Feeding Cats: The Real Costs of the Crapification of Pet Food

My kitty boy Mr. Hex, a black short hair, came home from the shelter with me a week after my poly-dactyl black cat Seven passed. Seven was amazing. And he suffered. I want to take a step back and talk about my experiences before I became "enlightened" to the real needs of the carnivores in my house.

Seven suffered from FLUTD when he was young. After two emergency surgeries and a couple weeks in a vet office, he was on a long road to recovery.

After his first brush with death, I asked the cat specialist vet this question: How on earth could a cat who had been fed only the "high quality" food, which she and other vets recommended, still get the urinary crystals that the food was supposed to prevent? Her answer was pretty disappointing. She basically said that it just depended on the cat. Some were more likely to get it than others and so they would get it even if you fed the "right" food. And, now I would need to buy the ultra supreme super duper level of special packaged kibbles of death for the rest of his life - because he was apparently susceptible.

Susceptible. Hmmm...

You know, a decade, two decades ago - when I found material on cat care it pretty well always was in support of packaged cat foods. It was the common wisdom of the day. Apparently, we didn't question the imprudence of having the people who make and sell pet food teaching pet nutrition in veterinary schools - even writing the textbooks.

Seven later developed kidney disease (Feline CRF), which is typical of cats who have had FLUTD and even those who did not have it. The many complications, first: of his "low urine acidity" and then: his renal failure, were tricky to manage. I spent the last part of his life carefully tracking nutrient intake to balance his blood chemical levels, his hydration (administered sub-cutaneous injections of LRS 2 times daily)

I lived on CRF websites and boards. And in the waiting room of the vet office.

I also spent some cash. If your cat has renal failure, there will be frequent blood and urine tests, which ran me over $200 a pop. Eventually, these were required every 6 weeks, and once the test frequency increases, other expensive meds are already in play. I don't know the monthly costs because just thinking about adding them up makes my head hurt. A prescribed suspension he required could only be accessed from a compounding pharmacy, which are not as common as you would think. Even harder, to find was a compounding pharmacy that had Chicken and Fish flavorings instead of just Bubble Gum and Grape.

I got the Lactated Ringer Solution by the case from Target pharmacy to save money - because the vet charged $40 a bottle and I went through at least one a week. I ordered needles and drip lines online along with other nutritional supplements and syringes for administering everything from meds to - later - food.

Epogen, used to combat anemia in humans, came into play when he stopped producing enough new blood cells. That one had to be injected every so many days - and that's another hefty expense. My group insurance covers prescriptions for me, but not for my cat. Fortunately, my vet had by then figured out I could do these things very well myself (still proud of how often he asked if I wanted to be a vet tech for him) - so after he got that epogen started and was able to determine there were no issues, he progressed to letting me do the injections myself and helping me to find best prices.

I don't mean to seem cruel, but I understand if some people just cannot do it because the costs can be prohibitive. If you don't want to spend every penny at the vet, most would let you administer CRF treatments. But even that is not something everyone can do. And it's not something everyone's cat will let them do. Many need to let their cats go at this point.

Most of my cats have passed earlier than I thought they should have - and most definitely died from diet related issues. Toward the end of Seven's life, the pet food recalls of 2007 brought our attention to the further crapification of packaged cat food. (crapification... yeah, I just made that word up. I'm gonna keep it, though) At what point do we stop trusting these companies? Some of the "good ones" (I thought) were in that mix. I know there are some "excuses" for their errors (Some hired companies to make the food to their specs and didn't realize the maker was buying ingredients on the cheap from China - still, no good excuse)

So here I was with a new kitten. A blank slate. Cute as a button, naturally. And me, trying to mend a heart that was crushed when Seven passed. Now what do I do?

Well, according to some vets, I still needed to feed "high quality" kibble and canned. Kibble, they tell us, would help keep teeth clean (no, really, it doesn't) while canned was an optional addition. Why would they stand by this baloney? Again, it's the lie they were taught, and until individuals go find the truth for themselves, many seem to rely heavily on this approach. See, Veterinary schools have an odd practice of using pet food industry materials to teach pet nutrition. Check out the attached photo of a Veterinary manual on small animal feeding. See who published it? Hills. That's the "Science Diet" company. Anyone else see a potential conflict there? True, you'd expect a large pet food company to put out money for good research, but apparently they manage to find research that sufficiently supports kibble and other non-animal based food sources

The copy I have is chock full of contradictory information about feeding felines, by the way. Admitting in one paragraph that cats are obligate carnivores, and then in another indicating that alternate protein sources are somehow perfectly fine, and that cats need some sort of "balanced diet" that includes things that are not from animals. Cats do not have a food pyramid like ours. Let's just get past that.

In fact, when I was a kid (who loved the snot out of animals) I recall a lot of advertising for pet food that promised no "by products" and lots of great veggies (potatoes and carrots mostly) with gravy, no less. But while "by products" can be abused (a load of snouts and hooves is not much help, nutritionally), when provided in appropriate proportions, animal parts provide additional nutritional value.

