 7.5 oz can of Spot's Stew costs almost $3, Wellness costs slightly less, but in the same price range. If your cat only ate a 1/2 can serving for each meal twice daily you'd be looking at over $60/month after taxes to feed one cat. Feeding an exclusively homemade diet can cost the same as a decent canned food and it gives you the advantage of knowing exactly what's in the food you're feeding. Feeding the high quality holistic diets or a homemade diet may also help your cat lose weight slowly, gently and gradually because she isn't overeating in an attempt to meet her needs with foods that just don't have everything she needs.

If you're interested in learning a bit more about your cat's complex nutritional needs I'd recommend visiting a website my vet referred me to because I lost all faith in commercially produced cat foods after MC almost died after eating tainted food. This website was created by a veterinarian who wanted to educate cat guardians about the nutritional needs of cats and what can happen if those needs aren't met over a long period of time, the address is catinfo.org. If you aren't comfortable feeding the diet suggested on the website of it's not financially possible I feel comfortable recommending two high quality, holistic cat foods made from human grade ingredients; Wellness and Spot's Stew by Halo.

The canned pumpkin is what I use when cats become constipated and 1 tbsp is perfectly acceptable. Since your kitty tends to be a bit on the pudgy side I'd suggest that she gets 2 meals each day 12 hours apart, and that you feed her about 15% less than the package directions call for - often manufacturers suggest much more food (sometimes as much as 25% more than the cat actually needs) than is actually necessary to meet your cat's needs. My resident cats all enjoy things like lettuce leaves, spring mix and baby spinach, I feed small amounts of these veggies raw each week, no more than about a 1/2 tbsp per day is necessary. You could also try your hand at growing your own catnip or cat grass if you're not comfortable feeding your cat a small amount of greens a few times a week. Catnip grows really well indoors on a sunny window sill or on apartment balconies, so does cat grass, I'd recommend paying the little bit extra for the organic because it's worth it - you know for sure that your kitty's getting a safe, healthy product if the seeds are organic and you grow them organically.

If your kitty is somewhat lazy and doesn't play actively you can encourage her to do so by using interactive toys like kitty teases, an old shoelace or piece of ribbon or you could try a laser light. Kitty teases can usually be purchased for under $10, if you have a Petsmart near you the kitty teases are often priced under $5. Shoelaces, ribbons and other similar homemade toys should only be played with when you can directly supervise your cat because they are very dangerous if swallowed - surgery to remove a foreign body is expensive. As for the fascination with plastic I suspect that there's something some cats like about the smell or taste because so many cats seem to have a fascination with licking, eating or being inside of plastic bags and similar things. My middle resident cat, Sooner gets constipated from time to time and we have Tonic Lax on hand when it's absolutely necessary to give him medication, but we try to help him get a bit more fiber in his diet.

I've taken the liberty of including information about raw food diets and supplements from a book called The Natural Cat by Anitra Frazier and Norma Eckroate just so that you can get a basic idea of what's involved if you decide you want to make your cat's food at home.

In The Natural Cat (a guide to holistic kitty health care by Anitra Frazier and Norma Eckroate) they give a fairly simple basic recipe for homemade raw cat food. Anitra Frazier suggests that a vitamin/mineral mixture be added to the raw meat of your choice to ensure that the cat is getting adequate amounts of key nutrients. The recipe is as follows:

Anitra's Vita-Mineral Mix

1 1/2 cups yeast powder (any food yeast: brewer's, tarula or nutritional)
1/4 cup kelp powder or mixed trace mineral powder
1 cup lecithin granules
2 cups wheat bran
2 cups bone meal, calcium lactate or calcium gluconate

- Mix together and store in a covered container. Be sure to refrigerate (everything but the lecithin and mineral perishes at room temperature)

- Add 1/2 - 1 tsp of Anitra's Vita-Mineral Mix to each cat's meal (1-2 teaspoonfuls pet cat per day)

- Once a week give each cat 400 units of vitamin E (alpha tocopherol, not mixed tocopherols) and the contents of a vitamin A and D capsule (10,000 units vitamin A and 400 units vitamin D). If your cat dislikes the taste of these supplements in his food, just puncture the capsule with a pin and squirt into the cat's cheek pouch or diagonally across the tongue. (Never squirt liquid down the center of the throat. If the cat is inhaling, he could choke). Or just give a good multivitamin for cats every day as directed.
Different foods might be available to you depending on the area you live in, if I had a general idea where you're writing from I could make recommendations based on that information because not all cat foods are available in all areas.

Anitra Frazier is a big supporter of natural cat care and feeding our cats at least some raw food in their diets if not changing the cats over completely so that they no longer get cooked/processed foods. She recommends choosing organic meats whenever possible such as ground round, chuck, sirloin, chicken or turkey. According to Ms. Frazier it's best to ensure that the cat's meat has at least 15% fat because cats need more animal fat in their diet than we do. Calcium is an important part of a healthy diet so it's necessary to ensure that the cats get their calcium by adding it directly to the meat and mixing it together very well. If you aren't able to find meat that has 15% fat you can add 2 teaspoons of butter (not vegetable oil or margarine, they're not animal fat)per pound of meat. Slightly overcooked veggies are appropriate to add to a diet of raw meat because they'll meet other needs normally met by the predigested plant matter found in a mouse's stomach.

Many pet parents have concerns about harmful bacteria in raw meat - simply washing your hands before preparing the cat's food, making sure that countertops, bowls and utensils used to prepare food are thoroughly disinfected and washed before and after use, once you've finished preparing the food it's important to refrigerate it promptly in a gas or plastic container. You can make large batches of food, divide it into serving sized portions, place the meals into ziploc bags and freeze them after flattening them as much as possible - they'll thaw more quickly than they will if left in a ball. Feeding cats cold food isn't good for them, so it's best to warm it up by placing it into a mug or small bowl floating inside another bowl of hot water until the food's about body temperature - it's best not to use the microwave, you don't want to destroy the nutrients in the food by heating it so quickly to above body temperature.

Raw Meat Recipe

4 parts meat with the calcium already mixed in
1 part vegetable - choose any one from the following:

- steamed broccoli
- finely grated carrot or zucchini
- finely cut alfalfa or clover sprouts
- baked carrot or winter squash
- frozen winter squash (thaw and use)
- organic canned pumpkin
- organic canned tomato sauce

- Organic raw egg (optional). Use one egg per pound of meat. The egg will count toward your meat, so subtract an equivalent amount from the meat calcium mixture.

- Add enough spring water that so you can mix well to a soft consistency.

- Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator or freeze as directed above. Before serving warm as directed.

- At mealtime, add the following to each cats portion:
    
    - 1 good multivitamin (Nu-Cat or Tabby Tabs)
    - 1/2 to 1 tsp Anitra's Vita-Mineral Mix
    - Other supplements according to your cats needs

I also have a rather eye opening article that I can share with you about the pet food industry's dirty little secrets, if you're interested in learning more. If you're interested in learning more about nutrition, behavior or cats in general Ill do my best to answer any questions you might have - if I don't have the answer Ill try to find it for you.