Rotten Pork Chowder

Gotta love ‘em!

. . .
(Note: found this when I was looking for information on a flea repellant.)

I was curious how a human grade meat diet compares with various canned cat foods.

Here are the costs, per pound:
Fancy Feast $3.00 (based on approximately $14.00/case of 24-3oz cans)
Premium $3.50 (based on approx. $1.20 per 5.5 oz can, Natural Balance, etc.)
Super Premium $4.50 (approx. $1.70 per 5.5 oz can, Tiki Cat, etc.)
Whole ground chicken $2.70 (whole roaster chicken, no antibiotics, veg fed, ground on site with bones and organ meats, Whole Foods)

Then consider the difference in quality of ingredients, even with relatively good canned foods like Fancy Feast, or specialty ones like Science Diet (all ingredients up to vitamin supplements):

Fancy Feast	Science Diet	Tiki Cat
Chicken broth	Water	Chicken
chicken	chicken	Chicken broth
liver	turkey giblets	Sunflower seed oil
wheat gluten	Meat By-Products	Dicalcium phosphate
meat by-products	liver	Fish oil
corn starch-modified	Corn Starch
artificial and natural flavors	Powdered Cellulose
calcium phosphate	chicken fat
soy protein concentrate	corn gluten meal
added color	soybean meal
	wheat flour
	chicken liver flavor
	fish meal
	titanium dioxide
	Guar Gum
	Choline Chloride
	Brewers Dried Yeast
	Locust Bean Gum
	Carrageenan
	Calcium Sulfate
	Iodized Salt

. . .

By comparison, a whole prey animal that a cat would normally eat (simulated by the whole ground chicken) contains: chicken meat, chicken bones, chicken organs, chicken fat. A cat might ingest a few feathers as well, but normally doesn’t eat the beak or feet, which are included in chicken by-products (as well as diseased parts and anything else deemed not fit for human consumption at the packing plant). In these lists the calcium phosphate/sulfate is a supplement, and fish oil provides additional essential fatty acids. It is usually recommended that these are added to homemade diets, which would bring the cost per pound up by maybe ten cents.

Great book: Natural Nutrition for Cats: The Path to Purr-fect Health

In 1985 I got a tiger point siamese named Zola. (Named after Olympic runner Zola Budd, who ran very fast and tripped a competitor; kitten had the same habit.) She was an indoor-outdoor cat, and at that time there was not a vaccine for feline leukemia virus (or perhaps it was very new). She caught the virus when she was about 9 months old. She became very suddenly ill with a high fever and did not want to eat, drink or move. I took her to an after-hours emergency clinic nearby where they made the diagnosis. The vet told me it was incurable, and that she did not have long to live. He gave me medicine to reduce the fever, and recommended cold compress on her head to help cool her down.

The following day I went to my old vet in a different part of Los Angeles. She was in her 60’s and had on her wall a picture of her graduating class from veterinary school, in which she was the only woman. I always liked her blunt style, and her fees were well below other vets. She would rail on about how male vets overcharged. It turns out she also knew nutrition. She was irate when she heard the prognosis and treatment given by the other vet. Her plan:

• Do NOT reduce the fever. It is fighting the infection!
• Give a liquid vitamin supplement (I think it was Pet-tinic at the time)
• Give a serving of raw chicken liver daily.

. . .

Within a week Zola was herself again and she lived a normal life with the vitamins and liver daily. I don’t know how FeLV is being treated these days, but I wonder if nutrition is now part of it.

The vet Maggie saw yesterday also talked with me about vaccinations. I’ve always been skeptical of anti-vaccine movements, at least with humans, because it can be very dangerous and there is no scientific evidence of harmful effects from routine childhood vaccines. This vet was not recommending no vaccines, but she said that current veterinary immunology is recommending a very different schedule than the standard annual boosters. For cats her recommendations are:

Kittens: FVRCP combination vaccine. FeLV only if cat will be outdoors.
Kitten boosters: normal 8 and 12 week boosters, including FeLV if given.

Rabies: At the discretion of the owner. Not necessary unless the cat will be outdoors where there are raccoons or other wild animals that can attack cats. It is not required by law for cats in California.

Adult boosters:

FVRCP and rabies can be given every 3 years, or you can have a blood titer done first to see if the antibody level is still high. She said studies have shown that immunity lasts much longer than one year.

