Pumpkin alternatives?

Poppy is taking pumpkin for chronic constipation. Lately, however, she's gotten picky about her food and seems to prefer food without pumpkin. What can I give in place of it? Preferably something without strong flavor.  Does psyllium husk work? The felineconstipation.org website mentions guar gum, which I can get at a local wholesome foods market.

Did you try miralax? It's a powder and cats get an extremely small amount, you should be able to mix it in food without them knowing its there. The clinic I work at recommends this for chronic constipation and it almost always does the trick.

Miralax doesn't have any flavor, and the consistency is the same as water.  However, if you want to go with something completely natural, I've heard that you can actually use any type of squash.  don't know which would be best, flavor wise.  Guess you would just need to experiment.  But cook it up and mash it and see what happens.  I was thinking about trying that, since none of mine like pumpkin, and I was advised to add soluble fiber to Callie's diet for kidney function purposes.

What kind of pumpkin are you using? Perhaps you just need to change brands. I use Farmer's Market organic brand pumpkin. It is far superior to the main steam brands and does not use BPA lined cans. Jennie definitely prefers the Farmer's Market brand.

http://www.farmersmarketfoods.com/

Poppy currently gets Miralax AND pumpkin. She gets the Libby's, don't know if I can readily find any other brand at this time of year. Although I did buy some Trader Joe's organic last year.

I've also had some other thoughts about pumpkin overnight. I just found out that Poppy has arthritis due to a trauma injury. The vet speculated that the arthritis could be causing constipation because the arthritis is in her spine, near the tail. If it's causing pain when she poops, she could be reluctant to poop. I seem to remember NOT bulking up on fiber was a good method for injury based constipation, as sometimes the hip passage is narrower. Would this also hold true for arthritis based constipation?

Well, pumpkin isn't a bulking fiber, so won't cause the stools to get too large, but in general your theory is valid.

What might help Poppy is a glucosamine supplement such as cosequin for cats and dose of krill oil, every day or every other day. Krill is an excellent anti-inflammatory.

otto said:

Well, pumpkin isn't a bulking fiber, so won't cause the stools to get too large, but in general your theory is valid.

What might help Poppy is a glucosamine supplement such as cosequin for cats and dose of krill oil, every day or every other day. Krill is an excellent anti-inflammatory.

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Thank you, otto. I already started Poppy on Cosequin and krill oil yesterday.

The vet prescribed Metacam, which I gave one dose of and then found out all the dangers of! I was terrified at work yesterday that something had happened to my little Poppy. When I came home she was a little fussy about her food (wanted really smelly Friskies, which I gave her when she had a GI a couple weeks ago), which I didn't feel good about, but she ate no problem this morning--with food that didn't have pumpkin in it.

Another question about pumpkin -- the felineconstipation.org site says that it is a "high bacteria" fiber. So does that mean the good bacteria, or bad bacteria? Since Poppy had a GI infection, I'm wondering if the pumpkin could've caused anything.

I think chicken feet are supposed to be a really good source of glucosamine.  Think you can buy them ground up too, maybe from Hare Today.  Not sure, but I know I have seen them ground somewhere.  I believe LDG gives them to Flowerbelle for her arthritis, that's how I learned about them. 

Also, I'm pretty sure the fiber in pumpkin has the GOOD kind of bacteria.  All I know for sure is that it's a soluble fiber, so it doesn't bulk up the stool.  Same with squash.