I occasionally use plant and enzyme probiotics by Animal Essentials. Unsweetened live culture yogurt is OK, if they are willing to eat it. Sometimes it is necessary to go through several different brands to find one they'd like. Sophie is the only one which is really enthusiastic about yogurt, but only greek style one.

My vet even recommends Yakult yogurt drinks, which are sickeningly sweet but according to him most cats would try that. I would consider it last resort, yuck! Also, I am not sure whether I'd call probiotics controversial. there is some disagreement whether they work, sure. But provided that supplement does not contain any nasty fillers they would do no harm, so the worst that can happen is that you spent money on nothing. I don't think they should be given every day, but in cats which may need them it is easy to see whether there is any difference or not.

It should be possible to find large glass air tight jars. Here they are found in any of the shops with home and kitchen supplies.

Thank you!

It wasn't too difficult to teach my older two to use the toilet, it was more difficult to explain to the contractor why I need stairs built next to the toilet when I was renovating the place 

As for cleaning, I would be perfectly happy if they could be trained to pick up their own hair from my black or navy suits, at least on days when I have early morning lectures or meetings...

Catgirl,

I have posted some recipes from Strombeck's book, since that is one of the few sources of recipes for homemade cooked cat food and the only one recommended by AVMA. I do not agree with everything in his book, but I wanted to share this info since not everyone has access to a full university library the way I do.

Also, although these recipes might not be perfect, they are still way better than Friskies and there are quite a lot of people who are not comfortable with going against medical or veterinary advice and there are way too many vets who are strongly against feeding raw. I do not have a problem with going against expert advice when it contradicts existing evidence and common sense, but there are plenty of people who are just not comfortable with it.

Finally, I am not saying that carbs are OK. I am saying that cats need a balanced healthy diet with lots of variety and minimal processing. I am not entirely convinced that the raw food recipes on the internet are indeed balanced, because all there is is limited number of personal testimonies. I am not convinced that most foods on the market, whether dry or canned, are balanced either. And unfortunately there simply aren't enough reliable data to conclude what is a balanced diet which would guarantee long and healthy life. There are lots of grey areas and contradictory claims in human nutrition, and it is even more so for animals. So in absence of reliable hard data on what is best, I go by common sense and try to provide as much variety as possible, with as little carbs as possible, which fits into my existing constraints on a) available foods here b) what my cats are willing to eat. In my opinion, this is reasonable approach. If I am wrong, I would like to see evidence why is this wrong. However, I do not find it anymore convincing if you type things in CAPS and I do not consider information coming only from internet sources as 100% trustworthy.

Catgirl,

I agree with you that vets get little nutritional training at the university. Same as medical doctors. However, lots of things floating around the net, including various recipes for raw food, are not a balanced diet either. There is anectodal evidence that raw is better, there is no scientific evidence. There is no good evidence in favour of dry either, since most of the existing studies have been funded by pet food companies. Websites only are not sufficient evidence that something is true. All information needs to be critically evaluated, and often there is no one single Truth.

There are few other things to consider. Some cats stubbornly refuse to eat what is good for them. Some purebreed cats have difficulty digesting raw. People living in different areas have different choices. Many of the animal supplements contain fillers and additives which are worse than ingredients of premium dry foods. For some of us choices of fresh raw meat are limited. Since I live in Hong Kong, I have a choice of either feeding raw 1-2 times per week when Australian or New Zealand meat imports are just defrosted, or feeding meat raised in mainland China and possibly contaminated with bird flu and who knows what chemicals. So I feed a little bit of everything (nothing from China though!). I hope I'll manage to replace dry with freeze-dried, and have sufficient variety of protein choices since this recall has narrowed down my possible choices of foods. But that is about it how far I can and want to go, because that is what I think is best. I wish I had mroe choices when it comes to raw food, but I don't think I would be feedng homemade raw exclusively, or at least would combine homemade with raw food from commercial sources from at least two different companies and with different main sources of protein.

