Home Cooked Food For Kitty With Lazy/irritable Bowels?

[adrianne259]

Hello to all wonderful cat lovers!
I've been having numerous issues with my dearest kitty and I'm looking for suggestions. I searched the forum and didn't really find the answer to my question, but if there is one and I missed it, please share it with me
Anyway, my kitty has trouble with food allergies and since last summer, her stomach began to give us trouble as well. The final diagnosis is that she has lazy/irritable bowels and that she probably had a bad reaction to low-fiber diet she was on (she ate only hypoallergenic food for two years). The only food that helped her was Royal Canin's Fibre Response Gastrointestinal food, however, the problems came back a few weeks ago. There is no canned option for this food, and I have to increase her water intake.
She has trouble passing the stool - she is not really constipated, but sometimes the stool stays at the end of her colon etc. As I'm very limited when it comes to commercial foods - and ordering food online isn't an option, as I live in Serbia and - for different reasons - stores don't deliver pet food here, so I'm "doomed" to foods that the local businesses choose to import. Hence, I chose to try home-cooked, or even raw.

Thus, I'm looking for recommendations, or to be more precise, recipes I need to include more fiber in her food, so I'm not sure if a raw diet will work? When the issue started, I included home-cooked pumpkin in her diet, but this didn't do the trick. What other ingredients could I include to make her stools bulky and soft and easier to pass? She is also allergic to chicken, so I have to avoid it if at all possible.

Thanks everyone for reading to the end of the post

 

[Furballsmom]

There will be other readers able to provide you with links to recipes here on this site, also you could check catinfo.org for info but in the meantime you could consider adding goat milk to her diet along with the increased water and see if that helps with hydration of her system. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

 

[adrianne259]

Furballsmom Thank you I did try goat's milk, but I have a very special kitty - she refused all the things most cats like (yogurt, cheese), and goat's milk is among those things. I will try to find high-quality, home-made goat's milk, but that is easier said than done. She usually refuses products that are not completely fresh - I can use her as a live tester for the quality of meat, for example

 

[karrotlover]

My cat is allergic to chicken meat (will scratch himself until he bleeds) -- I know this from homemaking his food. BUT egg yolk does him wonders for constipation and does not cause him any trouble. Different proteins I believe. My kitty gets homecooked pork with a supplement mix called EZ Complete fur Cats. When I use a cut of pork that does not have enough fat on it, he tends to get constipated. I started mixing in 1/4 teaspoon of egg yolk (that I buy in powder form, but you can easily just hardboil eggs) into his day's worth of food and he never has constipation issues. I've tried pumpkin before and never saw real results.

 

[Ardina]

The recipe I use is this one (halfway down the page): Easy Raw Diet Feeding for the Busy Person - Feline Nutrition Foundation. I get preground meat from Hare Today and add boneless meat and organs to get to an 80% meat, 10% bone, and 10% organ ratio. Then I add the supplements from the recipe to balance it, portion all the meat into tupperware containers and freeze. Then, I thaw one container each day to feed to my cats.

If you don't have access to preground meat from someplace like Hare Today that ensures that the meat is immediately frozen, I would get a grinder to grind up your own meat with bone from the grocery store.

 

[adrianne259]

karrotlover I've heard of the wonders of egg yolk, but never tried it so far - I think I will have to now! Pumpkin might be a bit overrated, I think
Ardina My girl is as picky as they come! She won't eat meat that has been frozen - even if I cook it - nor meat that is not completely fresh, which is why I gave up trying to feed her raw meat multiple times. However, I will probably give it another go, though. Do you maybe have a suggestion about adding more fiber to the mix?

 

[lisahe]

Egg yolk can be helpful for a lot of things, including motility and hair ball prevention but I use it primarily to entice our pickier eater to eat: she loves having a little egg yolk powder on her food! I mention that because maybe if your cat likes it, adrianne259, he'd eat meat that's been frozen? Our cats also prefer their home-cooked food before it's been frozen but that's not practical (contrary to what they think, I am not running a cat cafe!) so I just sprinkle things on top instead.