FeLV: No boosters necessary after kitten shots. Immunity lasts, and 95% of cases of non-immunized cats occur before the age of 1 year. (My non-immunized cat got FeLV in 1986 at the age of 9 months.) Of the cases in cats < 1 year old, the majority are in cats less than 6 months old. They have done laboratory studies deliberately exposing unvaccinated adult cats and it was very, very difficult to infect them unless they were immuno-deficient.

Why reduce the number of boosters? Besides cost, there is a slightly elevated risk of tumors at the vaccination site with repeated injections.

Today Maggie visited a holistic veterinarian office, the Animal Healing Center, where they practice traditional veterinary medicine, accupuncture, massage and also specialize in nutrition. It was hard to find because it doesn’t look like an office at all.

Our veterinarian was Dr. Katie Kangas who has been practicing for 17 years. She worked with wildlife rehab (birds, raptors, mammals) after she graduated, and was the Director of the Veterinary Medical Department at San Diego Humane Society before she joined this practice. She is also a certified veterinary accupuncturist. The office is so homey I don’t think Maggie even realized she was at the vet. (And it was not stanky!) She is usually uncooperative (fierce!) but today she was very laid back. It was a nice room with comfy chairs, and she got to walk around and sniff while we talked.

I scheduled the visit to get more information on feeding raw foods safely (for all the cats) and also to ask about Maggie’s tendency to regurgitate after eating if it’s more than just a half-size meal. Here’s what we talked about:

• The vet was very pleased to hear I was feeding raw and/or wet food and had managed to convert 9-year old Fergus off his dry food diet. With the improvements in his health (fat loss, coat improvement, more energy, no more constipation) she thought he could be a spokescat for diet change!
• Proper proportions of different foods to make sure the diet is balanced. I’ve been feeding a combination of raw chicken pieces (with bone), prepared ground raw meat for cats (like Bravo or Nature’s Choice, which include bone and organ meats plus some supplements), Pounce (a dehydrated raw food mix for cats), and high quality canned food (Tiki Cat, Weruda). She said that was a good mix. Fergus wants to always have raw chicken pieces but they can only have those for about a third of the diet if not mixed with organ meats.
• The regurge problem. She said that is fairly common when cats eat fast. She recommended continuing to feed her meals divided into smaller portions, mashing up the meat into fine pieces, and mixing with the Pounce which I make rather soupy. She also recommended adding pumpkin or a quarter teaspoon of psyllium husk, and possibly a probiotic supplement (like Animal Essentials Plant Enzymes & Probiotics) to ease digestion.
• Raw food safety. I’d heard different things about this, including that cats’ digestive systems are not susceptable to salmonella. Turns out that is correct. She said in her 17 years of practice (including raw fed animals) she has never seen a single cat with salmonella, nor has any vet she knows. She knew of one case which was a dog. I also asked about the possibility of salmonella being shed from feces, and if that might be a danger with parrots in the house. (Birds are much more sensitive to bacterial and fungal infections.) She also said she knows of no cases in which young children (also sensitive) have picked up infections from raw fed pets, and that there has been research on it as well. Normal safe handling of raw meat is sufficient (washing thoroughly and cleaning utensils and cutting boards well). The prepared raw diets are frozen immediately after grinding to avoid bacterial growth.
• Nutrition information. The doctor highly recommended a book by Kymythy Schultze, who is a Clinical Nutritionist for both pets and humans. Natural Nutrition for Cats (2008) follows an earlier book called Natural Nutrition for Cats and Dogs (1999) and covers feline nutritional needs, cat food ingredients, the wet vs. dry issue, as well as special needs cats. Many of the questions I asked about the vet said were covered in this book.

…
The vet was also very impressed with Maggie’s silky coat and milk moustache.

I asked about our flea problem as well, and the products she recommended were:

1. Program oral medication to control fleas in the environment
2. CAPSTAR oral medication to eliminate adult fleas on the animal if needed initially
3. Boric acid or diatomaceous earth for carpets or bedding. DO NOT treat with birds present.
4. Flea control on the animal, carpet, or bedding with Buck Mountain Herbal Gold, made of organic neem oil, yarrow and diatom flour.
5. Frontline or Advantage if needed in heavily infested environments.

…
I was very impressed with Dr. Karga’s depth of knowledge and the time she took to discuss all my questions, as well as doing a routine exam.

Relaxing in the car on the way home…