High cost of food for renal diet

OnTheUp_2-2

Thought you mighte be interested in my post from another thread. In addition to raw chicken you can give raw rabbits legs or feet and some raw fish

It all should be raw, animals werent born with the ability to make a fire in the wild and cook their food, it is something we have conditioned them to eat

Just thought I would mention... one of my cats has been very sick recently and so I began researching her food IAMS and I found some very disturbing info;

1. IAMS test products on animals!!!
2. 85% of cats and dogs have peridontal disease by the age of 3 due to commercial food
3. MOST cats die of kidney failure due to a dry food diet as there is not enough moisture in their food and historical cats drink very very little and in fact get their moisture through their prey
4. Cats are NOT meant to eat grains or vegetables


After finding this all out there was a discussion on LBC strangely about pets diets and how we have all been duped into buying commercial pet food

They then went on to discuss the Raw Meaty Bones diet, taking our pets back to a traditional way of eating.

I am not going to explain it all as you can type that in on google and the website will come up, but what i will say is. I immediately felt that this was the right thing for me to do and had a big wake up call.

This was a month ago and my god if you saw my cats now you would be amazed. She is fed on raw chicken wings and raw chicken necks which I get 6 for about 50p from my local bio dynamic (better than organic!!) farm. Its cheaper, healthy and no they wont choke on the bones. Raw bones are actually very soft and the eating of the bones are what keeps their teeth clean


:-)

~Chameleon~

OnTheUp wrote: »

Just thought I would mention... one of my cats has been very sick recently and so I began researching her food IAMS and I found some very disturbing info;

1. IAMS test products on animals!!!
2. 85% of cats and dogs have peridontal disease by the age of 3 due to commercial food
3. MOST cats die of kidney failure due to a dry food diet as there is not enough moisture in their food and historical cats drink very very little and in fact get their moisture through their prey
4. Cats are NOT meant to eat grains or vegetables

Have you got evidence to back up these claims please? ... apart from AR propaganda that is

Points 2 and 3 are highly exaggerated and simply not true in the majority of cases.

Point 1, well.... what else would you expect to test animal food on if not animals?... or perhaps we should use human guinea pigs just to square things up a bit

...but seriously, almost all the commercial petfood producers are owned by one of the large consumer companies such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Lever Bros etc, all of which test products on animals.

It's almost impossible to escape these products unless you boycott thousands of different foods, household cleaners, laundry etc etc.

Point 4 is debatable. Whilst it can cause problems to those cats who appear intolerant to grain products, it has no affect on many, many others. No different to humans who have different food allergies and intolerances.

OnTheUp_2-2

I do not believe they jsut test food, not def sure though. If other pet food brands dont, then why do they?

Im sorry i dont know what AR mean :-(

As I said i listened to a very good debate on LBC, I would recommend listing to the podcast, what excited me was hearing the feed back from real people on the radio, dog and cat owners and breeders

Maybe to look at the logical of it all... do you think cats are meant to be eating cooked beef for instance??

Point 4. It has been scientifically studied and I can also tell you that whenever a cat kills a bird or mouse they never eat the stomach contents?

point 2 and 3 are fro studies, I obviously am not in a position to verify but its worth redaing up on. Please could you tell me how you can prove those figures to be wrong?

OnTheUp_2-2

Study: 68 Percent of Cats Have Periodontal Disease

Banfield findings show that vets could play stronger role in preventing disease in cats and dogs.


Posted: February 25, 2010, 3 a.m. EST





When it comes to periodontal disease, veterinarians are in a position to play a stronger role in preventing the most common disorder affecting cats and dogs, according to Banfield’s Applied Research and Knowledge (BARK) team. New findings from the veterinary practice chain show that 68 percent of cats and 78 percent of dogs age 3 and older have oral disease.



