L-LYSINE use in shelter- how?

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Melissa&Paul-Kyle

Melissa&Paul-Kyle

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The humane society/no-kill shleter where I volunteer and am on the board of directors is in need of controlling URI in multi cat rooms.

Set up is 2 seperate rooms of 25-50 cats in each room with 2 seperate outdoor enclosures they access 24/7. The 2 rooms can see each other but not touch. Outdoor enclosure is seperated by 3inch space between fencing.

Majority of food is, of course, dry kibble. Too many cats in one room/enclosure for shelter staff to reliably pill or treat each cat individually each day or even observe individual intake of lysine.

How is the L-lysine best distributed under these circumstances?

What brand/source is least expensive/most effective?

Thank you! (cross posted in community)
 
I don't really have an answer but would be interested. This supplement has been recomended to me for the stray that I have rescued and I see that it comes in powder form also. Maybe that might be the best idea for the shelter? I don't know but threw the thought out there....
 
The local county shelter here uses it for the cats that have herpes virus to stop virus shedding. 500mg once a day - they put it in small amount of wet food for each cat. When I took in the foster I started adding it to the food for everyone - the foster kitty happily browses everyone's dish before making inroads on his own. I crush 1-1000 mg pill and add contents of 1- 500mg capsule to the food - I usually use a mix of friskies pate and ff classics although sometimes it's a mix of home cooked chicken or canned salmon with friskies . I do it for both big meals. Foster kitty's eye has lost all the fogginess. My allergy kitty has all but stopped sneezing - and he had doozies of snot rockets before. This is for all four cats divided out equally (more or less).
The shelter is also slowly upgrading the quality of food as they can afford to- the ones who get the L-lysine each get about 1/4 ff can once a day with their 500mg dose.
 
Are the cats interacted with individually? Perhaps the gel or treat form can be given individually as someone goes from cat to cat given them a few scritches and pets.

A cat with a URI in a room of 25-50 sounds like a nightmare.
 
I was going to suggest trying to add it to the water. Or mixing a small amount of water with the dry food, stir it up, sprinkle the lysine powder on and stir again. Or buying it in the treat form, except that you need to give like 5 treats per day for a full dose of lysine that way, so that's probably going to be the most expensive, but you can give it to the cat that needs it most and be sure they're getting a full dose that way.

The gel is messy and a total pain to give...I wouldn't recommend that one unless it's a case of needing to be sure one or two specific cats get a full dose...and you like getting your hands dirty. I only had to give it to one cat and it was more than I wanted to deal with.

I buy the big jar of the powder form (so I don't have to crush tablets) and mix 1/4 tsp of it in with my two cats' food once a day. Or almost once a day. There are some days where it doesn't happen--too much chaos in my house. But Truman's eye is doing fine on that dose, and Max doesn't seem to be having any side effects from getting some of the lysine (they share a food bowl, so they both get it).

This is the powder I use, recommended by someone else on FDMB... http://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods-Lysine- ... 381&sr=8-1
 
that is what I use also melissa. the powder for twinkie. I give everyday sometimes bid (mostly). does work best when sprinkled in wet food. cannot guarantee cats will drink the water. if they get individual bowl (which I doubt) then water with dry would work to make kind of a gravy
 
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