Hello everyone

Right, I'm on here again asking about my poor little man, Loftus, a 7 month old BSH.

We've had him (and his sister Lola) since the end of February and poor loftus has been through the mill a bit. A couple of weeks after we got him, he started to have terrible diarrhoea, and was eventually diagnosed with giardia. Although the giardia cleared after a month of panacur, the diarrhoea did not so I moved him (and Lola) onto complete raw minces (natural instinct). Within three days, we had perfect poos from loftus, and though hurrah! We've cracked it.

However, it seems not the case.

After being on the raw food for approx four weeks, he has started vomiting after eating. I took him to the vet on Friday, who asked me to starve him for a day then give him royal can in prescription sensitive diet food. Which over the weekend I did. However, his stools have become runny again, so I decided to feed him a small bit of raw...which came back up about an hour later.

He is fine in himself... He's hungry (always!) and cuddly, and as playful as ever (although he always has been less playful than Lola).

I desperately want to feed them both a raw diet but any vet I speak to (I have friends of friends who are vets too) tell me it's bad for cats. Now I don't believe them but I'm wondering, could it be that raw doesn't agree with him?!

I'm just at a bit of a loss at the moment and because the vets I know are so 'anti-raw' I never know if I'm getting a decent answer!!

Any help, advice or information would be appreciated

Ta

Kirsty

Hey Kirsty, sounds like you are stuck between a stone (RC sensitive food, which gives your boy the runs) and a hard place (the NI minces that he vomits up).

I am wondering whether it isn't so much raw food that is disagreeing with him but rather the NI considering that it is only one flavour they are currently doing. Yes, they are telling us that it is a well-balanced, "complete" raw food for cats but since they have only done a basic analysis of their food, we can only take their word for it (as many know, not my strong point ).

Considering that the RC has given him the runs again, I would be inclined to just give him a bland diet of cooked chicken for now to see whether that settles his tum as well as gets rid of the vomitting.

This also gives you time to source some other raw minces that you could try for variety, such as Darlings minces for cats or even DAF minces (looks like you need to add liver to those though). Or even better, start reading up on it and do it yourself.

Considering that vets are often the ones who have to mop up people's attempts to feed raw it is perhaps not terribly surprising that raw feeding has got a bad name (the anti-lobbing from the likes of Hills and co doesn't help either). However, when done properly I do think it is the best diet for them; just getting it right isn't easy imo. Particularly when lots of the info about raw feeding leans heavily on practices for dogs but cats and dogs are different not only physiologically in some important aspects but also in terms of their prey, feeding practices, moisture needs etc etc.

There are, however, vets who even if they don't promote raw feeding are at least respectful of it. You could put your feelers out to see whether there is one (often also a holistic vet) in your area.

I wonder if its the consistency of the raw that is causing him to vomit it back up again? I had a cat who couldnt eat any minced raw because most times it all came back up again, but he was fine eating 'whole' meat/bones i.e. larger cubes of meat, offal and chicken necks/wings.

Thank you both for getting back to me.

I'm going to order the trial size of darlings and see what happens with that. As for making it myself, is there any books or articles (other than the great one on here by you Hobbs ) that you can recommend. I'm a bit nervous of doing it myself, for fear of getting it wrong.

I'm also tempted to trial orijen dry - I originally wanted to feed them dry in the day and then wet in the evening. Is there a particular wet that compliments the orijen nicely? I would like them to be on a raw diet but I'd like to have a back up option as well.

Nothing wrong with having a back-up plan to a raw diet. However, instead of feeding dry food (see here: Feeding cats for beginners (and more seasoned cat owners alike)), how about finding a good quality wet one or two or three?

Re other links, aren't there quite a lot in the raw feeding thread? Re books, let me have a look on my bookshelf to see what books I rate and would recommend.

Thanks Hobbs...as great as the Internet is, sometimes I just like reading a book, y'know?

I'll get searching through that thread for some decent wet food then

Kirst x

So, loftus has been on boiled chicken for the last two days.

This morning, I got up to find a small runny poop behind the tv (his favourite non-litter tray place) along with blood and mucus.

He hasn't had this since mid June, after I had started feeding the NI minces!

He's had nothing else to eat, just boiled chicken, since yesterday morning which was the sensitive food from RC (chicken and rice)

I'm thinking he could be allergic to chicken...but he was totally fine for three weeks on the NI minces, which contain chicken?

I think I'm more lost than when I started this thread

Any thoughts?

Kirsty x

I'd pop him back to the vets and ask them to retest him for parasites hun.

Other than that ... When you feed the NI minces to them how often do you feed through the day and what amounts?

I find if I feed more than about 40g per sitting it only takes a bit of running around/jumping up and down after to trigger regurg

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Yea, I think I'm going to call a different vet though...I'm losing the love with mine!

I'd feed about 60g in the morning at about 630am, and then 40-50g twice in the evening (about three hours apart). I know there is too much of a gap in the day but I work and commute. My concern with leaving an automatic feeder is that loftus is a bit of a bully when it comes to dinner and Lola would not get a look in. Also, he doesn't tend to run around much after dinner...for example, the last time he was sick, he ate his mince, came and laid on my bed for half hour, had a snooze, wandered downstairs, threw up (on the wooden floor, thankfully!) and then came to me for cuddles.


I just don't know what to feed him now. He is hungry because he wails for food, not just his normal miaow, but a proper, full-on wail. This morning was like something on a sitcom...I'm sitting crying on the sofa because I don't know what to do, and he's at my feet crying for food!

How long do you have free in the morning to feed hun? Just wonder if it's worth trying smaller meals maybe an hour apart while you're there?

150g is not a lot for a 7 month old hun. Mine were still munching about 300g a day at that point.

It could be that he's eating it too quickly because he's so hungry?

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