The Way Things Are

Minnie Mao is all better now and has been for some time. I would say that the whole thing lasted maybe a week and then she was back 100%. Thankfully! We love our little Minnie Mao! Even DH who was decidedly NOT a cat person when I met him almost twenty years ago.

You may have noticed that I did not post anything for several months (between February and July). The fact is that I was just not able to. We lost a number of kitties in that time. Quickly going from eleven down to our current five. Three of the male kittens and then three of the wild toms. As far as the kittens go, at that point we were just beginning to manage to handle them. I posted about the first two that we lost, but I will reiterate... They were all apparently wormy and I was able to take some fecal samples into the vet along with a couple of the kittens. We began to treat them them all for the Coccidia and worms. One of the twins (Sugar Bear) and Poppy (who we could not handle at all) became very sick. Poppy especially... and as the worms were flushed from his little body we saw that he was the most infested of all. We lost Sugar Bear overnight. We took Poppy in to the vet who kept him over that Monday night, even taking him home. Even with the best possible treatment, we lost him, too.

Some time later, we took Izzie in when he began to refuse food. He was tested for FIV and FeLV...Feline Aids and Feline leukemia. He came up positive for Feline leukemia. He was one that the wild toms were always picking on. This may be how he became infected. Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, we had him put down upon the recommendation of the vet. It was a tough moral choice. Even if he survived, he would always be a carrier and spread it to other cats. There was no way we would be able to keep him away from others.

One by one, we had all of the other cats tested. Praise God that neither Mama Kitty nor any of the other kittens were infected! Unfortunately, all of the wild toms were positive for Feline leukemia and one (Rocky) had both leukemia and aids. We had to put down Tommy Felix and Tommy Tiger. One of the Veterinary assistants who is particularly kind-hearted took Rocky home to live out his days. He was a wild, strictly outdoor tom, but would now be confined to living inside, isolated from all other kitties, but with plenty of human love. I heard recently, that he died a few months later.

I should point out that my dilemna about whether or not to vaccinate was decided for me at that point. All of the non-infected kitties were brought in and vaccinated for rabies and their first dose of the FIV and FeLV. Then a month later, they had their second round of FIV and FeLV vaccines and also the distemper vaccine. Our vet assured us that the vaccines that they use are the safest on the market today; there are no harmful preservatives or adjuvants in the mix... My concern was for the number of pets that end up having cancer at the point of vaccine injections. I will find some links for this and post them here when I find them again and also a link for the brand of vaccine that is used by our veterinarian.

Minnie Mao! Where ARE youuuuu???

We could not find our little kitty, Minnie Mao the other morning. She is strictly indoors especially at night. After calling her for over an hour and half and searching all over the house and outside, I finally found her. She had crawled into her carrier, which was behind some chairs. She was so sick that she couldn't even come out when I was calling her. Apparently she had tried to eat a bug or a spider, we think, and instead, it bit her. The bottom of her chin and throat were all swollen up. She was lethargic and could not get up or even move. She sat there with her inner eyelids closed and her eyes slightly open and held her mouth slightly open. She was so glad to be found though, because as sick as she was, she began to purr loudly when I picked her up! We took her into the vet who told us that her symptoms were non-specific...(she also had a slight temp). It could be any number of things, but agreed that it was consistent with a bug bite. She gave her a shot of B-12 and gave her something to help with the pain and swelling and also we took some antibiotics home if we did not see any improvement since we didn't know for sure what it was. (As much as I hate the idea of antibiotics!)

Minnie Mao did not seem any better by that night so we gave her some antibiotics. She threw up a short time later, but by the next day she was less lethargic...still not eating or drinking. She did not eat or drink for 3 days. Friday night I took her off of the antibiotics, since she fought it so much and always threw up shortly afterward. I guess it made her really sick to her stomach. Finally on Saturday morning (yesterday) she ate a little in the morning. She didn't eat again until today, but not her high dollar canned cat food (we are about out of raw venison)--she would only eat the canned red salmon that I keep in the pantry to make salmon patties. So I am glad she is finally eating something. She seems to be much better, but still sleeps most of the time and as far as I know she has not peed much or pooed in a couple of days. But she has shown moments of perkiness and has even played a little. Unfortunately, she is still interested in bugs.

So, there's the kitty's story. Our sweet little Minnie Mao. She is less than a year old and has had such a rough life! (Did I tell you how I almost (or probably) gave her a concussion with the foot rest on the recliner a few months ago?) and then starting out life as the little tiny runt she was and almost dying of starvation?

