Raw diet for cat with urinary issues?

[molldee]

I have three cats: Bowie (7 years old), Buddha (6 years old), and Izzie (6 years old). Bowie has feline herpes and I give him L-Lysine as a supplement every other night. Buddha has a history of urinary blockages but got the PU surgery last  year, and since has had one UTI or sterile cystitis, the vet couldn't tell. Izzie has trouble with hairballs because she is a fluffy Maine Coon mix.

I want to start feeding my cats raw but I don't know where to begin. I think I'm more nervous than I should be... I'm just scared I won't be adding the right ingredients together and then one of my cats gets ill from it. Anyway, I was thinking of starting with a commercial raw food like Nature's Variety frozen raw. Or Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw. I tried giving them a chicken leg a few weeks ago, but they turned up their noses.

My question is, would raw food be okay for a cat with struvite crystals? Is raw food low phosphorus and naturally acidic?

 

[ritz]

Raw diet is good for cats with UTIs; however, there are different causes of UTIs, so I'm wondering why your vet couldn't tell what type of UTI your cat had.  For example, Ritz has stress-induced UTIs.  The last UTI she had was bacteria, not crystals.

There is a LOT of information, links in this forum.  A chcken leg is kind of big.  If you eat meat, you could just put a piece of meat down on the floor/in their food bowl and see if they eat it.  Don't make a big deal out of it, cats will pick up on that!

I inititally fed Ritz commercial raw to see if she would like Raw and to give me some time to further research this type of feeding.

There are good commercial raw products that look like canned food. At catcentric.org there is a chart that compares all the commercial raw products.  RadCat gts high marks.

Raw meat is natural acidifier, which is why a raw diet is useful in lowering the pH level. 

In post #4 of 7, there is a list of foods with high L-methionine. Don't go overboard; too low of a pH level can cause oxalyte crystals, which have to removed by surgery.

I don't know much about phosphorus (um, maybe I should!), though there are some rather technical discussions about phosphorus and bone in this thread.  I'll let another expert answer this question.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[molldee]

The vet couldn't take a sample or urine because he didn't have any in his bladder.

 

[peaches08]

I have no experience with urine crystals whatsoever, and I have an irrational fear of it with my boys since I always had female cats prior to these. When I read about Opie from www.catinfo.org, I remember the one thing she stressed was water. So I add at least twice as much water to the recipe than Dr. P says to. And I got a bunch of peeing machines over here because of it.

Phosphorus is a major component of both meat and bone, and I am used to it needing to be reduced in renal patients. Does it truly need to be reduced or just balanced when dealing with lower urinary tract issues? I truly don't know.

 

[mschauer]

My question is, would raw food be okay for a cat with struvite crystals? Is raw food low phosphorus and naturally acidic?

One of cats having a bout with struvite crystals was precisely why I switched to a raw diet. A diet of raw meat does usually result in urine acidic enough to prevent the formation of struvite crystals. I have heard of cases though of cats on a 100% raw diet (no grains or veggies added)  that still developed the crystals. My cat has been crystal free since the switch to raw almost 6 years ago.

A raw diet isn't necessarily low in phosphorus though. Why do you need that? Do you have a CRF kitty?

 

[ldg]

"Prescription" urinary diets target a neutral to slightly-acidic urine pH and lower phosphorus and lower magnesium than "regular" "urinary health" foods, which just have a urine acidifier in them, but the science on this is conflicting at best.

Here is a review, published back in 2001, but it explains the issues well: http://www.ebvet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28

Since then, it is possible to find studies showing magnesium contributes to the problem, or doesn't contribute to the problem. The one conclusion every review has? The more water there is, the less likely there is to be a problem. Another thing in which every review or study piece seems to include is that urine pH is the most important factor, and a urine pH of less than 6.4 is ideal; though going too low then puts the cat at risk for calcium oxalate crystals (though these can form in any urine pH). Yes, it is a confounding problem.

In fact, there are so many factors at play, attention to environment, stress, and environmental enrichment seem to be the most effective (after proper urine pH and water) at managing FLUTD.

http://www.hillscampus.it/files/sim...ors in feline lower urinary tract disease.pdf UC Davis brochure, current

A raw diet, in the absence of other factors, targets a urine pH of 6.25 - 6.5. It naturally has a moisture content of about 70% - before adding more water. Obviously these makes sense, as cats as a species shouldn't be dying off due to urinary tract blockages. Regular hairballs, even in long-haired cats, also are not "normal." Cats are not owls, designed to hock up parts of animals they ingest. Everything should be coming out the other end. Repeated vomiting of hairballs can damage the esophagus.

My three boys, all of whom had blockages on non-prescription kibble were fine on an all canned food diet - I paid no attention to phosphorus or magnesium. I did add extra water. They've been on a raw diet for almost 2 years now, and they all continue to do fine.

The one exception is my female, Spooky. She has stress-related idiopathic cystitis. She does get struvite crystals, but that's because her stress raises her urine pH. I manage this by adding methionine to her diet myself. I keep track of her urine pH with test strips at home. (I just hold it in her pee stream as she goes). I keep trying various methods of de-stressing her; I've just ordered a new calming collar. We'll see. Our home is stressful for her with 8 cats in a small space. As they're all feral rescues, we just do our best.

Feeding homemade raw can definitely be overwhelming at first. Or feel that way. I started with a commercial raw, and I think that's a good choice. Nature's Variety is OK. It has a high bone content, which can be a constipation problem for some cats. Most commercial diets (apart from Rad Cat) are rather high in fat - that's why they're as affordable as they are (and why Rad Cat is more expensive). But as it's safe to feed up to 15% of the diet unbalanced, you can feed Nature's Variety - use it as a transition tool - and give them some plain meat several times a week to "cut down" the total bone content they ingest.

I make my own food, and alternate between eggshell powder and freeze dried bone (calcium hydroxyapatite) as the "bone" replacement (source of calcium and other minerals). This works well for us.

The bottom line is that it takes time for nutritional deficiencies to develop. If you start with commercial, and slowly transition to whatever type of homemade you want to use, you don't have to get it right immediately out of the starting gate. We as humans don't eat every single meal balanced and complete.

If you go with ground, there are recipes already designed that we know are properly balanced, so there's really no worries there.

If you go with PMR, or a variation thereof (which is what we do for the most part), you can slowly introduce it while feeding commercial. I still feed some ground food - I use it to get the egg yolks they hate into them. :lol3:

There's no rush, it's not a race - and the more variety the better. The diet doesn't even have to be 100% raw. Even some raw meals when feeding canned improves their overall health.

 

[peaches08]

I wonder if the inclusion of gizzards a few times a week would help with bladder inflammation? The chondroitin and all...

 

[ldg]

I would think so. :nod: Spooky doesn't like them, so doesn't help us.

 

[peaches08]

Mine won't sit and eat a bowl of them, but they'll eat a small piece with each chicken thighs meal. Well, except Gadget. He'll eat anything.

 

[ldg]

Yeah, Spook won't even eat a little sliver hidden in other food. :lol3: