Conference misery::feline_v1

    
    
    re. 1 - feleuk vacc.
    
    	According to my vet, you don't *have* to test before you
    vaccinate. Testing is done to see if your cat has or carries
    feline leukemia, and it usually costs at least $20. However,
    you can give the vaccine without having the test done because
    the vaccine will not harm your cat if it has leukemia, but it 
    will not cure it if it does. So, you can vaccinate with or 
    without giving the test - it's just a matter of your preference.

    Dave,
    
    The vet wants the cats checked for leukemia so he knows whether
    or not the vaccine will protect the cat.  The vaccinations aren't
    exactly cheap and if one of your cats is carrying leukemia you should
    find out before the other gets it.
    
    We feed raw beef which has been deep frozen for several months to
    kill parasites.  We buy it from the man who supplies the greyhound
    tracks in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  This puts muscle on
    our show cats.  We had a male who was the runt of his litter and
    weaned him onto the beef at 4 weeks, the show judges didn't believe
    his age when he was a kitten because he was a solid 8 pounds.
    
    If our cats are not drinking what we feel is enough water, we water
    their food or lightly salt it.  So far no problems with FUS.
    
    Good luck.

    re .1
    
    I can't imagine why one would want to incur the expense or put
    their cat through the series of leukemia shots if it's  all for
    naught?!  It actually seems a bit irresponsible on the part of
    a veterinarian to practice this.  There's quite a bit of discus-
    sion in this conference on the pro/cons of the FeLV vaccinations.
    I don't feel comfortable yet with the vaccine and since my 3
    cats are indoor only, I have not had them vaccinated, though they
    all have tested negative.
    
    I guess there's no way to stop your kitten from eating the 
    "non-kitten" food, short of separating the cats during mealtimes.
    Hill's makes a Feline Growth food in addition to its many others.
    
    Welcome!
    Donna

    Cat food:
     The local feed store (UCF in littleton) has some stuff called FROMM
    which has the requisite low Mg content for FUS and it is ~$4 / 5 lb.
    which I believe is about 1/2 the price of Hills.
    
    If my cats are given a choice canned food wins hands down, but as
    long as I dont over feed them they eat dry food. We have an 8 year
    old and on a dry food only diet, limiting the ammount of food she
    has a pot. When we were allowing them to eat as much as they wanted
    (when our youngest was a kitten) canned food  (or hamburger) would
    always cause them to eat more.
    
    If they wont eat the dry food they are not hungry!
    
              Tom
    

    Re: .2
    
    I've never heard of freezing as a recommended means of killing
    parasites -- at least not the bacteria that affect people.  For
    example, the preferred method for defrosting Thanksgiving turkeys
    is in the refrigerator; the bacteria that were inactive while frozen
    will contaminate the meat if it it's allowed to thaw at room
    temperature. 
    
    This may or may not apply to the situation described in .2.  Cats
    are different from people, and "deep freezing" may mean something
    different that conventional home refrigerator/freezers (typically
    0 degrees F).  And I'm hardly an expert, while the supplier mentioned
    in .2 may very well be.  I just don't want people extrapolating
    from .2 into believing that they can safely make Steak Tartare by
    freezing supermarket ground beef for a few days.
    
    Besides, are there any advantages to feeding raw beef over cooked
    beef?  (I haven't the foggiest idea, one way or another.)
    
       Gary

    Thanks for the info everybody.  
    
    These are both indoor only cats.  I'll have the Giz' tested this
    week.  Tigger has been tested in the past.  I'll ask the vet if
    he needs to be tested again.  Sounds like since these guys don't
    go outside maybe they don't need vaccinations for feLV?

    Giz is starting to feel better.  I can tell.  She's turned into
    a minute feline terrorist!  Chases everything, including her own
    tail.  Bites feet at night (we don't close any of the bedroom doors
    so the cats can roam in and out).  Sits in the pot with my daughters
    scheflera...  Got her toenails clipped.  Loved it!  She kept getting
    her head in the way 'cause she was so interested in what was going
    on!  Purred the entire time.
    
    Ah, but when she climbs up in your lap, turns on her motor, and looks
    up at you with those big eyes...

    D

    RE.: .5
    
    Gary 
    
    The parasites I referred to in .2 were things like worms and cysts.
     The really deep freezing for prolong periods of time will kill
    those.  The meat is handled like human ground beef and kept frozen
    until needed and then refrigerated until used.  No bacterial or
    sick cat problems.  Cats eat raw meat in the wild and ours turn
    up their little snub noses at cooked meat unless it is on our plates.
    
    In no way was the info in .2 meant for humans.  Cats probably have
    a genetic capability to handle contaminated food.  Consider the
    large wild cats which will cache a kill in hot temperatures and
    return to feed.  I'm not recommending feeding spoiled meat but I
    think cats are better equipped to handle that sort of thing.
    
    Frank

    Re: cat wont eat the Science Diet food:  the stuff tastes like garbage
    compared to the regular canned stuff, so the cats won't eat it right
    off.  We had to mic it about 50/50 with the regular canned food
    and wait for the cats to get hungry enough to eat it.  (I'm not
    big on letting "finniky" cats train me...)  After a week or so,
    cut the mix to 25% normal / 75%  Science Diet (or C/D or whatever.)
    
    Keep this up till the cats eat the straight Science Diet.  It's
    easier to do this than to treat them for FUS.
    
    Good luck with your new household members.
    
