Hello! I Just joined The Cat Site!

Hi!  I'm a newbie.

Looking on line today for the best dry, wet & meat cat food, more specifically, the ingredients in Taste of the Wild dry food and stumbled upon this site.  Read some forums on cat food and Had to Join!  Looking for proper nutrition for problem cats and hoping to find feed back in here.

Just like most of you who've posted, I can't live without cats!  Presently we have 2 Bengals (had 3 but lost my favorite one to liver disease 1st day of spring 2013 - still grieving).  2 other cats have magically appeared, a Real, True Maine Coon (he forgot to bring his pedigree papers when he got dumped here), he was about 6 months old, no knots in his hair, not collar or chip but 3 ticks on his neck and a real Russian Blue, spayed. 

Issue # 1) About 6 months prior to the Maine Coon, someone dumped a beautiful Russian Blue.  She has problems, expensive problems!.  So far she has allergies which cause chronic ear infections, paid $300 for surgery which resulted in a deformed ear!   This time the vet diagnosed her with Trench Mouth, the bacteria type.  If this turns out to be chronic we will have to pull her teeth!  Vet said she's about 7 years old.  Another pedigree who arrived w/o her papers and almost starved to death.  We live way out in the country so God only knows what horrors she's seen.  She's also the real deal pedigree Russian Blue, down to the crimp at the tip of her tail. 

She doesn't socialize well at all so she lives in our shop. (just read a post in here about feral and strays and read one is on Prozac, thinking that might be a good idea for her even though I'm not a believer or might try the herbs like Valeria, Chamomile if it's feline friendly or Rescue Remedy flower essence.  Any Ideas would be very helpful!).  All the others live in the house except when they're in their Catio, Supervised.

Mostly, I'm looking for ways to feed and care for the Russian Blue so she will stop getting expensive bacterial infections.  I know it could be symptoms of a more serious problem but she's a stray and not meaning to sound harsh, I'm not willing to go into serious credit card debt to save her live like I will for my Bengals (and look where that got me, he died anyway). 

Issue # 2) The Maine Coon will only eat dry food which I already know can't be good and as time passes will probably lead to serious health problems that I do not want to deal with but he jumps in the refrigerator looking for something... a lot.  We've tried everything but so far we haven't found what he's looking for.  We've even tried packaged baby kitty milk, actual baby food, all the raw and cooked meat and fish including duck and lamb.  We feed all the cats semi raw meat, popcorn shrimp which they love but has no nutritional value, various packaged wet food (high end) and dry food (grain free).  Mostly Taste of the Wild dry, which my vet (Holistic Vet) still believes is bad for cats.  He's hell bent on raw meat diets.  It's like flushing money down the toilet at my house, most of the time they want is half cooked.

If anyone reads this and has had a similar experience to either of these cats (both "volunteer" pets aka strays or dumped in the country), please share your remedies.

I will be eternally grateful!

Welcome to TCS!

Ok, a lot of ground to cover! I've never heard the expression "trench mouth." Is this stomatitis? :dk: If so, removing all of the teeth may or may not stop the problem. Here are some threads where you can read up on people's experiences in managing oral inflammation / disease: some had good experiences with full tooth removal, others opted not to go that route. Some had it done, and it didn't resolve the problem. If you're in the U.S., there is much discussion of a proprietary treatment from a clinic based out of Texas that will work with your local feline dentist for treatment.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/250867/...steroid-shots-lucy-got-one-for-her-stomatitis
http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245009/stomatitis-recurrence-after-complete-extraction
http://www.thecatsite.com/t/255058/stomatitis
http://www.thecatsite.com/t/258947/stomatitis-syrup-from-dallas-texas
http://www.thecatsite.com/t/260047/stomatitis

...a lot to read and think about.

What kind of bacterial infections? In her mouth? :dk:

The bottom line is that the best quality diet you can feed, with some supporting supplements will go a long way to improving immune system function, and help her fight these things. For instance, Bovine Lactoferrin (250mg daily for an adult cat) has been shown in studies to help prevent stomatitis, and this is an easy supplement to administer and doesn't cost an arm-and-a-leg. I use this for my cats (not for stomatitis). I buy Jarrow brand, 250mg, and sprinkle half a capsule on food in the morning and 1/2 a capsule on the last meal of the day. ...But we need to have a better idea of what you're talking about. If it's the stomatitis to which you're referring, that's a whole other animal - and the threads above can provide some indication of just how difficult it can be to nail down a solution. For Carolina, switching to a raw diet for her Bugsy meant he could stop the meds. I believe txcatmom tried that for her Lucy, and it didn't help as much: the problem and triggers can be very individual.

Question: is the reason for including dry food in the diet because of cost? Or is it that you're looking for the best food to feed your Maine Coon and he'll only eat dry? If that's the case, almost any cat can be converted to an all wet food diet if you have the willpower and patience: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264675/transitioning-free-fed-kibble-kitties-to-timed-meals-and-new-food It's not so much about finding a food they like as it is getting them used to the idea that the food you want them to eat IS food. It's like a child that's been eating only donuts for lunch. Mom decides the kid should be eating salad. Well, it's going to take a while, and a LOT of salad dressing, bacon bits, cheese and croutons to get that child to eat the salad. Over time, the amount of toppings can be reduced, and eventually the child will crave the salad.