Good luck!

 

[Furballsmom]

Heh, lisahe , sure you are, menus and everything just like at this house

 

[lisahe]

Heh, lisahe , sure you are, menus and everything just like at this house

Okay, you got me! I do often call myself "Cat Catering." (And yes, if you could see how I put the little portions of home-cooked food into the freezer so they're in order that gives these diva cats maximum variety... though you don't need to see it because things are probably similar at your house!)

 

[Furballsmom]

Yep, exactly!

 

[Ardina]

Wow, she refuses to eat meat that has been frozen, huh? That certainly makes things harder! Hopefully lisahe's suggestion of toppers helps with that because making fresh mixes every few days is pretty impractical for most people.

Fiber-wise, I'm not really sure. My experience has been that Saipha had bulkier and smellier stool on dry/canned food. On raw, her stool is very small and dry with no smell. Even though it's harder, she isn't constipated and never strains because they're so small and thin and therefore easier to pass. So I'm not sure whether large soft stool (high fiber) or small dry stool (low fiber, raw) would be easier for your cat to pass.

 

[adrianne259]

Nope, I don't think anything will get my girl to eat frozen meat She doesn't like egg yolk (she eats around it). I will continue to try out things, I would very much like to keep her away from dried food, especially the Royal Canin as she itches like crazy when she eats it. Unfortunately, I can't really afford to feed her top quality canned food, their price is quite high here in Serbia Ardina I'm really not sure about anything anymore Something seems to work for her for a few days and then she gets constipated again. She is also obviously afraid of pooping as she strains herself a lot, there is usually pain afterward etc, so I believe that she is holding it in as well - which is a whole different problem for us.

 

[lisahe]

That's too bad about the egg yolk! That's been such an amazing addition for our picky cat.

 

[Furballsmom]

I don't know if anyone mentioned or you're already familiar with Dr lisa pierson's catinfo.org. She gets into the subject of cat food, home made and otherwise, in incredible detail. Best of luck!!

 

[adrianne259]

Yes, I know of catinfo.org, but I never got to reading it in more detail. So obviously, now's the time. Thank you Furballsmom !
lisahe I will try to mix it in the anti-hairball paste that she adores. She even started liking some things after having them combined with this. Thank you for reminding me of that Also, I can't find powdered yolk for animals in my country, but I see that bodybuilders eat powdered yolk for the protein Any chance this is equally good? I can, of course, boil an egg and give her the yolk but this is not really practical as she needs only a little and I can't keep it fresh for a long period of time...

 

[lisahe]

I don't know much about anything to do with bodybuilders so can't comment on their egg yolk protein powder but I do remember that there's a recipe for making your own! It's here: link! I buy this company's powder and am glad to avoid the process of making it but I'm sure it's tons cheaper to make your own. Particularly compared with what shipping would cost to Romania! And have fun reading catinfo.org, there's so much helpful information there!

 

[adrianne259]

Lol! It might be better to keep her away from bodybuilding, it is alreday almost impossible to take her to the vet or give her any meds
However, 10hours in the oven! Wow! Actually - and I know this sounds weird - it would be great if I lived in Romania (I'm actually in Serbia, a neighboring country, easy to confuse), as it is a part of the EU and people there actually have access to pet supplies sold on Amazon etc. When it comes to getting high quality products, I sometimes feel I'd have more luck if I lived on the moon . Anyhow, thanks a bunch for the reading materials, hopefully something will turn up

 

[lisahe]

Sorry about that, adrianne259 , I was mixing up your situation with someone's on another current thread, where there are limited possibilities of buying something in Romania!

Yes, I hope something turns up for you!

 

[adrianne259]

Don't worry about it! thanks again for sharing!

 

[adrianne259]

By the way, any opinion on psyllium? Cats & Psyllium
I see a number of gastrointestinal foods have it as an ingredient and from what I read, it does wonders for humans and animals alike...