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Cats and dogs detox diet
@rachel, thanks very much for your posts above. Wish I'd known about VA when my dog was younger (not to mention when I was younger or when my kids were younger) but better late than never. I might try her on raw again if I find a premix without dried liver added but part of me is reluctant to change her diet simply because this one is working for her skin and gut after many years of trying other things.
For her dental health, aside from cleaning her teeth daily starting next week, not giving her liver just might make all the difference. Now I know that the 2 tbsp./day I was giving her is too much for even me who weighs 5X more! She didn't get it every day but whenever I bought it, she'd get a tbsp. on each meal for days on end.
I forgot to mention, every day I roughly chopped up half a raw chicken neck and gave it to her knowing she needed to chew and that this was good for her teeth as well. She loved it and surprisingly crunched away at this no problem right up to the day before her dental cleaning under anesthetic!
She did stop chewing on her bully stick at the end of the day though which was odd but I thought it must be a bad batch of bully sticks and I even returned a couple. (Sometimes I wonder about my powers of observation!)
Her ability to chew chicken necks is partly why I never twigged there were problems. Also her front teeth looked good and white (until I saw that loose one!) Also I had taken her now and then for dental cleanings with a non sedation pet hygienist (which part of me then thought was above and beyond the call)....but last year he even told me "keep doing what you are doing!"
The difference is the vet took x-rays while cleaning her teeth. A lot of the problems just couldn't be seen. I'm obviously still feeling a bit incredulous about it all!
Hopefully she can get back to crunching on some chicken necks. Good idea about chicken wings/feet as an alternative.
@lil-chick, great to hear your cat is looking/acting better now... and 16 years old! and 16 with great teeth! You've obviously done lots right!
I just made some egg shell powder from my own chicken's egg shells, dried in the sun and pulverized in my basic every day food processor. It is not as powdery as I would have liked. I might grind it longer next time-- if the cats don't like it.
I've been chopping up boneless chicken thighs and freezing it in an amount that lasts for a few meals. I pick it up right away when they walk away and place it in the fridge because I don't want to waste it or have it go bad. Both cats like this. Their poos both seem healthy now.
I'm going to just sort of "season it" with a little sprinkling of the powder each time.
I read yesterday that cats don't convert beta carotene to VA.
Quote from lil chick on July 1, 2019, 7:07 amI read yesterday that cats don't convert beta carotene to VA.
Interesting. It's probably because they are obligate carnivores. I guess there would be no need for them to metabolise plant matter if their natural diet doesn't include it.
I have now also given chopped white fish and chopped lamb. The lamb went over very well, the fish wasn't as popular as I imagined it would be. The cats don't mind the eggshell powder at all. Toxic cat wants to eat small amounts often and keeps at me until I meet his new demands. Toxic cat has also been asking to sun himself on the porch in the late afternoon, even though it is hot. Toxic cat seems to still remember that he had a bad night (detoxing?) after eating raw burger, and he turns his nose up at it. I'm happy with his progress. Soon I will take away the "crutch" which is a small amount of dry food I keep putting out because of a fear that they won't be getting enough calories. They hardly touch it.
Why do cats have to eat raw meat I don't get it
Raw meat is the closest to a cats natural diet. In zoos they have found that animals are happiest and healthiest when fed as close as possible to the diet they would eat in the wild. This extends to domestic animals too.
I still see that my cats have a hankering for something green. I may start clipping a little bit of grass onto their food once a day?
They are old cats and since turning a certain age my children have begged me to keep them as indoor cats. They were happier as outdoor cats, but we do have lots of predators here.
I've noticed now after several weeks on low VA that the cats are asking to eat less often than when we made the switch.
They wanted to eat 4-5 times daily, and now it is more like 2-3 times daily.
That makes me think of the increased need for protein and the high appetites some here experience with detox.
Toxic Cat now runs around the house like crazy EACH MORNING!
This all makes me think that their detox has been quite sped up and that they might need vitamin A added back sooner than I do. They have both been watching me as I throw egg yolks into the compost bucket, not quite begging for them, but interested.
I've been off line for a week. So much reading to catch up on! Just thought I'd mention something about my dog here. After 8 years of burning holes in our back lawn with her pee, this year the lawn is all green; no dried out brown circles everywhere. (My husband is very happy about this). Only thing different is I stopped giving our dog liver and dried liver treats! I also substituted pumpkin in her premix recipe to wax gourd (white veg) from a Chinese market. Our last dog did this lawn burning too. I thought it was a terrier thing. Nope. Pet stores sell rocks that you put in the water bowl that work by adding minerals to the water. The rocks didn't work. Low A diet worked!