Canned food experiment

I read all the posts about wet food and went to the various web pages
cited a month or two ago. Thought about it and decided it made some
sense so I would try my guys on a wet food only diet to see what
happened to water consumption and general health.

I have been feeding wet food since the middle of November. My guys
normally go through a gallon of water a week for three of them. Since I
started them on wet food only, they've gone through less than half a
gallon total. That was a real eye opener for me.

I've been very careful to read the labels and get only the stuff that
has meat in the first three ingredients and not meat by products up
there real high or at all. I've tried to stay away from a lot of fish.
And because of the kinds of food they will eat, it has to be ground up,
no pieces to chomp on or they will just lick the gravy and not eat.
Buying food for them has become as time consuming as buying for me!

Tony, my 13.5 year old cat has become more active and playful and
doesn't sleep as much. My two younger cats also play more - especially
chasing each other around the apartment. One of my cats has a spot that
he licks to excess, that is healing up. I have to admit that I was
dubious, but I'm becoming a believer. It is more expensive and I don't
have a great budget for this in the first place, but they do seem to be
happier and healthier.

My next step is to try a homemade diet that I know has very high quality
ingredients in it. I think it almost has to be cheaper than canned cat
food pound per pound. I will report back which diet I chose and how it
worked out and where I got the things like the taurine to add in to make
it complete so I know I'm not hurting them while I try this experiment.

Bridget

"Bridget" wrote

My next step is to try a homemade diet that I know has very high quality
ingredients in it. I think it almost has to be cheaper than canned cat
food pound per pound. I will report back which diet I chose and how it
worked out and where I got the things like the taurine to add in to make
it complete so I know I'm not hurting them while I try this experiment.

If you use organ meat you don't have to add taurine.

Bridget wrote:
My next step is to try a homemade diet that I know has very high quality
ingredients in it. I think it almost has to be cheaper than canned cat
food pound per pound. I will report back which diet I chose and how it
worked out and where I got the things like the taurine to add in to make
it complete so I know I'm not hurting them while I try this experiment.


I've been comparing the cost of Miranda's fresh diet with the cost of a
wet food diet for a couple of years now, and fresh meat runs to
approximately the same cost as prime wet food. Sometimes it can even be
cheaper. I give Mir a supplement with vitamins and e.g. taurine every
day, and she is doing fine. I wish this supplement pill was available
over there, but it's a Finnish product, and I just checked the
manufacturer's web pages. They don't export this product. I'm wondering
why. They do export other animal-health products.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 08:29:07 -0500, Bridget wrote:

I read all the posts about wet food and went to the various web pages
cited a month or two ago. Thought about it and decided it made some
sense so I would try my guys on a wet food only diet to see what
happened to water consumption and general health.

I have been feeding wet food since the middle of November. My guys
normally go through a gallon of water a week for three of them. Since I
started them on wet food only, they've gone through less than half a
gallon total. That was a real eye opener for me.

I've been very careful to read the labels and get only the stuff that
has meat in the first three ingredients and not meat by products up
there real high or at all. I've tried to stay away from a lot of fish.
And because of the kinds of food they will eat, it has to be ground up,
no pieces to chomp on or they will just lick the gravy and not eat.
Buying food for them has become as time consuming as buying for me!

Tony, my 13.5 year old cat has become more active and playful and
doesn't sleep as much. My two younger cats also play more - especially
chasing each other around the apartment. One of my cats has a spot that
he licks to excess, that is healing up. I have to admit that I was
dubious, but I'm becoming a believer. It is more expensive and I don't
have a great budget for this in the first place, but they do seem to be
happier and healthier.

My next step is to try a homemade diet that I know has very high quality
ingredients in it. I think it almost has to be cheaper than canned cat
food pound per pound. I will report back which diet I chose and how it
worked out and where I got the things like the taurine to add in to make
it complete so I know I'm not hurting them while I try this experiment.

Bridget

May I ask what kind of canned food you are buying now?

I have often thought of feeding Kenzie canned food, but reading
ingredients in the pet stores has been disappointing, to say the least.

TIA

~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Life without cats would be only marginally worth living."
-TC, and the unmercifully, relentlessly, sweet calico kitty, Kenzie.

How you behave towards cats here below determines your status in Heaven.
- Robert Heinlein

Life is very difficult. Once you understand that, life becomes easier.
-

"Bridget" wrote in message
m...
I read all the posts about wet food and went to the various web pages cited
a month or two ago. Thought about it and decided it made some sense so I
would try my guys on a wet food only diet to see what happened to water
consumption and general health.