Natural Companions

Occasionally I watch a show called 'Natural Companions' on Veria network. Most of the show is feel good fluff in my opinion, but now and then there is something in this fluff that gives a hint at the healthful trends that are happening in regards to how we care for our pets. I was flipping through the channels trying to find something worth watching for a few minutes (out of 250 channels) when this episode of 'Natural Companions' caught my interest. There was a story about a couple who was having health problems with thier Miniature Dachshund (was it punctured eardrums?) that had their veterinarians baffled. Long story short, they put the dog on a raw food diet. The health problems were resolved, ears were healed, when all else had failed, and now they have a healthy and happy pup!

It helps me to hear stories like these. When I do tell people what I am doing for our cats, most of the time they look at me like I am a little crazy. One 'cat lady' told me that I am the crazy cat lady! More so than she was! She feeds and cares for over twenty cats (verses my six to nine) but feeds hers low cost commercial cat food. I think that you are either going to pay the price one way or the other. Cheap commercial cat food will lead to expensive vet bills in the long haul. Our venison is free, but we pay for additional vitamins, probiotics, etc., but the hope is for far healthier animals for the duration of their lives.

Venison it is!

I have had the kitties on raw venison for awhile now. The last time I bought commercial catfood was a bag from the vet, Evo Brand. According to a score sheet for dog and cat food, this rates as one of the highest quality brands of cat and dog food that you can buy. We paid about $40 for that bag...more than we paid for Wellness from Petco. That $40 bag of cat food lasted us a week! I would love to be able to have the convenience of a pre-made quality cat food, but this we cannot do!

Anyway, it only seems natural and right to feed them what they would eat in the wild: raw meat. One of the books that I bought is of this exact same opinion: "Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats" by Kymythy R. Schultze.
So now for over a month, we have been feeding them raw, ground venison. I add various other things to make sure that they get what they need. Some of what I add regularly is diatomaceous earth (to help with parasitic worms), calcium (in the form of powdered eggshells, spinach, ground up tablets), various vegetables (roots and leafy), colostrum, cod liver oil, probiotics, taurine...also they have had some organ meat, namely heart and liver.

I still need to read more and continue learning to make sure that they have the healthiest diet possible. So far the kitties are looking good. They are all well over their watery eyes and sniffles. They run around and play and get into trouble like youngsters do! Thier coats are soft and two of the short hair kitties (Minnie Mao and Honey Bear--aka 'Stinky Butt', have shiny fur... soft as bunnies. The other one, Cinderella has soft fur, but she is not shiny, kind of nappy, just a different kind of fur. The two long hairs (Raggedy Ann and Izzie) are just plush little fluff balls. Their eyes are all bright and they seem to be growing and thriving! So far, so good on the raw food.

Making Catfood

Here we are grinding Texas venison into catfood. Minnie Mao is very interested in what we are doing...my little helper!

This is all of the meat from four whitetails from Texas. We get way more from the whitetails in Illinois. One and a half or two Illinois deer gave us about this same amount of meat for the kitties. Minnie Mao and Cinderella are inspecting our work.

After all of the meat is ground, I use a one pint freezer container filled 3/4 full to shape the meat into blocks and freeze before wrapping. Right now the kitties get one of these in the morning and one at dinner time. The number of kitties varies, depending upon how many of the wild Toms show up at mealtime.

We have saved all of the legbones. These are wrapped individually and frozen. If we go anywhere for a day or two, we can throw some bones with meat out for the barn kitties to gnaw on.

Update

All of the kitties have improved greatly since the last post. Mama Kitty still sneezes occasionally, but her eyes have pretty well cleared up...In fact; all of the outdoor kitties have, for the most part, recovered from their watery eyes. This is with the exception of Honey Bear, who is still a little watery. Minnie Mao, who lives inside, did catch the cold in her eyes, but it was never too bad and is for the most part through it. As far as I know they are all over the diarrhea.

When I took the Mama Kitty and Raggedy Ann in to see the vet on January 2, the only changes that were really made were that each got a vitamin B12 shot to help with their appetites and all of the kitties were put on a daily colostrum supplement to their food. The Mama and Raggedy Ann both showed an immediate improvement...gaining weight and obviously feeling better. Raggedy Ann also began to play after a couple of days whereas she wasn't playing at all before.

So all is quiet on the Midwestern Front for now.

Another trip to the Vet

This time it was Mama Kitty and Raggedy Ann. Mama Kitty has been sneezing off and on and also has had a few 'hairball' type dry coughs. She also had watery eyes. It may just be a cold.

Raggedy Ann is still underweight at 2.5 lbs. She doesn't have a very strong appetite and doesn't play like the other kitties. She spends most of her time under the dining room chair when she is inside. She is the only one that I have to go out to the barn to bring her in for her meals. She also has a watery eye. Also, I needed to find out why all of the outdoor kitties still have diarhea. They are almost finished with their Coccidia medicine and it's been a week since they were wormed.

I want to make sure that we don't lose any more kitties! That was so heartbreaking to lose both Sugar Bear and Poppy in the same day.