Need Help Making Homemade Raw Food For Urinary Problems

[Ardeshir The Great]

Hello There,
A little warning: I don't speak English very well so please, bear with me if you can.
If you don't want to read the long post, please skip to the last part!

I have a 4 and half-year-old girl, Ardeshir, that I'd give my everything for.
I'm here to ask for help/tips in making homemade raw food for her, she's had 5-6 urinary issues in the past 2 years mostly caused due to my lack of knowledge on the matter and that I was only 17 years old when all of this started.

If that's not enough, we also don't live in a very advanced country. So the availability of high-quality cat food/commercial raw food and 'up to date' vets is not good, in fact, it is horrible. (Imagine how misinformed some US-based vets are, they are 10 times worse here).
Keep in mind that even though my cat has been having this issue about 5-6 times, her urine has never been tested by the vet! (Yes, the vets are THAT bad.) All that I know, is that she never required surgery, and every time the problem goes away after a week of antibiotics. That's all I know.

Anyway,
She had her first encounter a week after I first started feeding her dry food, 2 years ago. The vet found two 'blood clots' in her bladder, put her on antibiotics and prescribed Royal Canin 'Urinary Care' Dry food be fed for life.
That was when I first started looking up the issue online and realized what I had done to my cat (before that, she used to eat steamed chicken breast for 3 years with no problems).

I found this recipe for homemade raw food and decided to feed her this instead of the dry 'Urinary Care' food. I also added extra water to the food. I did not feed her the raw food for more than a day or two. Unfortunately, she started having the same symptoms again with the raw food (while getting antibiotics), and another week of nightmares began for both of us.

I panicked, gave up, and started feeding her the Royal Canin 'Urinary Care' OR 'Urinary S/O' wet food. She's fine when fed either one of them. After 6 months of the 'Urinary Care' wet food, I tried going back to the steamed chicken breast. But, once again, the issue came back.
Long story short, every time I try to feed her a different food, the issue comes back, but I never tried raw food again.

As you can see the situation is quite complicated... But I have decided to make the effort to make the raw food diet work for her, for these reasons:
1. The Royal Canin wet foods are no longer being imported into my country. I only have food for the next 15 days.
2. The food costs about $500 per month for me.
3. Ardeshir hates the food!
4. I hate the food!
5. Ardeshir LOVES raw chicken.
--

So, I guess what I'm asking of you is to help me figure out maybe how to modify the above recipe for a cat that has urinary issues.
What are the 'general' rules?
Is lowering the bone content a good idea? Should I add something like DL-Methionine?
Keep in mind that the 'Urinary Care' food which she is healthy with, does NOT include DL-Methionine. Maybe that rules out the possibility of Idiopathic stones?

I understand that nobody here is a vet, but I just need some insight, or at least someone to share their experience with me, so I can decide a little more confidently.

Thank you very much beforehand

 

[Furballsmom]

Hello! Your English is very good!

Here are two posts on the dl methionine,

Do You Know Of A Elusive Kind Of Cat Food.... ?

Crystals & Diet Questions

Here are two posts regarding bone content.

A quote from 1 bruce 1 "Most raw feeders go for 10% bone but cats sometimes require much less to keep things, ah..."moving" right along."

Anyone Have Info On Dairy As A Laxative?

 

[kittyluv387]

What's your cat's urinary issue? Does she pee blood? Goes to pee frequently...or??? Your English is fantastic.

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

Hello! Your English is very good!

Here are two posts on the dl methionine,

Do You Know Of A Elusive Kind Of Cat Food.... ?

Crystals & Diet Questions

Here are two posts regarding bone content.

A quote from 1 bruce 1 "Most raw feeders go for 10% bone but cats sometimes require much less to keep things, ah..."moving" right along."

Anyone Have Info On Dairy As A Laxative?

Hey! Thank you so much for the posts. So apparently around 7% to 10% bone content is the 'normal' range, but how can I be sure that even that is not too much? I guess in other words: what are the consequences of feeding her too much bone that she needs? Only constipation? I'm a little too careful on this because of this article, where the cat was fed too much bone and developed some urinary issues...

