Advise for feeding 17.5 year old

I've adopted two more cats recently, both seniors. Gracie is 17.5 years old and went for a vet exam with blood and urine work ups - the urine came back with the gravity slightly off, which the vet said would be kidney related. She sent me home with a few different vet foods but here's my concern - I'm not a fan AT ALL of foods with grains and by-products. My cats eat Timberwolf dry and Wellness wet - I realise that Timberwolf is very high in protien and this is not really advisable with seniors. SO my question is, what foods would you recommend for senior cats??

Thanks in advance.

I used Max cat Senior by Nutro with Kandie for a few years ... but at 17 ( Kandie is 18) I would suggest going to just wet food .... Wet food gives the CRF kids lots of moisture and gives good digestable protein... I wouldnt feed Wellness due to the garlic but it is a good food... Kandie eats canned and raw , right now she likes California natural , Nutro , Evangers but I rotate since her tastes change quick

I agree with what Sharky said, and would just add, also try to feed lower phosphorous content foods...if early kidney issues, this is, imo and that of others on the support list I am on, more important than low protein. Quality of the protein being fed is also very important.

Both the katkarma food lists and those by jmpeerson for cats with diabetes, list the phos content of many foods on the market. When Patrick was still with me, I would shoot for foods with a phos content under 1.0%.

Bless you for taking in two oldsters and giving them a wonderful home in their remaining years.

Thanks!

Right now Gracie eats mainly wet anyway but she does like to eat the dry I put out for the other three seniors (11, 12, and 15) - I know I'm stopping the Timberwolf for sure. I will look into those other foods as suggested.

Just curious what the reason behind the avoidance of garlic is though?

Thanks again ... oh also, I would love to join a support group for this if you could maybe PM me or post, I would really appreciate that as well.

it can cause anemia and possibly be fatel... Hopefully Pat will post the study link... My vet says No garlic for cats but says yes to dogs... though most of the studies I have read say neither is safe but dogs are less likely to suffer ...

Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me.

Originally Posted by Murfins

Just curious what the reason behind the avoidance of garlic is though?

Thanks again ... oh also, I would love to join a support group for this if you could maybe PM me or post, I would really appreciate that as well.

Click to expand...

Here is a recent article http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer...c_publicationstitle is Allium Species Poisoning in Dogs and Cats - published in August 2005 (it is a pdf file, you will need to have Adobe Acrobat's free reader in order to read it).

I'll pm you the support groups addy.