anyone know why too much liver is bad for a cat?

my 18 1/2 yr old girl loves the FF tender liver and chicken, and also all the other flavors of cat food that she will eat has liver in it

she had black tarry stools which her vet and i thought might be from an upper GI bleed (she has CRF and IBD)

but she is not at all anemic, in fact, her blood count improved! she has gained weight and is really doing quite well.

it finally occured to me to mention that she has been eating a lot of liver lately, and her vet said that could cause the black stools, its from digested blood, which does not have to be her own!! wish i had thought of this before taking her in for more tests....LOL

anyway, he did not say i had to change her diet, but i do recall reading somewhere that cats should not eat organ meats too often

does anyone know why that is?

it seems to be keeping her pretty darn healthy.

thanks

Because the organ meats is where the bacteria is stored.

I knew I had a good reason not to like liver.

I know too much organ meat for humans can cause Gout.....Though I am not sure if animals can get the gout....But i thought i would bring it up....

Isn't there a lot of iron in liver? Would that be a problem?

Also, the livers of certain animals often contain amounts of vitamin A that would be toxic to cats and even humans.

Originally Posted by stormy

Isn't there a lot of iron in liver? Would that be a problem?

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Oh yeah iron OD in children can be fatal...I am sure this is the same in kittens too

Iron toxicity typically occurs from overdoses of supplements, not injestion of liver. Iron toxicity, on the other hand, can cause sever liver damage.

Originally Posted by dawnofsierra

Also, the livers of certain animals often contain amounts of vitamin A that would be toxic to cats and even humans.

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The main reasons why you should be careful with liver are:

1.) The extremely high concentration of vitamin A. To much is toxic. I raw feed my cats and their diet never contain more than 10% of liver.

2.) Toxins are stored in the liver so if feeding liver only feed liver from very young animals, prefferably organically raised animals.

Pat gave a page a while ago that gave 100grams as the max of liver for a cat per week... that is about 6 ounces... I know the raw mix is only 10% organs and not all is liver....

Anybody know???What's the maximum amount of liver per day?

Slimcat said:

Anybody know???What's the maximum amount of liver per day?

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This is a very old thread @Slimcat  I don't think you'll get many responses here. You could try starting a new thread in our raw feeding forum. Someone there might be able to help you.

http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-home-cooked-cat-food

Nice to have you on The Cat Site.

Slimcat said:

Anybody know???What's the maximum amount of liver per day?

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Quick answer while you check out the Raw forum:  Are you feeding a raw diet? Some raw feeders do include liver in their cat's diet but it may not be daily. If you're feeding only commerical dry and/or canned food, then limit the liver to the occasional treat because the commercial food already has enough vitamin A in it. Too much liver can cause vitamn A toxicity. According to this, the toxicity level is "340,900 IU/lb of food con-
sumed on a dry matter basis"  given daily for several months.