Cow’s eye and eating problems

By chankahyein, on Thursday, March 9th, 2023 12:33 pm

Once we age, old age and sickness are sure to set in.

No one escapes this.

Cow Mau was having massive eye discharge for more than a week. While Maximus Ophtal worked wonders for Bunny, it does not work for Cow at all.

But Nicol eyedrops work, thankfully!

So after a week’s application of Nicol eyedrops, Cow’s eyes have healed…more or less.

Initially, when one eye was very inflamed, it was a suicide mission trying to apply the eyedrops on this eye. It was a two-human job. Even then, Cow managed to fling the eyedrop off his eye once applied. Sigh…

But his eyes are much better now. It’s not 100% better, but at least it is better.

Then, Cow Mau also started pawing at his mouth when eating kibble. He has always had this problem and it would usually end up with a dental procedure. Cow Mau is FIV+ so this is common amongst elderly FIV+ cats. But Cow Mau has had three dental procedures now and all his back teeth have been extracted, leaving only his canines and incisors.

It is probably gum inflammation, so I gave him Beazyme. That helped.

Vetri DMG and Vetri Lysine Plus would help too, so I’ve started him on this.

But there was still one problem, Cow wants to eat kibble once in a while.

Our cats have been on 100% raw since September 2019. But in the past year, because Bunny became so choosy, I had to give him whatever he was willing to eat.

My feeding principle for elderly and sick cats is: “As long as they eat.”

So because of Bunny being so choosy, I started giving him canned food and kibble. Bunny needed a lot of variety. Of course the rest demanded for it. “The rest” means Cow Mau, Cleo, Indy and occasionally Tabs. Ginger and the Monsters did not get this leeway. They were and still are on 100% raw – well, it’s not a disadvantage, isn’t it for their own good, right?

https://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition

What to feed your cat can be one of the most important decisions you make in the health and well-being of your feline family member. Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they are especially adapted to a diet consisting of the flesh of other creatures. They are uniquely equipped to eat a diet of small prey and they evolved to eat this diet raw. There are no vegan cats.

Cats have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates. Period. They evolved to get almost all of their fluid intake from the food they eat. A mouse, a typical prey food, is about 70% water. Dry kibble food contains far too much carbohydrates and far too little moisture to be an appropriate food for cats.

There are many ways to feed bio-appropriate raw food for cats. You can make your own ground raw cat food at home or buy commercially ground meat/bone/organ mixes especially made for pets. You can buy commercially-prepared complete meals that are available frozen or dehydrated. You can feed whole meat cuts or small, whole prey foods. Many people feed a combination of some or all of these.

If you and your cats are new to raw cat food, transitioning is the next step. Whether this is fast or slow depends on your cat’s particular situation. Many cats take to a raw meat diet right away. Making the change is worth it, the benefits are tremendous for your cat and for you.

After Bunny passed on, Cow and Cleo went back to more of raw. Cleo is still very feral so she takes to raw very easily and naturally. Indy, well….Indy is Indy.

So Cow Mau wants to eat kibble once in a while. He’s an elderly, I let him eat whatever he wants as long as it’s not so harmful to his health. Kibble is a snack for him.

But the problem is he started pawing his mouth each time he ate kibble. The kibble is probably irritating his gums.

So I bought all kinds of kibble until I found one where the size of the pellets is very small, the smallest I could find.

This food has the smallest sized pellets I could find.

Cow Mau did not want the grainfree variety as the pellets are still too big for him. For the Holistic series, there are 3 flavours that contain maize while the rest contain wheat. This Wholesome Chicken & Salmon recipe contains maize. I know grainfree is more appropriate, but he simply doesn’t like it.