Pet food recall

In this thread here:  http://forum.noblerealms.org/viewtopic.php?id=792  we were talking about the whole homemade pet food thing, and raw foods versus cooked and manufactured, etc.

I did the homemade cat food thing for a bit and had no gag issue dealing with the raw meat - as you'll see in the thread, I had to dig in, ripping flesh from bones, skinning away tendons, throwing it in the meat grinder, dealing with raw livers and blood -  you just get to a point where you tune it out and do what needs to be done.    Then again, I was the only kid in my 10th grade biology class who was able to dissect the frogs without a second thought.  (I feel like some part of me, somewhere in time in some alternate reality is knowledgable and adept with genetics, biology and even surgery.  But tales for another time I suppose.) But my cat flips for raw meat and chicken livers, prefers it over canned food...understandably.  However, something was off with the nutritional balance, and her black fur started turning red and thinning drastically.  This means mineral deficiency of some sort.  So I was never able to master the vitamin/mineral content aspect of it all and had to go back on store bought food in the meantime so that she wouldn't lose all her fur.  Once she was back on Nutro her fur grew in again.    So I too would love to hear about any recipes that anybody has regarding homemade cat food that worked for them and didn't cause their cat's fur to thin and fall out (and in the case of black cats, turn red).

Nutritional yeast is available from www.bulkfoods.com/health.asp and doesn't taste awful like brewer's yeast. You can also add a mineral supplement like bone meal which is available from health food stores or www.iherb.com/store/Default.aspx. You should also add sprouted grass or clover; see my post on sprouting. You can make pet food that is much better than the commercial product.

There's actually a specialty butcher shop nearby.  They might be a good source for a lot of ingredients.

Wow, now there's something I never thought I'd say.  "I think I'll go to the butcher shop."  (I'm mostly vegetarian).

Well I belong to 9 cats.  I do cook for them sometimes, but good lord, I don't think I could handle doing it every day.  I don't even cook for myself every day LOL.  The only canned food I give them is Friskies and Fancy Feast.  I know it's not the highest quality cat food out there, but it's what I can afford, and they all seem to be in good health.  They all gobble it up, except for one who doesn't eat canned food at all.  I don't know if they would like the premium stuff, but I'm sure they wouldn't touch a store brand if I offered it to them on a silver platter.  They know what they like to eat! 

As long as we are on the subject of pet health, I'd like to mention something else.  It is an extremely dangerous situation when a cat stops eating for any reason.  Cats have a very unusual metabolism.  Other animals can live off their own body fat for a limited time if they are not able to eat.  The body breaks down fat cells when food is not available, and this keeps you going until you can eat again.  But for a cat, this is not a good thing, because the liver can't process those fat cells.  If a cat stops eating, even for just a couple of days, liver failure can take hold very quickly.   

My oldest cat almost died last year from hepatic lipidosis because I didn't know any better.  When we moved into our house she became very stressed.  The other cats got adjusted but after several weeks, Daisy was still stuck up under the bed like a troll growling at anyone who came near her.  She gradually stopped eating and lost a ton of weight.  I was stupid enough to think that if she got hungry enough, she would stop hiding and see that everything was okay in the new house.  She ended up having to be put on a feeding tube so her liver could recover.  She pulled through, and it's a miracle that she is still alive.  So I have made it my duty to warn people about this, because I had no idea that a cat could get so sick from not eating.

This is important to keep in mind if you are changing your cat's diet.  They need good nutrition, but the main thing is they need to have food constantly.  Plus cats can get notoriously stubborn or depressed over any changes in their routine.  So as long as what they are eating doesn't pose any serious dangers to their health, it's better for them to keep eating something they like, than to risk having them stop eating anything at all.

