high calcium and phosphorus levels in blood cat on raw food

[SusanaY]

Hello,

Attached are the results of my cat bloodtest, it’s in spanish (Sorry for that) but it’s easy to understand ( calcio-calcium etc...). I’ve been feeding my cat home made raw food ( feline-nutrition recipe) for 3 years (he’s 3 years old) and I love it, but now this results came and I’m worried because as you can see cholesterol, calcium and phosphorus are high. My vet is suggesting to switch to kibble but I don’t want to.
Have any of your cats have these results? Is it normal? Does this have something to do with the diet?
Thank you so much for your help!

 

[dhammagirl]

I don’t know if these results are due to diet or could be from another cause. It seems your vet thinks it’s the diet. It’s unfortunate that the vet’s wanting you to feed your cat kibble.

If it were me, I’d try switching my cat to a canned food for a while, retest and see what results come back.
If they improved, then some adjustments to the raw food are needed, or a switch to canned food, or a bit of both.

 

[LTS3]

This might help:

Looking for the links with info about elevated BUN/crea in raw fed cats

I know there are threads on this, but I cannot find them. I swear I remember reading and even participating in a thread where some of our most generous and helpful members posted links (studies?) that discuss these numbers being elevated in raw fed cats and why. I just am useless at searching...

thecatsite.com

Keep in mind that raw diets have only been popular in the past decade or so, long after normal blood work ranges were established based on commercial (probably dry) cat food. A raw fed cat may have some slightly elevated blood values than a cat who is eating only dry food.

Just use these results as a base line for what is normal for your cat

 

[SusanaY]

This might help:

http://[URL]https://thecatsite.com/...out-elevated-bun-crea-in-raw-fed-cats.259655/

[/URL]

Keep in mind that raw diets have only been popular in the past decade or so, long after normal blood work ranges were established based on commercial (probably dry) cat food. A raw fed cat may have some slightly elevated blood values than a cat who is eating only dry food.

Just use these results as a base line for what is normal for your cat

Thank you so much for your answer! I understand that BUN, and creatinine levels in a raw fed cat are higher, but I have not found any info about calcium and phosphorus or cholesterol, maybe I’m doing something wrong but I follow feline-nutrition.org recipe

 

[SusanaY]

I don’t know if these results are due to diet or could be from another cause. It seems your vet thinks it’s the diet. It’s unfortunate that the vet’s wanting you to feed your cat kibble.

If it were me, I’d try switching my cat to a canned food for a while, retest and see what results come back.
If they improved, then some adjustments to the raw food are needed, or a switch to canned food, or a bit of both.

Thank you! That’s a good idea, I’ll do that, hope it works, I feel bad because I feel like it’s my fault for doing it myself but maybe it’s better to switch to canned food.

 

[LTS3]

Are you using the Feline Nutrition recipe with bone or without?

 

[SusanaY]

Hello! With bone

 

[SusanaY]

Are you using the Feline Nutrition recipe with bone or without?

With bone

 

[lisahe]

Does that recipe have an option/alternative for using egg shell instead of bone? I try to avoid bone for our cats to avoid unnecessarily high phosphorus -- some commercial raw foods in the US have very high bone content! -- but also because one of our cats tends to get constipated. I use a premix supplement for homemade food that has egg shell in it for calcium.

 

[LTS3]

There is a bone-less version that uses either egg shell or other calcium source: https://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/making-raw-cat-food-for-do-it-yourselfers It's towards the end of the page.

 

[SusanaY]

There is a bone-less version that uses either egg shell or other calcium source: https://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/making-raw-cat-food-for-do-it-yourselfers It's towards the end of the page.

Thank you! I read this at catinfo.org that’s the reason why I bought my grinder, so I don’t kmow what to think anymore :

“I am a stickler for using fresh bone versus bone meal or calcium carbonate. You will not find a substitute source of calcium (bone meal, egg shells, etc.) that has all of the elements that are contained in fresh bone. Bone meal is heavily processed and the nutrients in the marrow will not survive the processing intact.

Plus, it is so easy to just grind the meat and bones together. And….deboning meat is not much fun and I do not advocate the feeding of pre-ground supermarket meat fed in the raw form. The bacterial load can put your cat at risk for severe illness.”