    MM

    I talked to the vet today after our second visit -- Gizmo got tested
    for feLV and came out negative - and got vaccinated.  She's looking
    a lot better than when we first got her.
    
    The vet directed me to a pet supply place where I got samples of a
    bunch of different foods. I got Purina Pro Plan, Iams, Science Diet,
    and Tami Ami, each in separate formulas for kittens and adults.  I also
    got one called Eagle that the cats RIPPED OPEN.  I'll be trying
    different ones and find out which one the beasts seem to like. 

    Interestingly enough, all the above have more "ASH" (~6%) than the
    Amore' and Buffet we've been feeding (~2.5%).  What makes any of these
    better for FUS than the canned food if they have more ash and less
    moisture?  Neither cat seems to drink much water. 
    
    D

    Hi,
      When I took my 'kids' to the vet for their first shots, the vet
    said that a higher ash content was ok, in fact, GOOD for kittens
    (maybe it was the magnesium?) and for bone growth and that it was
    ADULT cat food in which low ash content was important. She said
    that the important thing was to make sure the kitties got enough
    water by giving them wet food on occasion. This will also lead to
    cats with more flexible palates.
    
                                             Mathew T.

    The difference is that the canned food which contains "only" 2.5%
    or so is comprised of about 75-80% moisture.  Dry food, on the other
    hand, has a much smaller percentage of moisture (like 10-15%). 
    I'm sure there is some math fanatic out there that will be able
    to subtract the difference in percentage of moisture, compound that
    with the phase of the moon, etc. but, in short, the 6% level of
    the dry food is much lower than the seemingly small amount in the
    canned.  You've got to compare the moist to moist, and dry to dry.
    
    Your baby really needs the nutritionally value in kitten food, so
    I would recommend the Iams kitten food (in the purple bag or box)
    and Science Diet Feline Growth.  In a recently conducted taste test,
    Iams was preferred over the SD (by my kitten!).
    
    And you thought this was gonna be easy.............
    
    Mary

    Well, we've been doing taste tests for the past week... (Not us,
    the cats).
    
    I put out samples of two different cat foods every day.  Then watched
    to see which got eaten.  Then I took the winner and put a different
    one up against it the next day.  In the end the IAMS won.  The CATS
    preferred it to the Science Diet, Purina, etc. 
    
    We're mixing the IAMS adult and kitten food together and adding
    a small can of wet cat food.  This seems to work pretty well.  Even
    the TOTALLY spoiled Tigger is eating (more or less) happily.  I'll 
    gradually reduce the amount of wet food.

    NOW, SOMEBODY TELLY ME HOW TO KEEP THIS MINIATURE TERRORIST FROM
    EATING MY SPIDER PLANTS!!!
    
    D    

    The only way to save a spider plant is to get it out of reach, cats
    will kill to get at one. Actually there is a possible danger here
    for the cat as well. Spider plants are very efficient air cleaners
    in a home environment, they filter out many airborne substances
    which tend to become concentrated in the plant's cells. Some of
    these can be very toxic to cats and although this isin't a common
    occurance it is something to keep in mind.

    It is a good idea to break the "salad" habit early.  Some household
    plants are extremely toxic and should not be chewed by fuzzy or
    non-fuzzy kids.  Dieffenbachia (dumbcane) can be a particular problem.
    
    Frank 

    
    
    Spider plants make GREAT hanging plants!  
    
    (If you can't get Mohammed away from the mountain, you'll have to
    move the mountain away from Mohammed!)
    
    Amy.  Who's cats love to ride plants down from the highest of heights.
    
    -now an expert at outsmarting the cats, and happy to report that
    my numerous plants (I love them!) are finally recovering from felinaphobia!
    
    -and yes, it is possible to have happy plants and happy cats under
    the same roof!
                                              

    I keep the "salad" plants (spider plants and my ponytail palm) in
    a room the cats aren't allowed in, which is also where the coats
    of cat-allergic guests (poor, poor people!) go.
    
    Nebula, when she was a kitten (JFCL is far too ladylike for this
    one), saw the tomcat, now departed, who came with the house decide
    to do his business in the pot of a big fig tree in the living room
    (he was mad that the house had sprouted another kitten - he was
    an unaltered tom that the previous owners had, and left behind because
    they only moved a few blocks away and he lived mostly outside anyhow
    - he knew that there was a catbox in the basement, in the same place
    that his previous humans had kept one).  I ended up having to cut
    a piece of chicken wire that would fit inside the pot (it is inside
    a decorative basket) to prevent digging to break her of the habit.
    She broke herself of trying to climb this "tree" after a branch
    of it broke off with her on it!

Cats usually eat greens for the chlorophyl, so you can either grow some grass
or sprout some bird food. That way, they'll substitute (hopefully) the kitty-
greens for the plants.  Of course, to this day, if Mutu gets mad at me, she
goes over to a plant, takes a leaf in her mouth, and stares at me as if
to say, "Go ahead - make my day!".

Growing greens is worth a try...

Regards,
J.

    re .17:
    
    >Cats usually eat greens for the chlorophyl, ...
    
    Usually, it's to help themselves rid themselves of hairballs.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    RE: .16
    
    When I first got Pip, she seemed insistant on climbing my (now
    decesaed) Norfork Pine. I broke her of this habit by getting itty
    bitty immature pine cones and covering the entire surface of the
    pot with them.
    
    Deb