piglet (ckf/ckd kitty) losing weight & appetite?

i have stopped feeding kibble to all my cats and had been making homemade chicken for them (from the cooked recipes thread on raw/homecooked forum).  piglet ate it for the most part, but then wouldn't.  she'd lick at it for a couple of minutes and then walk away, even after i'd smush it up with warm water, which used to work.  with a LOT of coaxing and encouragement, she'd eat about 1/2 an ounce.  i hadn't given away the kibble yet so, in desperation the other night, i gave her a 1/3 cup of kibble and she wolfed it down.

i went to the pet shop during my lunch break the next day and picked up a couple of cans of nutro natural soft loafs - they're very 'lap able' which is piglet's MO recently - maybe it's because she has no canines now, but she doesn't seem to like picking up food to eat, just licking at it.  i gave her 1oz of it and she ate it all immediately, no breaks.  so the next meal i gave her half can, 1.5oz - piglet ate it all.  so for now it looks like my homemade diet is a bust with her and canned is the way to go.

i have an appointment next week for acupuncture and blood draw.  i'm wondering if i should move it up... as long as she's still eating, using her litter box, and acting mostly normal, she's probably okay, right?  my last ckf/ckd cat died of non-kidney related old age, so i haven't seen what happens when ckf/ckd starts progressing.  piglet's last blood draw was done while she was eating fairly low phos commercial canned/a bit of kibble and had been on IV fluids for 20 hours; the numbers still put her solidly in IRIS stage 3 kidney failure, so i'm kind of assuming she's late stage 3/early stage 4.  does anyone have some experience/advice on what to look for in later stage ckf/ckd?  i'm familiar with tanya's ckd pages, so i've read all of that already - looking for other personal experiences.  thanks in advance

Hope you have good access to Nutro Natural Soft Loafs - my local Pet Smart (in Canada) hasn't had much for weeks, but then all the staff look 16 and don't seem to know what they are doing or how to order. I've been told twice that a shipment would be in and it hasn't. The second time, they said it wasn't even on order so it would be at least 2 weeks before they had any.

Good luck with your little one.

one of my local petsmarts had all varieties sort of in stock; some only had four or five cans left.  my local independent place only has the chunky loaf chicken and turkey, but piglet's eating that as we speak... we'll see how long that lasts.  the nice thing about the local place is that they only charge 99¢ a can; petsmart was at like $1.19 a can.

Sorry to hear the home-cooking did not work out for piglet. I lost several cats to CKD and it's heartbreaking. I wish Tanya's page existed then, or that I even knew more. Looking back, though, maybe the only thing I would have done differently is to feed them more-appropriate foods. One cat developed urinary crystals and all cats ended up eating dry C/D for years because the vet said it wouldn't hurt them. Never again.

I think as long as piglet is eating, drinking, and acting normal, you might want to wait for your scheduled appointment. Of course, if any of this changes, then don't wait. You know what happens as the kidneys slowly stop functioning, and that can make the cat feel poorly. But as long as piglet's eating, then she probably doesn't feel too bad. Are you giving her fluids? We found that fluids and hydration really helped our CKD kitties feel better and stimulated the appetite. But as the disease progressed, so did the frequency of fluids. When it got to the point where the cat would fight forced/syringe feeding, had lost a lot of weight, and didn't seem to respond to fluids, we knew it was time. A couple of cats even seemed delirious and out-of-it towards the end, which the vet said was due to toxin build-up.

Good luck with piglet.

thanks abbyntim.  we haven't started giving fluids because i can't get a vet to take that idea seriously.  it's been incredibly frustrating and i've just about given up on vets.  next week, the vet tech that assists piglet's acupuncturist (catupuncture lol) said she'll draw blood, even said she'd draw urine if we wanted.  that way i can see where piglet's levels are and decide what to do next.  since i've had such horrible experiences with local vets recently, i'm considering working with an internist at the veterinary hospital where we get catupuncture even though it will be way more expensive.  ugh.

Really? Gosh, that seems so important. For each of my kitties, we had a bag of fluids and needles, because everyone agreed it would be too much stress (and expense) to bring the cat in for regular fluids. Vet techs trained us for the first kitty then, sadly, we became experts. I do hope you can find one that will agree to this, because I think it made a big difference in each cat's quality of life.

One other thing that can happen with CKD is potassium deficiency, which can cause the cat to hang its head and look miserable. Be sure to check the blood for that; supplements are available, if needed. This was a problem with a couple of our cats and they took to the supplement.

well piglet's been eating her nutro regularly, about 4.5oz a day; 150ish cal.  i'd like to get more into her, but i don't know that she'll eat it.  she's still active and i caught her pooping this morning.  piglet's really the only one pooping regularly - the other two are still on home cooked and don't seem to go that often.  i haven't seen her drinking water, but i add a bit of water in with her food to get more fluid into her.  piglet was playful last night and fought like heck this morning when i tried to trim her nails.  so that's normal