In the end, a diet of only wet food is what is healthiest for cats. But dry can bring down the cost. IMO, there is no such thing as a "best" dry food, because I don't think dry food should be fed to cats if it's possible to avoid it. But IF feeding dry foods, then the high protein, low carb foods aren't going to help lower your cost of feeding much, so it gets kind of circular... :dk: That is a short list of dry foods: Wysong Epigen 90, Nature's Variety, and Merrick Before Grain.

If you're not familiar with this site, it's written by a vet, and explains the best diet choices for them: http://www.catinfo.org There's a section with a pretty thorough discussion of commercial foods and ingredients, and Dr. Pierson took the time to contact all of the pet food companies to attempt to obtain the typical nutritional content (versus the way it's reported on the label - the "guaranteed anaylsis."). She crunched the numbers on the foods, and compiled a very handy reference list, to help people identify (on a dry matter basis), foods that are high protein, low carbohydrate.

For the "best" canned food options, the foods discussed in this thread are probably the most species-appropriate: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/262990/carrageenan-free-canned-foods

I'm sure others will be along with more info and ideas.


P.S., there are soooooo many people here that would LOVE your vet! He knows feline nutrition!

When I first fed raw, I followed Dr. Pierson's notion of lightly baking the outside of the chicken thighs but not enough to cook the bones. Then I shocked the thighs in ice water to stop the cooking process and ground them. Later on I quit baking them and my cats seemed to like the food even more.

Another idea is to fully cook the meat, but use a different calcium source than bones. You can also try premixes that you add to raw or cooked meat.

All of these options are talked about in the raw and home-cooked forum's resources stickies if you want to check it out. My grinder and deep freezer paid for themselves in about 8 months compared to the price of cheap canned. I buy meat on sale and freeze until I need to make their food.

Wow!  Thank you both so much for your responses.  Actually, I am all too familiar with species appropriate diets, especially horses and cats which I can't live without.

It's the two "volunteers" (aka dumped off, lost, stray or pick a name, they're both human trained & both pedigrees and both magically appeared).  MY own cats are Bengals, those are the ones I claim and intentionally made family members.

The Russian Blue showed up starving.  Shes sassy, spitty and she believes she's a Princess!  She's had 2 ear infections the vet called allergies which required a rather expensive surgery and now she has "Trench Mouth", the old school name for stomatitis.  Thanks so much for the links to feline stomatitis!

I have an excellent small animal vet in northern California, Pet Care Naturally, Dr. Wiener, a holistic method vet.  I'm told people bring their pets to him from all over west of the Mississippi as a last resort and he's got a very good reputation for extending their lives.  http://pcnvet.com/wellness-learning-center.html  He's the best!  However for the Russian Blue, we took her to the nearest vet to save money.  Well, that wasn't such a good idea was it.  Had we taken her to Dr. Wiener in the first place we'd have this thing healed.

Thanks to Dr. Wiener, my former cat, diagnosed with some sort of autoimmune disorder, also in her mouth, lived to 18 years old and I still feel robbed!  I used the bovine mother's milk stuff  in her food and with Dr. Wiener's guidance she lived 4 years longer than she would have without his techniques, so thanks for the reminder about the bovine lactate stuff.  He also had me add vitamin E oil (I think) and something else, maybe alfalfa tabs, crushed and mixed into the raw meat but I really can't remember exactly what we used, she died in 2005.  I do remember the bovine lactate stuff  Comes in a capsule, open it, sprinkle on the food.  He sells locally grown, free range and grass fed raw meat, ground and packaged locally and sells them in 1 & 2 lb tubes.  He also sells the packaged frozen stuff with the greens which my cats LOVE and he Highly Recommends all cats and dogs stay on raw food (and sometimes scolds you when you don't or give up).  We live rurally, lots of hunters so we get wild duck, wild turkey and deer which we grind ourselves.  We've created methods and become creative regarding feeding raw food.  The Russian Blue loves it most of the time.  We had to get creative because if they don't eat it, what good is it!  We slightly cook it until we see blood melting, only then will the Bengals gobble it up.

The Maine Coon suddenly appeared one day.  He's the real deal too.  He keeps jumping in the fridge looking for something we haven't found yet.  So, thank you for the heads up on starting him on watered down dry food.

I must say after reading both the responses, I realize I already know these answers and more!  I suppose when the stress reaches a certain level I get dumb!  I even recall another great dry cat and horse food trick.  Spray bottle set on fine mist, lay the dry food out on a cookie sheet, mist the dry food and sprinkle it with organic garlic powder, leave it out to dry.  Just a small bit at first then gradually increase the garlic.  Too bad the Russian Blue has the owie teeth, might try it on the raw and wet food though.  Garlic= kills bacteria, virus & fungus, enhances immune system (allicin is the magic ingredient in garlic, it's a panacea).

Thanks again!

Kitty Magnet!

Garlic is toxic to cats. Not sure at which dosage it's toxic, but I would not feed any amount of garlic powder to a cat.

I agree, no garlic. I also question some of the claims about its curative properties in that I have an autoimmune disorder and I can eat garlic without consequences. In any case, back to cats, garlic and onion can cause a type of anemia in cats although I don't know what the dosage is to cause it.

This site says that onions are toxic to cats at a dose of 5g/kg, and that garlic is 5 times more potent than onions. So 1g/kg? Not sure how much a typical clove of garlic weighs, or how concentrated garlic powder is.

http://www.petinsurance.com/healthzone/pet-articles/pet-health-toxins/Garlic-Toxicity-and-Pets.aspx