A few thoughts:

One of the reasons cats are mandatory carnivores is because they must have pre-formed Vitamin A, as they can not convert beta-carotene into Vitamin A.  Liver is a great source of Vitamin A but should not be fed exclusively like any raw meat for two reasons: 1) the potential for excessive Vitamin A called Hypervitaminosis A and, as with all meats (not just livers) a tendency to induce a calcium deficiency which then requires supplementation to overcome it (if you don't stop doing it, or your cat refuses to eat anything else).  For Hypervitaminosis A, I must make clear, there has to be quite a history of exclusive feeding on liver, so 2 - 3 meals a week should be OK, just not every day otherwise it can and will happen.  (If you think what happens in the wild, no cat just eats the organ meats of an animal it kills, it eats fur and ears and all parts, indeed big cats often eat the intestines of bovines with grass in the stomach too (known as 'green tripe' in the food trade and very nutritious) - and yes, domesticated cats may leave the rest of a mouse but generally this is because they're already well fed or are 'topping' up on a deficiency.

As a previous contributor has said, cats need a diet with high protein content, and this is because they can not conserve nitrogen and thus protein (consisting of amino acids, compounds containing nitrogen) alone must be used to provide energy rather than like dogs, or humans for that matter, who can get energy from both carbs and fats exclusively if needs be (not good long term of course). 

Cats need fats however and fish is one of the best sources as long again as it's not an exclusive feed or your cat may get fatty diarrhoea from too much unsaturated fat, so combine with some saturated animal fat, dairy if they can tolerate it or fish oils including small amounts of fish liver oils, again everything in moderation and balance. 

Cats can utilise both iron and copper from meats but the loss of coat colour could mean either an excess or lack (bioavailability) of copper depending on the meat used as iron and copper fight for absorption and iron would be the most bioavailable in red meat probably pushing out copper.   How the cattle are fed, if you're feeding beef for example, will affect the minerals in the meat never mind the use of sick and 'downer' animals, often highly deficient, in this regard.  Whilst such animals aren't allowed into the human food chain (supposedly) cattle fed grain in food lots are.....with corresponding negative effects on the human food chain, but that's another story.  Alternately for coats lacking lustre consider calcium deficiency as above as this shows initial signs in the coat (lack of lustre and falling out) before the more serious effects become apparent.  But then, the more I think about it, so does quite a few other deficiencies so nothing completely conclusive to add there, but calcium deficiency is a well-known problem with cats fed exclusively on red meat.

According to my faithful Hungerfords's Diseases of Livestock which, for some reason also includes cats, "Generally commercial canned or dry foods with two or three varied organ meats (kidney, heart, liver), occasional cheese, cooked fish, meat, baby foods, yoghurt, cooked vegetables and cereals, two egg yolks per week and a daily teaspoonful of cooking oil, bacon fat or butter, all used with discretion, are general guides."

That's the sort of combo my cats did very well on years ago before the 'tin din' era.

Finally, many years ago now, I visited a homeopathic vet with my dogs who were in dire straits with 'genetic' problems (bilateral stiffness of front legs) and he pulled them off all cereal-based foods and put them on a little goats milk, green tripe, tinned fish (like pilchards, which they loved the best), rabbit, organic chicken, vegetables (no solanacea like potatoes), brown rice, brewers yeast, cod liver oil and all their significant problems cleared up within weeks and they became like puppies again instead of old crocks at 5 years.  I thought until then I had them on the best red meat and biscuits diet, never 'tin din', but in my ignorance had contributed to their problems.  We live and learn.

So, as always, even with the peculiar dietary likes of cats, it would seem varied and balanced is the way to go.  Sometimes that even works for humans too.:D

Kind regards

Sheila

I had a beautiful longhaired tomcat who adopted me.  I would feed him canned cat food and then treat him with chicken livers raw.  He really scarfed up the
liver.  He was an "outside" kitty who just dropped by to check on me every
other day or so.  Very strong and healthy.

Another cat owner told me of his cat's kidney problem being relieved by
cutting out the dry food and feeding him chopped KIDNEY.  Hmmm!
Synchronicity there.