 

[SusanaY]

Does that recipe have an option/alternative for using egg shell instead of bone? I try to avoid bone for our cats to avoid unnecessarily high phosphorus -- some commercial raw foods in the US have very high bone content! -- but also because one of our cats tends to get constipated. I use a premix supplement for homemade food that has egg shell in it for calcium.

Thank you! I read this at catinfo.org that’s the reason why I bought my grinder, so I don’t kmow what to think anymore :

“I am a stickler for using fresh bone versus bone meal or calcium carbonate. You will not find a substitute source of calcium (bone meal, egg shells, etc.) that has all of the elements that are contained in fresh bone. Bone meal is heavily processed and the nutrients in the marrow will not survive the processing intact.

Plus, it is so easy to just grind the meat and bones together. And….deboning meat is not much fun and I do not advocate the feeding of pre-ground supermarket meat fed in the raw form. The bacterial load can put your cat at risk for severe illness.”

 

[lisahe]

Thank you! I read this at catinfo.org that’s the reason why I bought my grinder, so I don’t kmow what to think anymore :

“I am a stickler for using fresh bone versus bone meal or calcium carbonate. You will not find a substitute source of calcium (bone meal, egg shells, etc.) that has all of the elements that are contained in fresh bone. Bone meal is heavily processed and the nutrients in the marrow will not survive the processing intact.

Plus, it is so easy to just grind the meat and bones together. And….deboning meat is not much fun and I do not advocate the feeding of pre-ground supermarket meat fed in the raw form. The bacterial load can put your cat at risk for severe illness.”

Well... it's complicated! In our case, the bone really did seem to have been a problem for Ireland so I had to cut back on it. And some commercial foods are much higher in bone and phosphorus than they should be, too. (Ireland really really loved a food that was something like 20% bone, which is just absolutely crazy.)

We feed a combination of canned, homecooked, and commercial raw foods so the cats do get some bone in their commercial raw food. Some of their foods have egg shell calcium and some foods have bone or some sort of bone meal. But Ireland would be a very unhappy cat if I fed lots of bone to her!

In your cat's case, you might want to try talking more to your vet about what this test really says about your cat's health. I don't know if the numbers mean the calcium and phosphorous are out of balance but I know that's something to avoid. And I'm not sure what high cholesterol in cats means -- Dr. Pierson says cats handle fat well so I've never been too concerned about that. On the other hand, lowering fat in homemade food is probably fairly easy. (Some cuts of meat in the U.S. are so lean that I like to seek out fatty pork chops for some of the cats' food!)

One other thing I can say about Ireland is that when she had a blood test last December (just before having her teeth cleaned) her phosphorus came out a little above the reference number so the vet ran another test and then felt fine about the numbers. Unfortunately, I can't find the itemized receipt that would name those tests! Our vet knows that we feed the cats a very meaty diet (including some raw food) so she may have taken that into account, too.

In the end, it's really hard to know what to think about a lot of these things! Good luck!

 

[MissTuna]

Hi, I have a cat with kidney disease so I think I might weight in as well. First and foremost, I’d remit the bone in the recipe immediately. Bones have insanely (yes insanely) high amount of phosphorus. It’s fine with kittens and young cats cuz they do need that to grow but not good for adult cats or cats with elevated phos level. So I’d substitute that with calcium powder. The ratio is easily to be found online, mine is per 600-700g of meat and organ prepared, you need to add 3g of calcium carbonate (1200mg of CA). That’s why Dr Pierson don’t recommend CKD cats her recipe. I’d also avoid MOST commercial can food and dry food as those are also very high in phos due to most of the ingredients used are organ and bone meals (to cut cost ). Hope that helps

 

[MissTuna]

Also, I wouldn’t use bone meal per Lisa Pierson recommended as well, cuz you know phosphorus. Just stick to calcium carbonate.

 

[MissTuna]

In general, cats fed on a meat based diet with have elevated cholesterol and that is nothing to be worrying about (from my vet), but I don’t seem to be finding your cats BUN and Crea instead of just the range. Are those two numbers whiting normal range ? An elevated phos and cal level could be an early indicator of kidney disease, but without the BUN and CREA or an ultrasound there is nothing more I can tell.