Carol I've been thinking a lot about Murphy ever since I saw your post earlier today ... And noting that he'd been dx'd with hepatic lipidosis back in 2011, I'm thinking you may be spot-on about this; his liver may not be handling the fats in canned foods well at all.
Hi Robin - thank you so much for sending this - I hadn't read this, and it is really interesting. My sister bringing her cat to stay for a week is what prompted the hepatic lipidosis and he sure has developed food aversions since then. The tiki cat chicken I am giving him now is basically nothing but chicken (looks just like shredded chicken) and very low fat - I puree it - I can't say he loves it - but with encouragement will sometimes eat a bit - so I'm taking it slowly. I'll see how this goes - I'll look into the roasted chicken idea - I don't have a crock pot so not sure how to use one. You just put a whole raw chicken in there? could I just buy already skinned chicken pieces? (I can't stand touching raw meat- it makes me feel badly for the animal) where did you get the taurine and arginine? I joined a Facebook site for IBD kitties thinking someone there would have some ideas - someone mentioned carrageenan as a possible cause - it's in almost all canned cat foods - so luckily Tiki Cat doesn't have that either. So I'm going to try to see if this little experiment with pure chicken, low fat and no carrageenan will work Now I just have to get him to eat itCarol I've been thinking a lot about Murphy ever since I saw your post earlier today ... And noting that he'd been dx'd with hepatic lipidosis back in 2011, I'm thinking you may be spot-on about this; his liver may not be handling the fats in canned foods well at all.
So ... a question (which may seem a dumb question if you've already tried this, but here goes): Have you ever tried roasting a whole chicken in a crock-pot (remove the skin first), then tearing it apart and grinding it up in a food processor (basically making it into a pate)? I know you'd need to add both taurine and arginine (amino acids that are essential for cats). But the reason I'm mentioning this is because - when our dog had liver cancer - I learned that plain chicken is far easier on the liver - and easier on the digestive tract in general. (So I was roasting a whole chicken for her every week, and putting it into the freezer in single-portion containers. She lived a very good quality of life for a full year, despite the terminal cancer, on this diet, along with a couple of supplements she needed - the vet was astounded.)
You've probably already seen everything there is to read about hepatic lipidosis, but I read an interesting article about it today - so have attached it here in pdf format, just in case it might help a little (specifically re: amounts of the amino acid supplements needed if you were to make food for him yourself).
Carol, green!!!Congrats!
almost a black this am and his appetite not so great so I'm not celebrating - but at least I know it's possible again - how are things at Chez Sharon?Carol, green!!!
Well, I didn't need it, because I was feeding a dog, but the article tells you thte amount, and you can get those supplements at any health food store, I believe ...
Oh, I know how you feel; I hate that, too. But finally got myself to the point where I said, "This chicken is already dead and I'm not the one who did it; besides, my dog needs this food. So I silently thanked the dead chicken for his sacrifice ... and moved on from there.
) Yep, you could use already-skinned chicken pieces, too - but really, a whole chicken is a lot more more economical. (We were using organic chicken - kinda pricey, so had to save where I could.) And you can just roast it in an oven; I just used a crock-pot because I already had one, and that's kind of a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing; made it super-easy!