I have been feeding wet food since the middle of November. My guys
normally go through a gallon of water a week for three of them. Since I
started them on wet food only, they've gone through less than half a
gallon total. That was a real eye opener for me.

I've been very careful to read the labels and get only the stuff that has
meat in the first three ingredients and not meat by products up there real
high or at all. I've tried to stay away from a lot of fish. And because
of the kinds of food they will eat, it has to be ground up, no pieces to
chomp on or they will just lick the gravy and not eat. Buying food for
them has become as time consuming as buying for me!

Tony, my 13.5 year old cat has become more active and playful and doesn't
sleep as much. My two younger cats also play more - especially chasing
each other around the apartment. One of my cats has a spot that he licks
to excess, that is healing up. I have to admit that I was dubious, but I'm
becoming a believer. It is more expensive and I don't have a great budget
for this in the first place, but they do seem to be happier and healthier.

My next step is to try a homemade diet that I know has very high quality
ingredients in it. I think it almost has to be cheaper than canned cat
food pound per pound. I will report back which diet I chose and how it
worked out and where I got the things like the taurine to add in to make
it complete so I know I'm not hurting them while I try this experiment.



I always feed my two wet food. Boyfie craves a bit of dry (I think he was
probably used to it before he came here) so I let him have a couple of
tablespoonsful. He cries for it if I don't give him just a little every
day.

The idea of dry food is great. It has everything in it that a cat could
possibly need. Just shake out some from the box and your cat is fed.

I'm not convinced that dry food is good for cats, or dogs. They like it,
and eat until they feel full. Then they drink some water, which swells the
food inside their stomach. In dogs that are prone to gastric torsion
(bloodhounds, bull mastiffs etc) feeding a dry diet can be fatal.

I've also learned from the group that a dry food fed exclusively can cause
boycats to have urinary blockages.
I don't want that for my Boyfie.
If you work out a home made diet with taurine, I would be very interested to
hear about it. Especially how to find taurine to add.
I think I could make up a diet for Kitty FC myself if I knew where I could
get the vitamins/minerals she also needs to add to it.
She's not all that keen on the kidney diet from the vet now, even though she
fell upon it when she first got it.
I would feed her only on white meat - easier for the kidneys - chicken,
fish, turkey if I could find a source for taurine and the other vits/mins
she needs. Plus a tiny bit of carbs and vegs of course.

The natural diet for a cat is mousies and birdies and ratties. They are wet
food, there is a lot of moisture there. Not only that but eating the
feathers, bones and skin makes their bowels work perfectly. Kitty FC has
lived as long as she has on this sort of diet.

It's not always possible to let your cats have a wild life, like mine, I
know, but from what I've learnt it's a bad idea to feed them exclusively
dry.
My vet says that feeding dry food for every meal "challenges the kidneys
eventually."

Tweed

On Tue, 2 Jan 2007 20:18:03 -0000, "Christina Websell"
wrote:

If you work out a home made diet with taurine, I would be very interested to
hear about it. Especially how to find taurine to add.
I think I could make up a diet for Kitty FC myself if I knew where I could
get the vitamins/minerals she also needs to add to it.
She's not all that keen on the kidney diet from the vet now, even though she
fell upon it when she first got it.
I would feed her only on white meat - easier for the kidneys - chicken,
fish, turkey if I could find a source for taurine and the other vits/mins
she needs. Plus a tiny bit of carbs and vegs of course.

You can buy kitty vitamins to add to raw food... I just did a quick
google search and taurine/vitamins are available in pill form (said to
be 'delicious' but I wonder if the person who described them that way
has ever actually pilled a cat?), or in a paste called Felivite, or as
a liquid. I think you can get powdered taurine as well... You can even
get taurine in capsules for humans and break the capsules open to use
the powder in smaller doses - taurine is taurine, and from what I saw
you can't overdose a cat with it for the same reason that they have to
eat it every day - it doesn't stay in their bodies!

Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
On Tue, 2 Jan 2007 20:18:03 -0000, "Christina Websell"
wrote:

If you work out a home made diet with taurine, I would be very interested to
hear about it. Especially how to find taurine to add.
I think I could make up a diet for Kitty FC myself if I knew where I could
get the vitamins/minerals she also needs to add to it.
She's not all that keen on the kidney diet from the vet now, even though she
fell upon it when she first got it.
I would feed her only on white meat - easier for the kidneys - chicken,
fish, turkey if I could find a source for taurine and the other vits/mins
she needs. Plus a tiny bit of carbs and vegs of course.