In my personal opinion, there is no reliable evidence to what is best. Feeding dry foods only is not a great idea in my opinion, but supplementing canned with good quality dry in the absence of good and reliable vitamin supplements is better than feeding unbalanced diet. I do not find arguments for feeding dry very convincing (i.e. increase in pet's life expectancy is likely due to being indoors and having health care rather than due to "complete and balanced" cellulose with gluten and by-products). But then I also do not find arguments for feeding raw only very convincing. "Cats have evolved to eat raw" is not a good and scientifically sound argument. Longevity is not something that tends to be optimized by evolution. Evolution optimizes the chance to live long enough to produce a number of offspring. However, longevity of the parent does not improve the chance of survival of the offspring, since they have to compete for the same food supply. I do not see how would evolution favor long life and healthy old age of an individual.

This does not mean that dry is good. Until recently, urinary tract complications and struvite crystals have been common in cats fed dry foods. And then dry food manufacturers started adding DL Methionine to it in order to acidify urine. And now the incidence of oxalate crystals is equal to incidence of struvite crystals since they have likely overdone it. Whatever you feed there are advantages and drawbacks. And there is no hard scientific evidence either way. At least I have not been aware of any. Dr. Hodgkins and Dr. pearson are great vets, however all my scientific training goes against "proof by authority". Finally, I would like to add that although I am a scientist, I am not a nutritionist. But I believe that scientific training is valuable in spotting problems in claims from "experts", since experts can be, and often are wrong.

My cats are crazy about these. It is just freeze dried meat or fish, nothing else. They love chicken and salmon.

Anybody else knows any good and hopefully safe treats?

Evy,

thanks for the link but that does not answer my question. Your food
has both amino acid chelate and inorganic source for each mineral.
What I would like to know is how much of which, i.e.
xx % ferrous sulfate , yy% iron amino acid chelate.

I understand about your nutritionist being busy, no problem,
I'll wait.

Looking forward to see his reply.

Another question though:
You have mentioned several times that amino acid chelates are superior
mineral sources over proteinates. Yet in your food for each mineral you have inorganic
source +amino acid chelate.

For example:
Ferrous Sulfate, Iron Amino Acid Chelate
Zinc Sulfate, Zinc Amino Acid Chelate,
Copper Sulfate, Copper Amino Acid Chelate,
Manganese Sulfate, Manganese Amino Acid Chelate,
Cobalt Carbonate, Cobalt Amino Acid Chelate

What is the ratio of the two?

I also heard on another board of cats getting sick from Solid Gold dry. I used to feed that before and I was happy with it, but I don't dare to anymore.

Garypen,

Timberwolf Serengeti should be 27.5% carbs. It is 38% protein, 2.5% fiber, 18% fat, 9% mosture, 5% ash, so when you add all that up all what is left is carbohydrates. Also, I e_mailed them recently to ask if their label is correct and they said yes. Not sure how much that can be trusted, but I still have a few bags with same or earlier pullout date than what I've been using.
Detailed ingredients of Serengeti can be found here:
http://timberwolforganics.com/c.632216/pdfs/Serengeti%20Herbal%20Felid%20Diet.pdf

I've been happy with it so far, I've started using it to replace Felidae shortly before first recall. My problem is that I always used to rotate dry foods, one chicken based, one lamb based, one venison based. Now that I can't use Natural Balance or Solid Gold, not sure what I can use in combination with Serengeti. I've been thinking about Nature's Variety and Stella&Chewy's freeze dried. Anybody has experience with that?

California Natural Chicken and Rice is OK food, but it also has chicken as a main protein source, and so does Felidae so not sure what I can use in addition to Serengeti.

Yes, I have a science degree and I work at a university. Of course when evaluating a study
it is necessary to check the entire article, however I cannot post the link to full article since
it requires subscription. I have the subscription through my university library, but I cannot
post entire article since it would be copyright violation.