What's your cat's urinary issue? Does she pee blood? Goes to pee frequently...or??? Your English is fantastic.

Thank you so much!
So the symptoms are like this,
First I only see small urine drops (never bloody) near her litterbox; if I don't take her to the vet and start the antibiotics she proceeds to the next symptoms:
Frequent urinating,
Small amounts of urine,
Crying when peeing.

The first and second time that I saw urine drops, I took her to the vet right away, the vet touched her kidneys and she started screaming in pain.
The next time I decided to hold off on taking her to the vet and wait for other symptoms, and she only got worse, but even then she could urinate in small amounts.

I have never seen blood in her urine.
If it helps, a month ago, I decided to take a complete blood test from her to make sure her kidneys are healthy, and her BUN levels were normal.

The first time (dry food) the vet said it was 'blood clots' in her bladder,
The second time (raw food) he said it was 'Cystic' - But don't think that's the correct translation, I think he probably meant Cystitis.
Third time (steamed chicken) he said it was 'sand' in her bladder - Again, he could've just meant crystals, since she got well after only antibiotics.

The next times, neither I or the vet can really remember. For some of them, he didn't even do an ultrasound or x-rays, just always straight to antibiotics and Rowatinex pills.

 

[Furballsmom]

This post addresses effects of too much bone;

Is This Too Much Bone?

I'm not sure, but thought this might help?
Too much bone?

 

[kittyluv387]

Normally I would say try less bone. Like 7%. But she had issues even on just steamed chicken meat so I’m not sure what the issue is. I wish I were a vet. But does she get enough water? I add extra water to my cats’ wet and raw foods. The consistency is like porridge.

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

Normally I would say try less bone. Like 7%. But she had issues even on just steamed chicken meat so I’m not sure what the issue is. I wish I were a vet. But does she get enough water? I add extra water to my cats’ wet and raw foods. The consistency is like porridge.

Yes, I remember adding extra water to the raw food, so I'm not so sure if the water is the issue here...

Is it possible that the ash content was the issue?
I mean, if water intake is not the problem, and she does not need DL-Methionine to be well (since RC Urinary Care does not have it), then the only special thing about the prescribed food is that it's low in ash, am I right? Is there a way to lower them in the raw food? I'm just shooting in the dark here though! I've probably got it all wrong!

This post addresses effects of too much bone;

Is This Too Much Bone?

I'm not sure, but thought this might help?
Too much bone?

Alright, so it seems that constipation is the result. I will probably go with 7% to be on the safe side...
I have another question that's terribly confusing me though...
So too much bone causes problems, then I should add more meat (phosphorus), but isn't phosphorus a cause for struvite stones? I'm so confused.

As a side note; Thank you both for helping me You are both incredible human beings.

 

[Furballsmom]

I don't blame you for being concerned. I don't know if there is any help in these, maybe the last one. You could perhaps private message the poster of that last one and ask for specifics?;

Makers Of Raw Food - Be Wary Of Bone % Info Found On The Internet!

Best Food To Prevent Kidney Disease In The Future

Radcat's Fda Woes

Help!! Radcat Going Out Of Business And I Need To Make Low Phosphorus Food

 

[kittyluv387]

Phosphorus is in meat but it is concentrated mostly in teeth and bone for humans so I assume it’s similar for other animals too. If you make food that is higher in fat the phosphorus content will be lower. If you use eggshell powder instead of bone phosphorus content will be lower too.

To my untrained eye the only thing that sticks out to me is marigold extract in the urinary food. It has anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

Phosphorus is in meat but it is concentrated mostly in teeth and bone for humans so I assume it’s similar for other animals too. If you make food that is higher in fat the phosphorus content will be lower. If you use eggshell powder instead of bone phosphorus content will be lower too.

To my untrained eye the only thing that sticks out to me is marigold extract in the urinary food. It has anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.

Oh, okay I was thinking " bone = calcium, meat = phosphorus. " according to this.
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but by lowering the bone to 7% then I'm lowering the phosphorus amount too anyway, right? No need to use eggshell powder?
I also plan to use chicken thighs, which has fat.

