Picky eaters, cream and egg?

My cats seem to want a change in cat food brand (wet) about every other week, and especially my CRF kitty Dusty. They will eat 9 Lives and act like it is delicious, then the next can they sniff and walk away. I've gone through Friskies, 9 Lives and now they are crazy about Paws, and so far seem to like every flavor. I'll see how long this lasts.

Also Dusty really can't afford to be picky about her food. She is so skinny that I can feel every bone. I've started giving her half & half with a beaten raw egg, which she absolutely loves. She doesn't seem to be allergic or anything, so is it OK to keep feeding her that?

Cats don't get high cholesterol, so the egg and cream shouldn't be a problem.

My vet told me to give Jamie some cream one time when he was constipated, and now he insists on a squirt in his cat milk (also a "must", as far as he's concerned) every day. He adores eggs, too, especially hard boiled.

I know how it is with a CRF cat - you want them to get all the calories they will eat! Milo was very picky as well, he'd love a certain wet food one day, and hate it the next.

There is something you could do with the egg which would make it better for Dusty. Leave the yolk raw, but cook the egg white. Cooked egg white is very low in phosphorus, which is a huge plus for a CRF cat, and will make the whole meal be lower in phosphorus.

http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/ has an "egg scoreboard" rating farms on the conditions their chickens are kept in, if you are concerned about that. http://feline-nutrition.org/health/s...ken-or-the-egg is another interesting article, http://feline-nutrition.org/answers/...a-raw-egg-yolk is another article on the same site, that focuses on the nutrients in egg yolks as well as why it is generally best to cook the white for any cat if they are eating eggs frequently. I don't know if you are worried about any of that though - so just ignore that paragraph if you want.

Do you give Dusty any B12? I learned about giving that after Milo passed away, however, many people with CRF cats said that it does help a lot. It also greatly helped with Rajah, though he didn't have CRF. http://www.ibdkitties.net/B12.html is an article about the importance of B12, and http://www.ibdkitties.net/Supplements.html has a list of some good brands of B12, as not all brands are created equally.

http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm#canned_usa is a food chart with phosphorus amounts. I tried to keep under 1.00 phosphorus for Milo, though with how picky he was, sometimes I would use ones over that, and just add a phosphorus binder. http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm#baby_foods is a list of different baby foods that are low in phosphorus. Baby food is high in calories, and cats typically love it - two important things for CRF cats!

Milo was always the most hungry right after I gave him sub-q fluids. I don't know why, but feeding him after that typically worked the best. That may be something worth trying for Dusty, if you haven't yet.

He also loved the "Holistic Select Transition Solution" - I would sprinkle a small amount on each of his meals. It also seemed to make him a bit less nauseous. On days that he was nauseous, I also gave him some Slippery Elm Bark, http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/slippery-elm/ has information about that.

Your Cat: Simple Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life by Elizabeth Hodgkins, DVM has a chapter about CRF cats. If you haven't read that, it is very helpful, or at least was to me!

I'm sorry if a lot of this is stuff you already know, but even if it is, maybe it will be helpful to someone else.

One of the first lessons I learned, at least with these two, is switch wet flavors as frequently as possible.

These guys typically don't get more than two meals of the same flavor, and it seems to keep them very excited about meal time to see whats on the menu next.

So IMO, buy at least three different flavors, and each can should be a different flavor than the one before but you can keep recycling flavors over and over.

I would not feed raw eggs though, as health experts indicate that with modern ultra high-capacity coops, its important to thoroughly cook the eggs. The "cage free" eggs are also a bit misleading, since legally they can keep them cooped up very cramped, and just open the coop for an hour a day and the chickens may not even move. I'd maybe risk it with "free range" eggs though.

Eggshells do a very good job of keeping the inside of the egg free from bacteria. Any contamination is usually from the outside of the eggs. So with careful handling, there's very little risk to consuming raw or runny eggs (athough I think it's icky! ). Otherwise, with millions of people ordering "over easy" eggs in diners every day, you'd be hearing a lot more about food poisoning caused by eggs! Washing the eggshell first, and being very careful not to let the shell touch anything or get into the cracked egg, would help keep contamination to a minimum.

That is true, it can come from just the surface of the egg (its USDA practice to wash them all regardless), but the FDA warns specifically that isn't the only risk. Eggs are porous, and they can become contaminated through these pores after they are laid and contamination may be due to bacteria within the hen's reproductive tract before the shell even forms around the yolk. A hen can appear outwardly healthy while infected w/ salmonella for example, hence the concern to at least go with free-range chickens since they generally have superior health/immune system due to the improved conditions if you're set on risking it. More details are available on the FDA site, which explains why washing eggs doesn't really accomplish anything.

Originally Posted by Dusty's Mom

My cats seem to want a change in cat food brand (wet) about every other week, and especially my CRF kitty Dusty. They will eat 9 Lives and act like it is delicious, then the next can they sniff and walk away. I've gone through Friskies, 9 Lives and now they are crazy about Paws, and so far seem to like every flavor. I'll see how long this lasts.

Also Dusty really can't afford to be picky about her food. She is so skinny that I can feel every bone. I've started giving her half & half with a beaten raw egg, which she absolutely loves. She doesn't seem to be allergic or anything, so is it OK to keep feeding her that?

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I feed my cats a half an egg every week, so I see no harm in what you're doing, as long as it's not her primary food intake (which would be seriously unbalanced ).

That said, have you tried buying all their favorite foods at one time and then rotating through them, one after another? This will keep them from becoming fixated on any one product (a problem if they change or stop producing it) or becoming bored, as well as protect them from potential quality control issues by diluting the impact. Before I switched to raw, I was feeding my cats 21 different varieties; they didn't get any flavor more than once a week!

Good luck, and I hope this helps! It's rough to see our already sick cats going off their foods. Vibes for Dusty...

AC

Thanks everyone! Good ideas.

Thats what I have been doing with our cats. I just bough about 3-4 different brands with several different flavors, plus thinking of adding some dry in. It seems to be working. Just finding the flavors she likes can a bit hard, but I'm getting to know which ones she like...