AnimalCare

Indy simply loves his bone broth!

I don’t know how much Indy is supposed to eat, so I give the broth to him as a snack in between meals.

Of course everyone else wants it too!

Heidi absolutely loves it too!

Sedap, ya?

Heidi and Ginger fighting over the bowl of broth.

Indy having a second round of bone broth with Cow, Bunny and Pole (in her condo).

Since the day Indy reacted badly to the digestive enzymes (Alpteses), I decided to stop giving it to him. Instead, I’m going back to Mercola’s probiotics and Slippery Elm. I know I’ve tried both before and they did not help, but I thought I should give it a try again. The truth is, I’ve actually got nothing else to try now…

And I’m giving the bone broth as well.

This morning, I had a totally crazy hypothesis that perhaps Indy is having loose stools due to the twice-weekly subcut. Is he overhydrated? I know how crazy and ridiculous this sounds and I’ve searched and googled and nowhere did I find that subcut can cause loose stools. But Indy IS an extraordinary cat (“weird”). So I consulted Indy’s vet and asked if we could stop the subcut for one week just to test out this hypothesis. After all, Indy’s SDMA is back to normal (a reading of 11) though his creatinine is still slightly high at 173. The vet said it’s highly unlikely that subcut can cause loose stools and that what Indy’s has is chronic large intestinal diarrhoea, but there’s no harm in stopping the subcut for one week just to test out my totally-crazy hypothesis. Also, I told the vet I am giving Indy bone broth which he loves, so that would already increase his fluid intake.

So we are stopping the subcut for one week.

Meanwhile, Indy is as playful as ever.

I found these stools at 12.30pm when I came home from work:

There’s one piece of fairly firm stool followed by some soft stools and as usual, there is some blood at the end.

Compared with that day’s liquid stools, this is “good enough”.

I also listened to Dr Becker’s Part 3 on Raw Diet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn1F7AsmEkw and what she described in the first part of the video sounds like what Indy has.

While Indy’s transition to 100% raw was not done suddenly and he had always had a bit of raw food all these years (together with canned and kibble), the fact remains that he ate a lot of kibble. He was our kibble-king.

Maybe he just takes longer to transition to 100% raw. I know the rest of our 7 cats didn’t encounter any problem. In fact, Heidi’s transition can be considered more drastic than Indy’s because Heidi had not eaten raw food for many months before I began the transition. Yet, Heidi did not have any adverse reaction.

Dr Becker says some pets may take up to 1 year to fully transition and in the beginning they can have severe diarrhoea and many pet parents might just give up, revert to the old food and “leave well enough alone”.

I will readily admit here that I’ve thought about switching Indy back to kibble so many times when the going got tough. And it doesn’t help when most local vets (in fact, all) do not support raw feeding.

However, Indy didn’t have loose stools after the transition; he had it even BEFORE I started transitioning. It’s just that the loose stools became a significant issue because I started monitoring everyone’s stools during the transition. Before that, my husband did the scooping at the sandpit and he said he’d always noticed some pasty stools “way, way before”. He thought it wasn’t a big deal. How long ago, I asked. He said maybe as far back as January!

Maybe Indy had always had some GI issues because he was eating the mixture of raw, canned and kibble (the “rojak” diet) and Dr Becker explains that this really messes up some animals’ GI tract. Different processes are needed for the metabolism of kibble (containing carbohydrates) and raw. That is probably also why Bunny had a vomiting problem for years and it stopped the moment I transitioned him to 100% raw.

During the time when everyone was on the “rojak” diet of “semua taruh, semua mau”, vomiting was a common occurrence for our cats. Very often, I would see unchewed kibble in the vomit. All the vomiting actually stopped after everyone transitioned to 100% raw. I can say this with conviction because it’s absolutely true.

Perhaps Indy just needs as longer time for his system to adjust.

Dr Becker says some animals take up to ONE YEAR.

She compares this to her human friend who has severe GI problems when she eats fresh food and veggies but when she eats ice-cream and doughnut, she is good. This is not because fresh foods are not good, but it is because her friend has very poor gastrointestinal health.

So maybe that is also Indy’s problem – poor gastrointestinal health. As I look back at Indy’s medical history, he had severe vomiting and gastrointestinal problems when he was 3 years old (he almost died), 4 years old and 7 years old. I did not know about the benefits of raw food then.

Is it too late to transition him now? Indy is 11 years old now. Raw feeders will says it’s never too late. After all, I transitioned Cow, Bunny and Pole (all 13 years old), Cleo (12 years old), Heidi (probably 13 years old or older), Ginger and Tabs (8 years old).

But Indy will take longer.

Maybe even up to ONE YEAR, says Dr Becker. She says many pet parents would say it’s too much effort and not worth the trouble.

But she asks, “A year from now, will your pet be healthier (eating biologically appropriate food) or just older?”

Which pet parent wouldn’t want her/his pet to be healthier?

I’ve heard of pet parents taking several months to transition their cats to 100% raw because their cats simply refused to eat raw. But for Indy’s case, it isn’t like that. Indy willingly eats raw, but he probably has poor gastrointestinal health so the body needs time to adjust and “learn”.

Indy is now on own very own homemade Fillet Plus (it’s raw but slightly unbalanced because of no fish oil and no egg yolks, but it has everything else). Later, I would very much like to gradually add back a little Cubgrub to his diet. Baby steps…

Eating their Cubgrub dinner. No “incentives” needed today. Pole is the first to finish her 24g portion and she asked for more.

Pole gets more because she is on a weight gain programme!