If you or your nutritionist do not have access to this database, you can always e_mail the
authors and ask for reprint, I'm sure they would be happy to send it to you. However, I do
not need the feedback from your nutritionist for this study. I would like to know what is his
evidence for any additional benefits of Yucca Schidigera. Since you mentioned that your food
formulation is based on scientific principles and since you obviously consider addition of YSE
so significant to highlight it in comparison with other foods, surely you can provide references
for scientific evidence on benefts of Yucca?

As for "article available online in 2004" there is nothing suspicious about that. In 1997, most
of the journals dealt with hard copy submissions and had only print editions. After journals
switched to having online and print editions, the databases containing online articles slowly
expanded back. While for some journals it is possible to access the content online all the
way back, this is still not the case for Elsevier journals on science direct.

Same for "received May 1995, accepted Jan. 1997". Nothing suspicious about that either, since
review times were much longer when authors had to mail in 3-5 copies of the manuscript, then
editors had to send manuscripts again by mail to reviewers, then if one of the reviewers would
decline to review he/she would have to mail back the manuscript to the editorial office, etc.
Considering the fact that great majority of manuscripts undergo at least one revision, it would
not be unusual for that process to drag on for over a year even without additional complications
such as mansucripts lost in the mail etc. Nowadays the whole process is much faster with online
submissions and online reviewing. But there is nothing strange about those dates.

These are my cats:





Morning toilet queue (white thingie is litterkwitter attachment, Sophie is not fully trained yet):


These two are Stefie (right) and Mitzie (left), brother and sister, who are seven years old.


They were two ugliest and skinniest little kittens I have ever seen. They were rescued from drowning attempt and were so incredibly skinny. Stefie is incredibly sweet cat, and Mitzie is the big boss and also my girl, very possesive and jealous.

This is my recent addition, Sophie. She is eight month now, this pic was taken few months ago.


I was hoping to expand my cat family further with another rescue if test case (little ragdoll) was accepted OK, but although things are fine now I don't think Mitzie would tolerate another cat so I'll have to stop at three.

You can try with just meat first, and then switch to raw diet. One or two unbalanced meals are not going to hurt them. Based on my cats' preferences, poultry has better chance of success than beef, and chicken and turkey breast are more attractive than chicken legs (even with skin removed). Do not feed raw pork. Also, some of the more exotic choices might be found appetizing. All three of mine are totally crazy about venison. Also, all three of mine are willing to eat raw, but only one would eat cooked. Unfortunately, I can't find good quality fresh raw every day here, so they just get it once a week or so, and the rest of the time I feed canned and dry.

Therese,
thanks for doing a wonderful job with the updates.

I'd like to ask swould it be possible to contact the companies again to check which ones have started testing all incoming ingedients for melamine. Now that chicken and pork is suspect also, it would be reassuring to find a food which is likely to be safe. Since chicken meal or chicken fat is in almost all cat foods, I really don't know what is safe to feed anymore. And I envy people with dogs. My cats refuse home cooked.

Sylvia,
it only controls the smell of flatulence by reducing hydrogen sulfide, not the amount. If your dogs have such a problem, you could give them some live culture, no sugar no additives yogurt if they would eat it, or some probiotics&enzymes supplements to their food. Animal essentials plant enzymes and probiotics is pretty good.

Also, I'd like to add that I agree with garypen. I am not saying that Kumpi is a bad food. However, I would like some answers.

As for Yucca,
here are some links (subscription is necessary for reading full article, you can see abstract for free).

Article on fecal odour:
Fecal Odor Article

Note that the effect on blood urea levels in cats was different from previous results on rats and cattle. It is quite dangerous to extrapolate results from other animal species to cats.

Some additional references (other animals):

Yucca makes no significant difference in giardiasis:
Article

In this one, please note the difference between promising results in vitro and no difference in infection rates in vivo, in spite of some reduction in sheddding of cysts.