 

[kittyluv387]

Oh, okay I was thinking " bone = calcium, meat = phosphorus. " according to this.
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but by lowering the bone to 7% then I'm lowering the phosphorus amount too anyway, right? No need to use eggshell powder?
I also plan to use chicken thighs, which has fat.

Yeah there's no need unless your cat starts showing signs of kidney disease.

 

[kittyluv387]

Oh and I did see that part of catinfo.org before. She's not wrong meat has a good amount of phosphorus. But bone has more. I think bone does have more calcium than phosphorus, so maybe that's why?

Here they measured calcium and phosphorus of various animal parts:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...3134860&pid=1-s2.0-S199576451060096X-main.pdf

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

kittyluv387 That chart is quite interesting! So according to that, you are right, there is more phosphorus in bone than in meat, and much more calcium in bone than in meat. With the fat in the chicken thighs, I guess I'm a little less concerned about the phosphorus amount now.
Thank you for the help! I really do appreciate it.

When I was reading this article, I started wondering if the same happened to Ardeshir. That maybe I should've fed her the prescribed food while she was getting her antibiotics, and then fed her raw food. Maybe the raw food wasn't the problem after all.

I think I'm out of questions for now, I'm going to start making the food in the next couple of days and will report back here with the results, fingers crossed that they will be good

Thank you so much again, and also Furballsmom for all the info.

 

[Furballsmom]

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

So I have to delay the making of the food a little until after the holidays are over in my country, to be able to get fresher meat and also to make sure my vet is available.

In the meanwhile, I have another stupid and embarrassing question to ask! Can anyone please tell me how to exactly get 7% bone content with the catinfo.org recipe? (using only chicken thighs, not carcass or rabbit)

I'm just... anxious about this, to be honest. I'm afraid to have misunderstood something and harm my cat. So if anyone can give me instructions on how to do this I would appreciate it so much!

Thank you

 

[kittyluv387]

So I have to delay the making of the food a little until after the holidays are over in my country, to be able to get fresher meat and also to make sure my vet is available.

In the meanwhile, I have another stupid and embarrassing question to ask! Can anyone please tell me how to exactly get 7% bone content with the catinfo.org recipe? (using only chicken thighs, not carcass or rabbit)

I'm just... anxious about this, to be honest. I'm afraid to have misunderstood something and harm my cat. So if anyone can give me instructions on how to do this I would appreciate it so much!

Thank you

It isn’t stupid at all. Most people don’t know what bone percentage her recipe yields. I think her recipes are based on approximately 10% bone per my calculations that I did right now if we use the estimation of bone being 15% of the chicken thigh.
Bone.jpg

Of course this can vary from chicken to chicken and you won’t know for sure unless you debone everything and weigh the bones. It looks like you’ll get about 7.6% of bone if you take out bones from 50% of your thighs. My calculations are based on the assumption of 1oz of liver per pound of meat and bone. If you add more liver then your bone percentage will be lower. I’m going to consult with someone more knowledgeable than me about this to see if this sounds right.

 

[1 bruce 1]

So I have to delay the making of the food a little until after the holidays are over in my country, to be able to get fresher meat and also to make sure my vet is available.

In the meanwhile, I have another stupid and embarrassing question to ask! Can anyone please tell me how to exactly get 7% bone content with the catinfo.org recipe? (using only chicken thighs, not carcass or rabbit)

I'm just... anxious about this, to be honest. I'm afraid to have misunderstood something and harm my cat. So if anyone can give me instructions on how to do this I would appreciate it so much!