But pet food companies had our attention. This idea that there could be skin, hair, various organs and intestines, and even (gasp) rats in the food was horrifying to most people who just wanted to give their pets a food as close to human quality as they could.

I even recall some very strange little dog food patties that smelled and looked like play-doh.

Clearly, I'm done with that game. With my new kitten in tow, I kept talking to vets until I found the ones that could deal with the general raw feeding issue supportively*, and could even understand the whole prey feeding I was doing. They're out there - Vets are certainly not a stupid lot on the whole, and I would never wish to imply that they are ;) But even among those who have an awareness of real nutritional needs of felids, some have been afraid to stand up for holistic pet cat feeding. There is still a perfectly reasonable fear of salmonella, parasites, and even of nutritional shortcomings. There's also a fear of lawsuits. After all, if they tell you it's OK to feed raw meat and bones, and a bone gets stuck, or grandma gets salmonella from the cat who eats raw stuff...somehow...then that could come back on them. I wonder: do the pet food companies offer to hold them harmless for recommending their kibbles of death when that approach kills your pet?

...All are pretty valid concerns to discuss, at least. And these all seem to be issues that may be overcome. Ultimately, I hope we find improvements in information, and in the available prey variety and quality, to make this an even better option. But for now, I'm far more comfortable feeding this way than even with frankenprey, and more comfortable by miles than I would be feeding processed cat food again

In my next posting, I'll talk about some of the valid concerns that exist (and some of the rather ridiculous ones), and I'll share some great information on whole prey food sources that Comparative Nutritionist Dr. Cheryl L. Morris of Evolve Animal Services has shared with me.

*Note: My marvelous vet, who supported me throughout Seven's renal failure, is currently focusing on low cost vaccination and spay/neuter clinics, making him unavailable for my cats as a primary care provider. For this reason, I have not only sought out 1 new vet, but have a short list of "good guys" I know I can reach out to if any one of these is not available.

Nature's own recipe

I have recently begun to feel that I'm sort of out here alone. Where are the others who feed whole raw prey to their housecats? I went through all the "better cat foods" phases (better kibble, canned, canned with minimal vegetable matter) and still lost cats to illnesses that may be traced to feeding vegetation food sources to an obligate carnivore. Finally, I moved on to the "raw meat is good" fanclub - then the raw "whole prey model", which is pretty much that - a model, or recipe, for recreating a cat's natural food.

Or, as I love to call it: Frankenprey

Sure, I went to the stores, scoured towns around me for butcher counters with more than muscle meat. I needed liver and kidneys, hearts and brains. Any other parts-is-parts parts that I could find. I can honestly say I have never handled things like sweetbreads before now (no, I found out, that does NOT refer to those yummy King's Hawaiian rolls).

I would sit at the table for hours, up to my elbows in parts and blood. Ahh, good times.

Bones were a tough issue for me. I had no grinder and the bones that come in things we humans eat are pretty big for a cat. I added calcium in the form of eggshells (cleaned, ground eggshell,may be found in bird supply shops). Cut everything up into portions and plopped bits into recyclable baggies and then froze them all. Each meal, I would thaw one complete frankenprey bag. Each bag holding 2%-4% of my cat's adult body weight in cut up stuff, which is about a single step up from ground meat. You see, the more surface area of the meat you have exposed to air, the more quickly it's decaying. Bacteria digs in and multiplies, precious taurine is lost. And freezer burn threatens if you try to work in bulk and store ahead. Plan on 90 days as a good "use by" date for raw frozen meats - especially if the meat has, wait for it.... more surface areas exposed. Gah, you can't win!

That gets old fast....by the way. Well, it did for me. It was also a little unnerving. Who was I to recreate prey out of leftover parts? Was I staying true to the proportions nature prescribes? What if they need something else, will I recognize that?

Somewhere along the line, a few people in raw feeding groups or bulletin boards mentioned giving their cats the occasional mouse. After watching a video of one lady's kitty tossing his mouse around like a toy until he finally got ready to eat it I was a little turned off. I mean, I'm not all "girly" about that stuff. I am, after all, a farmer's granddaughter. I've kept red tailed boas before and they certainly ate mice (...rats, guinea pigs...). It seemed within the realm of what I could tolerate.

I knew I'd want to work on that whole "playing with your food" thing, though. Definitely.

Here, I hope to share with you my experiences in locating resources, moving my cats to whole raw prey, and learning to maintain that diet for them. I hope to impart the details and tips I've developed and continue to develop, and hope to hear from others with success in this diet who can share their techniques and grow this base of knowledge.

I'm sure that some are cringing at the idea of whole raw prey. sounds gruesome, I know. But if you're concerned that somehow feeding mice and chicks and other cleanly-sourced small prey to your cat is unnatural, inappropriate or risky, to you I say: Relax - mother nature wrote this diet herself.