You may have read my earlier post about our cat Fluffy. Ten weeks ago Fluffy was not very well, her third eyelid was showing, she seemed under the weather. We took her to local vet Dr Lyn Thomson.
When Lynn examined her she noted her muscles were soft and her stomach felt like she had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Fluffy also over-groomed on her stomach, inner legs and around her bottom. (She’s been doing this for years. Fleas? No she was flea free. Stress we thought – or just a meticulous cleaner.)
Lynn suggested we feed her a species appropriate diet. What do cats eat in the wild? Raw whole animals. Lynn has a range of minced food, usually made from pest animals (like wallaby, rabbit, possum) mixed with organ meat. We bought a range of this for the cat. Rabbit and heart is now her favourite food.
Since my earlier post we have fed our cat a raw food only diet. Lyn’s minces and chicken necks once a week to clean her teeth.
How Fluffy has thrived!
Her third eye is no longer showing.
No longer is she over grooming! All her fur has grown back on her tummy, inner legs and bottom. My guess is that all that IBS discomfort led her to lick and lick to try to deal to it. She has been doing this for years. In two months – gone!
Amazing how animals like humans respond to a species appropriate diet.
Glad she’s better. I had no idea cats get IBS.
That is very interesting. Was it a huge pain to transition Fluffy to the new diet? I want to improve my cat’s diet so that he is eating closer to nature but all he will tolerate are a few selected commercial foods. He is an adopted stray and I have no idea about his early years. But I do know he is the world’s fussiest eater and he doesn’t seem to recognise fresh meat as food! It is frustrating.
Our cat already ate some raw food. She loves beef, so we mixed the new food with chopped beef and gradually reduced the amount of beef.
On the raw essentials website there is a link to an article on transitioning you cat to raw food.
Aww…who named the cat? Inspiring though. I’ll have to track down some of the same as I have inherited a cat who also overlicks. Thanks, once again.
My daughter named her – she picked Fluff from the SPCA when she was 9.
Keep me posted on how you get on. It was about 4 – 6 weeks before we saw most changes with out cat.
When both my previous cats died miserably with Kidney disease, I started to research how I could have improved life for them. Some time after, and feeling confident in my decision, I acquired 2 gorgeous Tonkanese kittens. They took to their raw meat diet very well (though if they had their way they would probably choose the processed fast food alternative!). They are thriving and healthy. I have not used any flea products as they don’t appear to need this so far. The big bonus is that their poo is virtually odourless! 🙂 I get my raw, frozen food delivered especially prepared as I wanted to be sure to have the nutrition properly balanced and didn’t want the hassle of having to grind down bones etc.
It seems to all make sense that they eat raw meat as apposed to flavoured carbs!
That is great. Interesting about the poo! I have no idea what out cat’s smells like. She goes off round the neighbourhood to make her deposits.
Loss of hair on the belly could have been a sign of hypothyroidism, esp if there was discolouration and general spooky behaviour. A diet richer in iodine, or less toxic to the thyroid, might have made the difference.
My dog got sick on an evolutionarily appropriate diet, came back to health quickly when kelp was added.
Her hair loss was due to overgrooming rather than it falling out. She stopped doing that within a week of her raw food diet, and has continued to be extremely healthy since then. So I’m thinking it is more likely the junk food (kibbles). She has got super thick fur now.