Thank you

I can't offer any instructions, but I think your English is just fine and this is not a stupid question at all. No such thing I'd be interested to know how to get that exact content as well.
We had a dog show a spike in kidney function, so we erased bone entirely from the diet for 4 weeks. We fed meat, organs (kidney, spleen, pancreas, liver), and organ-like meat (heart, lung, tripe, tongue, etc. aren't organs), and in 4 weeks the values for this dog were perfect.
If something like Alnutrin is available where you're at, you might be interested in it as they do make a mix for a diet that's boneless (just meat and organs) and the mix contains calcium, egg yolk, vitamins, etc.
We have a female spayed cat with cystitis. Any dry food sets her off, it's inflammation of the bladder and not a true infection from what I understand.
In her case, the cause is food but this can be caused by other things too, even stress. Have there been any changes around your home lately, or do you notice other cats hanging around your house? If she's territorial and upset by this, this might be a small key to the puzzle.

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

I can't offer any instructions, but I think your English is just fine and this is not a stupid question at all. No such thing I'd be interested to know how to get that exact content as well.
We had a dog show a spike in kidney function, so we erased bone entirely from the diet for 4 weeks. We fed meat, organs (kidney, spleen, pancreas, liver), and organ-like meat (heart, lung, tripe, tongue, etc. aren't organs), and in 4 weeks the values for this dog were perfect.
If something like Alnutrin is available where you're at, you might be interested in it as they do make a mix for a diet that's boneless (just meat and organs) and the mix contains calcium, egg yolk, vitamins, etc.
We have a female spayed cat with cystitis. Any dry food sets her off, it's inflammation of the bladder and not a true infection from what I understand.
In her case, the cause is food but this can be caused by other things too, even stress. Have there been any changes around your home lately, or do you notice other cats hanging around your house? If she's territorial and upset by this, this might be a small key to the puzzle.

Hey thank you for the input! Unfortunately, I don't have access to any kind of premade mix or anything like that, not only that, I'm soon not going to have access to any kind of prescription canned food either because of the political situation my country is in. They just aren't being imported anymore, hence why I'm trying to figure out this raw diet. I seriously don't know what to do if this doesn't work
And about stress; she's always been indoor and we live on the third floor, so no interaction with other cats (other than very rare occasions of 'talking' with stray cats on rooftops and such!) but no there haven't been any serious sort of changes or anything. She doesn't like guests, but we don't have a lot of guests either.

I'm quite certain it's the diet that's causing it, because every single time that I change it, even to something that she used to be fine with (steamed chicken breast) she gets issues again.

 

[Ardeshir The Great]

It isn’t stupid at all. Most people don’t know what bone percentage her recipe yields. I think her recipes are based on approximately 10% bone per my calculations that I did right now if we use the estimation of bone being 15% of the chicken thigh.
Bone.jpg

Of course this can vary from chicken to chicken and you won’t know for sure unless you debone everything and weigh the bones. It looks like you’ll get about 7.6% of bone if you take out bones from 50% of your thighs. My calculations are based on the assumption of 1oz of liver per pound of meat and bone. If you add more liver then your bone percentage will be lower. I’m going to consult with someone more knowledgeable than me about this to see if this sounds right.

Ohh okay, so this is quite different with what I was thinking of doing (removing 20% of the bones), good thing I asked!
Thank you so much for this, take your time with the consulting

 

[1 bruce 1]

Hey thank you for the input! Unfortunately, I don't have access to any kind of premade mix or anything like that, not only that, I'm soon not going to have access to any kind of prescription canned food either because of the political situation my country is in. They just aren't being imported anymore, hence why I'm trying to figure out this raw diet. I seriously don't know what to do if this doesn't work
And about stress; she's always been indoor and we live on the third floor, so no interaction with other cats (other than very rare occasions of 'talking' with stray cats on rooftops and such!) but no there haven't been any serious sort of changes or anything. She doesn't like guests, but we don't have a lot of guests either.

I'm quite certain it's the diet that's causing it, because every single time that I change it, even to something that she used to be fine with (steamed chicken breast) she gets issues again.

You're very welcome. I'm sorry I'm not much help
This is a mystery, it's very strange that something as simple as steamed chicken would cause such a problem for her.
For urinary issues, even the most inexpensive canned food is better than the highest quality dry. Do you have access to a canned cat food that she likes and does OK on (as far as you know) that isn't prescription, until you can get things sorted out for her raw diet?