Pls help round out this diet for Max

Hi, 

My 13 yr old was diagnosed with kidney failure in July, discovered after about of constipation, apparently caused by excess fluid loss. He can no longer eat dry foods and due to imbalances has become finicky about food. That coupled with an eating challenge has led to weight loss. He has only his bottom two fangs for these last three years of eating dry food and has become a licker while eating, so if the food doesn't lick up easily and taste wonderful he won't/can't eat. I have gone through many different canned foods, frozen raw food and others. He likes stuff for two or three meals and then won't touch it again, so I can't go on buying cans of expensive food as experiments. 

I even bought a bullet-like blender to puree canned food and it's a crap shoot what he will eat even in that consistency. 

The best we have now is he is happy to eat shredded chicken thigh meat cooked in broth for flavor. It's light weight so it's easy to eat, and tasty. I give him a little naturally cured ham now and then for salt. 

I need schemes for rounding out this diet. I can't use dry foods at all or he gets blocked up and won't eat for days until it passes. He likes mashed potatoes. What can I put in that to give him better nutrition? My vet's advice was simply euthanasia! Gee, thanks. So don't ask me to consult that bozo. He likes tender greens, but that has little nutritional value. Sometimes I give him melted ice cream for extra calories. 

I bought some sort  of "golden greens" granules with seaweed and stuff to add to food but he doesn't like it on his chicken. 

He very much wants to eat, but is so challenged with his eating habits and finickiness. 

Looking forward to your ideas. Thanks. 

Eric 

It's good you found a food he will eat. I think that's half the battle sometimes with kidney kitties. To make it nutritionally complete, you will need to add organs and a calcium source. Given his kidney issues, eggshell calcium is probably a good choice. I can't link right now, but the stickied threads at the top of the Raw & Home-Coojed Cat Food has the info you are looking for. I don't know if pre-mixes will work for you since the phosphorus content might be too high. If you search "using eggshell calcium" you will find the thread I am referrng to.

Have you tried any other cooked meats? What about egg whites? Egg whites are a good source of low phosphorus protein for kidney cats.

You guy sounds exactly like my girl.  (kidneys and all).  I also have the magic bullet, and I put her various canned food in there and add a bunch of water to it so she can then lap it up.  Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't.  It's very frustrating, because I believe she is hungry, but for whatever reason, sometimes she just want eat   I have hundreds of cans of food on my counter, and I am mainly a RAW feeder (that's all the other cats eat anyway).  Oh well.  '

So, as VBall said, you need to add in at the very minimum some liver, and some calcium.  And additional supplements would be good.  Since you are booking the chicken thighs, if you don't add in additional supplements, I think you at least need to add in Taurine.  You could try something call Call of the Wild (made by Wysong), which is an additive that you can add to just plain meat (cooked or raw) which makes it nutritionally complete.  It takes the place of liver, calcium AND supplements.  And the bonus is, most cats like it!  Two of mine do, one doesn't.  You can get free samples of it by calling Wysong.   There is another product, Alnutrin with eggshell powder, that provides the calcium and supplements, but not the liver.  This is what I use when making home cooked food for my cats, although I don't cook it very often (mainly just as a trial).  Here is there website, and the Alnutrin with eggshell powder is not shown unless you look under E-Shop as it is a new product.  I definitely recommend this for a kidney cat, and so does my Vet if you are not feeding canned food:  http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/index.html

Now, if you are going to add liver to what you are cooking, just add in between 5 - 10% of the total weight of the thighs in chicken liver and toss it in to cook maybe during the last 15 minutes of cooking time or so.  (kind of depends on how you are cooking the thighs )

On the raw foods you have tried, did you add lots of water to make then a good consistency for him?  I got out some Primal Beef/Salmon this morning and added quite a bit of water to it to where it was quite soupy, and my girl lapped up .65 oz in a heartbeat.  I was very happy about that

foryour guy