UTI and raw diet?

Hello all havnt posted here in awhile

A little background: I have 2 male bengal brothers 2 years old. Both have been on raw diets since they came home at 13 weeks old. I started off making my own food then the grinder broke so ive been buying pre-made Bravo from barfdirect.

Well in Oct Amir was having trouble peeing, going to the litterbox frequently and also some blood in his urine. Took him to the vet and the couldnt get a sample so they gave him an anti imflammatory and a liquid antibotic for 7 days. Well now its Dec and the same symptoms occured except for the blood. Vet gave him Clamavox(sp) pills for 10 days and also this time they couldnt get a sample.

Vet is saying maybe its the raw diet they are on and wants me to switch to Lifes Abundance. I always figured the raw was best but im not sure what to do about his UTI.

Any advice is appreciated!!
P.S. I dont feed dry(but he will eat anything) he will drink a SMALL amount of water.

I'm not a vet but I REALLY disagree with this.

I would say second opinion??? Maybe try a holistic doc?

It seems to me your vet is doing a lot of guessing, he hasn't even taken a urine sample, my vet would want to analyse a urine sample to look for an infection and struvite/oxalate. Only about 5% of UTI's in cats are bacterial, so a routine course of antibiotics can help but has no point in a lot of cases.

A cat can get bladder problems on every kind of diet, because there are a lot of other factors that also play a role (heredity, activity, obesity, stress etc) although lower moisture content, higher carbohydrate content and not enough acidifiers in the food are all factors which increase risk. This would make all dry foods more likely to cause bladder problems, they are dry, contain lot of carbs and don't get the urine pH as low as a raw diet would, therefore most foods use synthetic acidifiers now.
Cats on a dry diet always have a much higher (about 9 times) water consumption than cats on a all wet diet, but their total free fluid intake (moisture from food + drinking water) is always lower than that of cats on a wet diet. A cat on a wet/raw diet just doesn't need to drink that much because it gets most of it's moisture required from it's food. In case of UTI it's good to try to increase his water intake though, try mixing in just a little warm water with his raw mix.

I don't know much about the mix you are feeding him (only familiar with products from my own country) , but when I look at the barfdirect website I only see Bravo! blends for dogs. Are you feeding one of those ? They do contain a lot of vegetables, which cats (being obligate carnivores in stead of just carnivores like dogs) have no use for and which might lower the acidifying effect of the food on the urine pH.

Ooopps I meant nature variety medallions, neighbors dog gets the bravo lol

Originally Posted by Southernlocs

Ooopps I meant nature variety medallions, neighbors dog gets the bravo lol

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those have alot of BONE which can throw off the calcium , phos and mag balence.... plus the other stuff like clay , vingar...

If they are having trouble what meat are you feeding ?? same as when you made your own???

Im using the chicken same as when i did homemade sometimes i would also use turkey.

Any suggestions?

I was trying to be a good meowmy but i might be doing more harm

Originally Posted by Southernlocs

Im using the chicken same as when i did homemade sometimes i would also use turkey.

Any suggestions?

I was trying to be a good meowmy but i might be doing more harm

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i would try if you can one of the simplier premade raw s... like bravo ( you can get meat and organs , meat organ and bone or meat organ bones with 10% ish veggies ...

Thank you so much I see that barfdirect only has the bravo in the dog blends. can any point me in the direction for my feline buddies?

Feline and canine in MOST raw is interchangeable ... i fed my cat and dog the same raw

while a tweak in their diet may be a good move for them I don't see how any self respecting vet doc can claim w/o even doing a urinalysis that you caused this by feeding them a raw diet.

just leaves a bad taste in my mouth... me no likey.

Well I took Amir back to the vet today bc he started having blood in his urine. They still couldnt get a urine sample, so they gave him extra fluids and a anti inflammatory. I went to Petsmart and got a small bag of Nutro hairball and some canned turkey and chicken flavors, but im gonna keep giving them raw but were going out of town for vacation so i got those while were gone. I hope he gets better bc its breaking the bank acct lol

Have they tried putting a cath in to get the sample?? It does sound like a UTI but I know nothing about raw diets... my kitties get wet food with a little dry at night! I hope he gets better though, Tissy lost her life due to her UTI that I didn't notice... (My son was having surgery, by the time I got home got kitty to vet he squeezed her belly n blew up her bladder)
Im sending Good your way!!

Originally Posted by glitch

Have they tried putting a cath in to get the sample?? It does sound like a UTI but I know nothing about raw diets... my kitties get wet food with a little dry at night! I hope he gets better though, Tissy lost her life due to her UTI that I didn't notice... (My son was having surgery, by the time I got home got kitty to vet he squeezed her belly n blew up her bladder)
Im sending Good your way!!

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OMG

how awful