SORRY beg my pardon its aged 3 and over and just this first report shows a significant % I will try and find the other

OnTheUp_2-2

Im sorry i dont know how old this report is but it gives an indication (I may be slightly wrong that "most" die, but it is refering to a cat that has made it to old age)

http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/pdf/127.pdf


How common is it?

[FONT=Century Gothic,Century Gothic][FONT=Century Gothic,Century Gothic]Dr. Rutherfurd-Markwick: [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Century Gothic,Century Gothic][FONT=Century Gothic,Century Gothic]Chronic kidney disease is one of, if not the most common cause of death in older cats. In a study of 600 cats from a large colony, 31 percent died or were euthanized because of kidney disease.
[/FONT][/FONT]

Fire_Fox

OnTheUp wrote: »

They then went on to discuss the Raw Meaty Bones diet, taking our pets back to atraditional way of eating.

This was a month ago and my god if you saw my cats now you would be amazed. She is fed on raw chicken wings and raw chicken necks which I get 6 for about 50p from my local bio dynamic (better than organic!!) farm. Its cheaper, healthy and no they wont choke on the bones. Raw bones are actually very soft and the eating of the bones are what keeps their teeth clean
:-)

Please tell me you are feeding a wider variety of food than this - chicken necks and wings contain more bone than meat, so you are unlikely to have a balance between phosphorus and calcium. If you don't feed offal your cat will be missing out on essential nutrients such as taurine (heart), fat soluble vitamins (liver, in small quantities only).

OnTheUp_2-2

We have had several cats die of the liver/kidney thing over the years They continued to eat and drink normally, but just get thinner and thinner until they're just skin and bones. They also get a lot friendlier..seem to want to be nearer. We did not feel as though they were in pain..I hope that's true, so at the end we put a little bed right next to the food and water and they eventually just passed away.

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/cats/200375-when-time-comes-renal-failure-2.html#ixzz0gdwTXLT2

OnTheUp_2-2

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Please tell me you are feeding a wider variety of food than this - chicken necks and wings contain more bone than meat, so you are unlikely to have a balance between phosphorus and calcium. If you don't feed offal your cat will be missing out on essential nutrients such as taurine (heart), fat soluble vitamins (liver, in small quantities only).

Hi yes she will be having food reintroduced as she has had an allergy. the vets are very happy with her progress and are more than happy with the diet she has. If you look on the webiste it provides all the info as to what the cat needs to stay balance :-)

OnTheUp_2-2

As my cats are 7 we have introduced the diet slowly as they were pretty shocked at first.. so we started with chicken breasts and then slowly introduced the wings.. then the neck and eventually they will consume offal

~Chameleon~

OnTheUp wrote: »

I do not believe they jsut test food, not def sure though. If other pet food brands dont, then why do they?

All pet food is tested on animals. They can't start selling food to the public without first having tested it's safe.

Im sorry i dont know what AR mean :-(

Animal Rights - yes, even the RSPCA produce AR propaganda

As I said i listened to a very good debate on LBC, I would recommend listing to the podcast, what excited me was hearing the feed back from real people on the radio, dog and cat owners and breeders

I'd prefer to see peer reviewed papers please

Maybe to look at the logical of it all... do you think cats are meant to be eating cooked beef for instance??

I'm not disagreeing with you in principal but not everybody has the time, inclination or nutritional knowledge to ensure their pets are getting a proper balanced diet when feeding raw food. Pet food producers have scientifically researched all this on our behalf so we don't have to.

Obviously there is a difference in quality of foods produced, hence the numerous debates we have here on pet food. I personally wouldn't use or recommend IAMS either, but for very different reasons than you state..

Point 4. It has been scientifically studied and I can also tell you that whenever a cat kills a bird or mouse they never eat the stomach contents?

You've not met my cats then

point 2 and 3 are fro studies, I obviously am not in a position to verify but its worth redaing up on. Please could you tell me how you can prove those figures to be wrong?

Years of knowledge and experience in the veterinary profession

........................