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I'm sure this has been discussed a billion times and I'm really sorry for bringing it up again. However, I did a search and couldn't seem to find the right threads so....
I have two siamese cats and I'm seriously considering switching to a raw diet. I have one cat that has chronic diarrhea. The vet thinks it's IBD. Steroids held temporarily and switching her to the royal canin rabbit diet helped until she refused to eat it and got really thin.
Right now she's on a mix of royal canin venison soft food which she eats only because she's hungry and then I feed her royal canin dry sensitive stomach 33 (which is what my other cat gets) because she likes it but it also means she still has diarrhea. And she has a voracious appetite from the IBD and is a little over weight.
The other cat is a picky eater and tends to throw up once in a while. She's under weight and I have a hard time getting her to eat. One time she stopped eating all together (I'm guessing hairballs even though she's a short-coated cat) and I had to rush her to the ER where they did all sorts of tests that didn't answer the problem and charged me $2,000. Yay.
I feed the picky eater more dry food because it's less volume/nutrients. If I feed her the wet food she fills up too quickly and won't finish it and then doesn't get as much nutrients because she refuses to finish it. But she can eat more of the dry food.
She's also on lysine because she has a chronically runny eye.
These cats have been the sickest cats on the planet! The first day I got them Misaki (the picky eater) was lame. She's still lame on her left front and three doctors have looked at her with xrays and can't help me. Some pain medication was tried and didn't help. It's been over a year and she's not getting better.
The first week I had them, Misaki developed a UTI. Fixed the UTI and then she got Giardia (I feed them only spring water--I know where it comes from and I drink it myself and their breeders only fed bottled water, too).
I have been doing a lot of reading about raw diets and if it's really, truly the cure-all that it sounds like I'm willing to take the risk and try it. I've tried all the vet-recommended stuff and it hasn't helped so now it's time for drastic measures. I'm tired of having sick kitties and I can't afford vet bills anymore!
I'm guessing that my cats will be fairly easy to switch over. For some reason they seem to like novel things, especially Misaki. Also I think that a lot of the raw diets recommend variation in they types of meat etc. which will be good for Misaki since she seems to love something for a while and then get totally sick of it. She's a princess. Well she is a retired grand champion so I guess she has the right to be a total Queen about stuff.
So should I add grain and veggies or not because I am finding conflicting info about this? I had the cats on Evo no grain soft food for a short time and that's exactly when Nezumi (the one with IBD) developed the diarrhea so I'm nervous to try to feed something with veggies. Then again other sources say that have some amount of carbs in the diet is really essential. I am a biochemistry grad student. I know in humans, carbs are absolutely essential to how our body processes energy because we need glucose. Cats need it as well but I'm not sure how similar their cellular metabolism is to ours since we are omnivores and they are not.
Also, where should I buy the meat? I want to make sure it's as safe as possible. I don't want to just buy it from the supermarker. Where can I buy meat that is high quality and safe to feed raw?
I'd rather not buy food already ground up because of increased surface area however, I don't know if I can afford a grinder at this time. So can I feed things whole? Except I assume one would then have a problem with the calcium/phos ratio so then can I sprinkle on a supplement or something?
Also what can I use to sterilize my equipment?
And finally, can you point me in the direction of some good websites and books. I have seen a few websites and I can do a search but I want to make sure I get information from good websites/books, not bad ones.
Thanks SO much!
I have two siamese cats and I'm seriously considering switching to a raw diet. I have one cat that has chronic diarrhea. The vet thinks it's IBD. Steroids held temporarily and switching her to the royal canin rabbit diet helped until she refused to eat it and got really thin.
Right now she's on a mix of royal canin venison soft food which she eats only because she's hungry and then I feed her royal canin dry sensitive stomach 33 (which is what my other cat gets) because she likes it but it also means she still has diarrhea. And she has a voracious appetite from the IBD and is a little over weight.
The other cat is a picky eater and tends to throw up once in a while. She's under weight and I have a hard time getting her to eat. One time she stopped eating all together (I'm guessing hairballs even though she's a short-coated cat) and I had to rush her to the ER where they did all sorts of tests that didn't answer the problem and charged me $2,000. Yay.
I feed the picky eater more dry food because it's less volume/nutrients. If I feed her the wet food she fills up too quickly and won't finish it and then doesn't get as much nutrients because she refuses to finish it. But she can eat more of the dry food.
She's also on lysine because she has a chronically runny eye.
These cats have been the sickest cats on the planet! The first day I got them Misaki (the picky eater) was lame. She's still lame on her left front and three doctors have looked at her with xrays and can't help me. Some pain medication was tried and didn't help. It's been over a year and she's not getting better.
The first week I had them, Misaki developed a UTI. Fixed the UTI and then she got Giardia (I feed them only spring water--I know where it comes from and I drink it myself and their breeders only fed bottled water, too).
I have been doing a lot of reading about raw diets and if it's really, truly the cure-all that it sounds like I'm willing to take the risk and try it. I've tried all the vet-recommended stuff and it hasn't helped so now it's time for drastic measures. I'm tired of having sick kitties and I can't afford vet bills anymore!
I'm guessing that my cats will be fairly easy to switch over. For some reason they seem to like novel things, especially Misaki. Also I think that a lot of the raw diets recommend variation in they types of meat etc. which will be good for Misaki since she seems to love something for a while and then get totally sick of it. She's a princess. Well she is a retired grand champion so I guess she has the right to be a total Queen about stuff.
So should I add grain and veggies or not because I am finding conflicting info about this? I had the cats on Evo no grain soft food for a short time and that's exactly when Nezumi (the one with IBD) developed the diarrhea so I'm nervous to try to feed something with veggies. Then again other sources say that have some amount of carbs in the diet is really essential. I am a biochemistry grad student. I know in humans, carbs are absolutely essential to how our body processes energy because we need glucose. Cats need it as well but I'm not sure how similar their cellular metabolism is to ours since we are omnivores and they are not.
Also, where should I buy the meat? I want to make sure it's as safe as possible. I don't want to just buy it from the supermarker. Where can I buy meat that is high quality and safe to feed raw?
I'd rather not buy food already ground up because of increased surface area however, I don't know if I can afford a grinder at this time. So can I feed things whole? Except I assume one would then have a problem with the calcium/phos ratio so then can I sprinkle on a supplement or something?
Also what can I use to sterilize my equipment?
And finally, can you point me in the direction of some good websites and books. I have seen a few websites and I can do a search but I want to make sure I get information from good websites/books, not bad ones.
Thanks SO much!