Walking the extra mile on nutrition for cats (Szetoo Weiwen’s sharing)

Szetoo Weiwen was a first-time rescuer when she first wrote to me. She found 4 kittens (later named Bruce, Jet, Donnie and Jackie – all after martial arts exponents) abandoned in a box, and though she went back 3 nights, hoping to find the mum-cat, she ended up fostering all four of them. She took them to the vet’s, she learnt as much as she could through the internet, etc.

http://myanimalcare.org/2011/07/20/a-young-rescuer-with-4-kittens/

She thought the kittens were ready for adoption and placed their profiles on petfinder.my. It was unfortunate that someone responded; and it was someone who claimed he had had “lots of experience” nursing young kittens. Bruce became a victim of this adopter. Despite Weiwen’s best and desperate efforts to take Bruce back (the adopter even refused to open his door when Weiwen and her (then) boyfriend went to the adopter’s house), it was too late to save Bruce.

http://myanimalcare.org/2011/08/12/beware-of-such-adopters-bruce-is-gone/

Comments from some readers were a bit harsh for a young first-timer. Despite that and the heartache of losing Bruce, Weiwen was not dejected nor did she give up.

I must say I was extremely impressed by her perseverance and determination to right a wrong and do better almost immediately. She buried herself into as much literature as she could about caring for kittens and vowed she would not put Jackie, Donnie and Jet up for adoption; she would adopt them herself.

It’s been 7 months now, and Weiwen has just got married (our heartiest congratutions!). A few days ago, George, her husband wrote to tell me he had banked in a donation to AnimalCare on the occasion of their wedding (thank you so much!) because they are thankful I’d been there for them during those initial weeks, especially after losing Bruce.

This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Weiwen. Our young rescuer has learnt up so much about nutrition in her determination to give nothing but the best to Jackie, Donnie and Jet.

Here’s her sharing:

Hi Kah Yein!

Long time no write because I’ve been terribly busy and because I always had a lot to say I wanted to find a proper time where I could sit down and write you a long post. Anyway I read your recent post about transitioning from dry kibble and I thought I’d share my experience with you. My three kittens are now 7 months old and I’ve already gotten them all spayed.

In the past few months since our last email exchange about cat food, I’ve read up tons and tons of articles about homecooked/raw food and it made me more determined than ever to get them off kibble for good. After reading many recipes I started making my own homecooked cat food by boiling whole chickens with a small amount of zucchini, parsley, carrot and pumpkin, shredding them and then blending them with lightly cooked organs. Very tedious work but I my supply would last for 3-5 days.

Then I remembered reading that you fed them raw so I researched on that and you mentioned that you got your supply from Pet Epicure so I went to them and bought BARF from them two weeks ago. At that time, only one out of my three cats would eat cooked food while the other two hated it but I guess you have to treat them like children. If you don’t want to eat, go hungry.

The BARF from Pet Epicure smelled heavily of apple cider and my other two cats would not touch it at all even when mixed with their blended cooked food. I slowly mixed in the BARF in small amounts, now it’s 70% BARF and 30% cooked food. Even my cooked food is not hundred percent cooked. I lightly boil them for 3-5 minutes before blending them.

Yes its a slight hassle to heat up the food every morning and night(what I do is boil water in a wok and then switch off the flame and place the food in a plate in the wok to allow the heat to lightly steam it so that it will heat up the food without cooking it) plus people think I’m crazy for doing so much for them. I realize I need to be consistent in what I feed them daily or else they become picky if I start feeding something else one or two days in a row. Not sure how to go for long trips in the future.

I even purchased powdered Taurine and Bone Powder from US (reliable recommended brands by those who prepare homecooked food as well) but getting measurements correctly is not so simple. I also add Omega 3 & 6 oil to their food daily. My cats’ fur is extremely soft, their litter box takes longer to stink and when I brought them to spay, the vet asked me what I fed them because they were “fat”. Some people say too much bone is not good and that bone meal powder is not as good as the actual bone but I don’t have a grinder so this will have to do for now. Will keep researching whenever I have time. All the best to you and congratulations for winning the contest by the way!

Okay that’s all from me for now, attached are some picture of the kitties so that you can see how they’re doing. My mum thinks that cats should be free and not locked up at home but I get them lots of toys and I layan them alot so I do hope they’re happy.

Don’t these photos speak for themselves?

And more from the very enthusiastic young rescuer-caregiver-“cat-chef”!

I’ve been trying to convince almost everybody I meet about how cats are easy to take care once you take time to train them and people complain about their poop being smelly and that they like scratching stuff. Really all you need is to give them a good diet and provide scratching pads for them (we learned it the hard way) because we’re the ones taking them out of their natural habitats already so the best we can do is provide an environment that’s close to what they had in nature (trylah).

Also because most of the results of raw feeding online are pretty short term or new, I’m not sure about long term effects because I havent read anyone who said they fed their cats from kitten stage till the day the cat passes on, how many years the cat lived, did the cat have any health problems, etc. So if you do come across such info, do share it with me! Thanks so much and thank you for inspiring me everyday 🙂

Oh, and did I mention that Weiwen is also an accomplished photographer?

A real powerhouse of talent, skills, effort, determination and love!

Great job, Weiwen. So proud of you!

Next, I’ve asked Weiwen to share her well-tested recipes with us.