Suggestions for Liquid Food for Cat

[kmabry1]

Hi all, I'm a newbie here, and hope someone can help with some food suggestions. One of my cats (I have 6) has been diagnosed with severe chronic stomatitis. After repeated treatments, and visits to specialists, the alternatives for treatment are 1) have all of his teeth removed, except for front ones, 2) keep going with periodic steroid/antibiotic treatments; 3) have him put to sleep.  Number 3 is not an option, number 1, we won't do at this time because he has tested positive as a carrier for a type of virus that the specialist said reduces his chances of the surgery being successful to 40%, so I don't want to put him through such an extreme and painful procedure with little chance of a good permanent outcome.  So to cut to my question, (sorry for the long message) - since the only thing he can easily eat when the infection flares up is liquids, do you know of a liquid food, a supplement and/or a wet (canned) food that could be easily mixed with warm water that would give him some good nutrition, and hopefully tastes good! Thank you very much.

[GreyGhost]

We use several types for the patients that can't eat at the clinic.They are liquid  and have all the nutrients. Your vet might also have some different ones. I would ask.

http://www.calvetsupply.com/browseproducts/CatSure---Meal-Replacement-Food-Supplement---Large-12-oz.-Liquid.HTML

http://prnpharmacal.com/pdfs/Stat-PS.pdf

You might find this helpful.

http://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/vet-practice-news-columns/dental-edge/one-clinicians-experience-with-a-new-treatment-for-feline-stomatitis.aspx

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+1371&aid=368

[Bonkers]

 I am so sorry to hear about your kitty stomatitis. It must be very difficult for all concerned. I too was going to suggest the CatSure. This item is easily found at most major pet stores. A suggestion that I have for food would be a freeze dried food from either the Honest Kitchen or Grandma Lucy's. These come in a powdery form and are easily hydrated with warm water. This enables you to make the food however thin you would like it to be by just adding more water to it. Or you could try the same with a grain free canned food such as Wellness.

[Perseus]

Hi, and welcome to the forums.  So sorry to hear about your kitty's health problems.  Many times we have to assist feed them for a variety of reasons, and I've certainly done my share of just that.  I've found that just about any canned food that is a pate style (no chunks, bits, pieces, etc.) can be mixed with a little warm water with good results.  If you have a blender, that works wonders on making the food very easy for them to just lick up.  It's just important to keep the kitty eating whatever they like during these periods. 

Also, whenever I've had to mix water into the food, I kept a daily dairy of how much food I was actually getting into them since adding the water adds a lot of bulk to the food.  Ideally I always wanted to get 5-6 ozs. of canned food daily into them as a minimum.

If you ever get to the point of needing to syringe feed him, let us know and I'm sure we can give you some good pointers on that, too.

Oh, and I hope you slapped your vet when he told you to put him to sleep as an option 

[kaffe]

Welcome to the forum, kmabry1!  So sorry to hear that your kitty gets stomatitis flare-ups.  I've had to assist-feed via feeding syringe not long ago and I have used CatSure (available at PetCo and various on-line stores) and CliniCare, available only by prescription supposedly, but there are on-line stores you can get these from without the prescription - as long as the CliniCare is not the one for kidney cats...  anyway, I found that these liquid diets are VERY expensive - average around $7-$10 a can (8oz?)...  Like Perseus said, I found that you can "liquify" just about any loaf-style canned cat food by adding water and mashing the mix with a spoon or whirling in a food processor/blender. 

BTW, there is a paste you can make that is supposed to help stomatitis in cats.  I've made this paste as "toothpaste" for my own cats even though they don't have stomatitis - just a bad case of gigivitis at one point.  The paste is made by mixing Sovereign Silver, Co-Q10 and Lactoferrin.  PM me if you're interested in the recipe and I'll dig it up.

[Bonkers]

  I hope kmabry1 will return and post so to let us know how her kitty is doing.

[sherrylynne]

Another one I found mine liked when he wasn't feeling well was to take meat only baby food, add a little KMR, and some powdered egg shell(for the calcium), blend it up, and he loved it!