I have not updated about our Super Seniors for quite long now, but all is well, as well as can be.
Cow Mau is back to 100% raw. He has to eat many small meals throughout the day, but the good thing is, when hungry, he will ask for food. When I offer food to him, he eats it. This helps a lot.
As for Queen Cleo…
She is still eating anorexic meals. There was a time when life was a blur as I had too many things to do, I did wonder how she survived, eating so little, but here we are. She’s still here.
And her weight is actually stable, despite eating so little. Maybe she’s just the type who doesn’t need much food (lucky her, right?).
I remember a health-enthusiast friend telling me years ago, “The more you eat, the faster you die.” True or not, I don’t know, but I do know that Hara Hachi Bu is the Okinawan motto for eating (eat until you are 80% full). They are proven to be the longest living and healthiest people on earth.
I’m not too interested in living LONG, but I’m interested in being healthy. But now, if I were to adopt all these new cats/kittens, yes, I am interested in living long enough to see them through!
So back to our queen, she is very choosy. Sometimes, she looks like she wants to eat, but whatever you offer seems to be the wrong choice. Sometimes, truth be told, I give up.
What DO you want to eat, Your Majesty?
Today Her Majesty just wanted to eat scraps left over by Cow Mau.
Triple facepalm. Okay, fine, as long as you eat.
I know Cow Mau is FIV+ but my own research shows that FIV isn’t transmitted through the sharing of food or water bowls. Another vet agrees with this, but I know other vets do not agree. However, Cleo and Indy have lived with Cow Mau and Bunny for their entire lives and they are still negative. Does that count as anecdotal data?
FeLV is a different story altogether, though. I only had one experience, with Baggy. She passed away of anaemia, a result of being FeLV+. But a few years ago, I introduced a friend to RetroMAD1 for FeLV and she says it helped to reverse the effects of FeLV in her beloved cat. It’s costly, but it worked on her cat. However, her cat finally also succumbed to kidney and lung disease. RetroMAD1 is now under a Singaporean vet. It was a Malaysian invention (definitely – by two Malaysian scientists, one of whom is my friend too) but it’s Singaporean now. Anyone needs it, please let me know. I am in contact with the Singaporean vet and he is very, very helpful. The drug is still available in Malaysia.
I worry if Hiro could be FeLV+ since his lymphocyte count was high that day. But we won’t know until he is old enough to take the blood test for FIV/FeLV. Just need to wait and see.
After eating scraps, she was willing to eat fresh Coco&Joe’s, but must eat scraps first (tested by Cow Mau to be not poisonous, right?). You still worry we might poison you, Cleo? After 16 years of living with us? Seriously, Your Majesty?
I heard some royalty has food testers eat the food before they consume their meals, right? Long ago, Chinese emperors and their harem and family also had food testers and they used silver chopsticks to check for poison in their food. What a way to live, right? Bet they cannot even go out to the tepi jalan and buy kacang putih to eat. Or eat roti canai at the mamak stall.
And what about Indy?
What do you know…Indy’s diarrhoea finally ended and he is producing beautiful stools now. So what worked this time?
What worked, I think, was the 2 vials of Promax probiotics (I think only, as his stools weren’t nice even after that, but it was improving). What I think REALLY worked was switching him back to raw food. What I did was, I just switched him back 100% by force feeding him.
Indy is VERY mengada-ngada when it comes to eating. He wants to eat, he will yell for food, but when you serve him with the food, it’s just not the right one. I can never find the right food for him, where he will willingly eat, so I gave up (yes, I gave up) and started force feeding him Coco&Joe’s. I would have force fed him Cubgrub as well, but Cubgrub’s consistency is too liquid, so it’s more difficult. Coco’s is denser. Very easy to force feed. I know I need to get him back to 100% raw and protein rotation. He needs a variety of proteins.
So I made a judgment call a few weeks ago. I stopped his baby food in the morning which he wasn’t eating anymore, anyway. And I force fed him Coco’s about 3-4 times a day. The good thing with Indy is that if he isn’t sick, you can very easily force feed him. All you need to do if take a lump of Coco’s, open his jaw and plonk it in. He will swallow it quite willingly. And force feeding is so much “easier” in that with me being so pressed for time, I don’t have to wait and coax and plead with him to eat. I can just plonk, plonk, plonk and he’s fed in under 1 minute.
So, all’s well with Indy and his stools now. Beautiful well-formed stools. I believe the raw diet helped this time.
Indy, the one whom all vets cannot figure out.
So as it stands now, I have successfully converted everyone here back to 100% raw. Phew!