You can buy kitty vitamins to add to raw food... I just did a quick
google search and taurine/vitamins are available in pill form (said to
be 'delicious' but I wonder if the person who described them that way
has ever actually pilled a cat?), or in a paste called Felivite, or as
a liquid. I think you can get powdered taurine as well... You can even
get taurine in capsules for humans and break the capsules open to use
the powder in smaller doses - taurine is taurine, and from what I saw
you can't overdose a cat with it for the same reason that they have to
eat it every day - it doesn't stay in their bodies!

After Cherokee had a stroke, the vet recommended extra taurine in his
diet, along with 1/4 of a baby aspirin every other day. This was years
ago, and taurine really wasn't available anywhere except through the
vet.

Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

You can buy kitty vitamins to add to raw food... I just did a quick
google search and taurine/vitamins are available in pill form (said to
be 'delicious' but I wonder if the person who described them that way
has ever actually pilled a cat?), or in a paste called Felivite, or as
a liquid. I think you can get powdered taurine as well... You can even
get taurine in capsules for humans and break the capsules open to use
the powder in smaller doses - taurine is taurine, and from what I saw
you can't overdose a cat with it for the same reason that they have to
eat it every day - it doesn't stay in their bodies!

I don't know about the pill available over there, but Miranda certainly
loves her vitamin pills. It's the only thing explicitly manufactured for
cats that she will eat and actually likes. The paste sounds like it
could be the same as our Nutri-cal gel, which she also loves (it's for
animals in general, the package slip mentions cats, dogs and pigs).

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

"Karen AKA Kajikit" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 2 Jan 2007 20:18:03 -0000, "Christina Websell"
wrote:

If you work out a home made diet with taurine, I would be very interested
to
hear about it. Especially how to find taurine to add.
I think I could make up a diet for Kitty FC myself if I knew where I could
get the vitamins/minerals she also needs to add to it.
She's not all that keen on the kidney diet from the vet now, even though
she
fell upon it when she first got it.
I would feed her only on white meat - easier for the kidneys - chicken,
fish, turkey if I could find a source for taurine and the other vits/mins
she needs. Plus a tiny bit of carbs and vegs of course.

You can buy kitty vitamins to add to raw food... I just did a quick
google search and taurine/vitamins are available in pill form (said to
be 'delicious' but I wonder if the person who described them that way
has ever actually pilled a cat?), or in a paste called Felivite, or as
a liquid. I think you can get powdered taurine as well... You can even
get taurine in capsules for humans and break the capsules open to use
the powder in smaller doses - taurine is taurine, and from what I saw
you can't overdose a cat with it for the same reason that they have to
eat it every day - it doesn't stay in their bodies!

I wonder if we can get taurine in the same way in the UK. I'll ask at the
chemist shop, not at the vet, he will charge me 20x the real price.
In Germany apparently you can buy kidney diet food anywhere at a reasonable
price, not at a vet-inflated one.
Kitty got a little tin of it in my Christmas parcel from Nüle. They both
got new dishes and Boyfie got a toy. It was a small ball with a feather
attached. He gave it a perfunctory push, decided it was not a real birdie
and walked away. He's showed no interest in it since.
We have confessed about i to Germany, and it's okay!

Tweed

Christina Websell wrote:

I wonder if we can get taurine in the same way in the UK. I'll ask at the
chemist shop, not at the vet, he will charge me 20x the real price.
In Germany apparently you can buy kidney diet food anywhere at a reasonable
price, not at a vet-inflated one.
Kitty got a little tin of it in my Christmas parcel from Nüle. They both
got new dishes and Boyfie got a toy. It was a small ball with a feather
attached. He gave it a perfunctory push, decided it was not a real birdie
and walked away. He's showed no interest in it since.
We have confessed about i to Germany, and it's okay!


LOL! Caliban thinks foil balls are the best toy ever, but then he likes
toys in general.

Here in Helsinki, most chemists carry the vitamin pills for cats that
I've mentioned. There's also a chemist's that specializes in animal
medicine and food, but I found that the kidney diet food was more
expensive there than at my vet's. But then, my vet imports stuff
directly, so that probably cuts back the price.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki