Feline Vitamins

[Cindy Nevarez]

Well, you might not need to give it every day. One day; salmon, another day; sardines, yet another day a pinch of the powder, another day...nothing. You see what I mean?

[Mary K]

Thanks, Cindy, I guess that is sort of how I have been feeding them, anyway. I am just hoping soon to have a few recipes batched with all the necessary supplements added and then frozen. Then I won't have to worry so much. But, I could add the sardines in small amounts to the recipe batches. I never thought of that! I was just being a nurse! The beauty of this is I get to do it the way I want instead of trying to find a bag or can that supposedly has it the way I want! Love it!!!

[Davis]

Ha!  Sardines?  I wish that would work for me.  My cat runs away if I put them anywhere near him.  He thinks they are the most disgusting thing on the planet.  Odd...you would think it would be natural for him to like them.  But then he's not your average cat.  He'd never do the salmon either.  I'm really stuck.  I last time I tried to give him a piece of salmon, he gagged.  Yet I was eating some canned pineapple the other day, and he wanted that.  This surprised me, since he usually hates any human food.  I let him have some of the juice.  He loved it.  I can't imagine what the big attraction was.  I hope it wasn't bad for him.  I don't know what to do with him.  He's so difficult when it comes to diet.

[Cindy Nevarez]

There you go....

[Cindy Nevarez]

Boy.....you have one 'intersting' cat.

The only thing I'd be worried about on that juice thing is the sugar in it...I realize it's not added in, but natural fruit juice is still loaded with its own sugar, and since it's in liquid form...it goes into their systems super fast.

Also, my cats hardly touched sardines or salmon either when I was feeding to them, but I kept offering it, then I noticed that sometimes one or the other would eat a lot one day and hardly touch it another day. It just lead me to the conclusion that they were pacing themselves and eating only as the body needed it. Then they still wanted to eat other things as they were still hungry.

Now that they are eating mackerel...which they like a lot better...I don't offer them those other 2 fish anymore. So I noticed now that when they eat the mackerel, they don't want to eat anything else.

[Davis]

Yes, I realize that, but I'm not worried about it at all, since he only had one teaspoon.  That is all I would allow.  He has far more carbohydrates (sugars) in his food than he will ever get from that little lap of juice, which of course is another one of my concerns.  I'll keep trying with the sardines and stuff.  I'm determined to make these changes, but it won't be easy.  Thanks.

[Cindy Nevarez]

Yeah, cats are a particular challenge sometimes. I was never successful with mine in trying to switch them to my raw mix back in 04' so I gave that up and instead determined to find them the best canned/comm. stuff.

[Davis]

It just lead me to the conclusion that they were pacing themselves and eating only as the body needed it.

Oh, and I forgot to say, I also read something on another thread that you said about them eating or craving things that their body's need.  What a great concept...if only.    So does that mean I can start eating lots of chocolate, ice cream, and all of those others things that I want but avoid for health purposes?  Maybe my body is craving what it needs!

[Cindy Nevarez]

If only!
Seriously though, what I found was that the elemental nutrients in the foods are what we are really needing (read 'craving'). For example: craving ice cream? you need calcium, craving pickles? you need salt AND calcium. The chocolate is a complex combination of things having to do with hormones and nutrients. When I crave chocolate  or something rich...I go for the high-quality dark chocolate (like what they sell at Whole Foods). Works every time.

[karatemom2]

One of the things I used to supplement my 19 year old cat was KMR milk replacer for kittens.  I initially made formula and syringe fed her.  Then I just added powder formula to her wet food.  It helped keep her weight up and I think it added some extra vitamins too.  She looked darn good for her age and advanced renal failure, even on her last day of life.  She was not really thin and her fur was pretty good.

On the label it says that for show cats and convalescing cats you can feed 1 tsp powder per 5 pounds body weight  daily by top dressing food.  Rather than throw out my left over formula, I've been using it as a top dressing on my home made food for Holly to add some extra vitamins etc.  I don't know, but maybe you might want to look at the label and see if this is something you might want to consider using as a supplement to your home diets, maybe in the short term till all this stuff blows over?  I'm just doing a quarter to half teaspoon daily since I'm still feeding Wellness Kibble in the PM at this time.  You can definately get your calcium supplement this way.

Thoughts?

[Mary K]

Hi, Everyone, today I studied the various vitamins and minerals cats need. I found that almost all of them are in a varied diet that includes beef, fish, foul, eggs, hearts, livers and kidneys! Add to that some calcium and a few extras here and there like nutritional yeast and Taurine and it almost starts to look easy. Processing and cooking can destroy the more unstable ones like the B vitamins. This is oversimplifying a bit, but just wanted to share how it was going with feeding home-cooked. I am getting there, and some day will go raw! I like thinking that with proper diet, a healthy animal doesn't necessarily need supplements. Depends on how far one is willing to go to prepare the food.

[Cindy Nevarez]

Exactly! 

[catgirl]

You MUST stop feeding dry food. Dry food is poisonous for cats.

See: www.catnutrition.org

A supplement that you can use is Platinium Performance. If you use that one you can just get the chicken ground up from the butcher, throw that in a bit each day and you are done.

But DO NOT feed a combination of raw food and dry. VERY BAD for the cat's digestive tract.

Dry food is causing Feline Diabetes, IBD, Chronic Renal Failure -- there have been NO long term studies citing claims of "health" with respect to dry food and we as pet owners are allowing are cats to be "guinea cats" by feeding them this untested poison. And dry food is just that -- it is POISONOUS for cats!

[garypen]

Or not.

[Mary K]

Hmmm...I think we have been through this before