It’s not Chicken Soup for the Soul, but literally, Chicken Soup for Survival…because cats need to drink more water!!
So, how did my chicken soup adventure go today?
Well, I stared slowly cooking chicken in water last night. I added carrot and pumpkin because I figured I might blend the cooked meat and vegetables later into homemade wet food.
Now, this is not bone broth as bone broth should not be given to CKD cats. This is just meat broth, cooked with chicken in water. There is no bone in it at all. My target is to get Indy, Tabs and Ginger to drink it as they are our CKD cats.
I started with Ginger and the Monsters. The soup was lukewarm. Nice…to me.
Ginger drank…but just a little.
The Monsters were puzzled why they were just served with liquid so they didn’t drink any of it. Minnie didn’t even come. Oh dear… I poured out a bowl for each cat, but all they did was sniff at it and looked confused.
“Where is the grub? Why are you just giving us “water”?”
So I had an idea. Very quickly, I shredded the boiled chicken meat and added some into the soup.
Ahh….at least they drank and ate some now.
Even Minnie came to eat and drink.
Smurfy liked it.
Okay, I’d say it was partially successful with Ginger and the Monsters. They did not finish their portions, though.
Next was Samantha and the Blondies.
This was a complete failure. Nobody ate or drank it. I guess meat broth isn’t as tasty or fragrant as bone broth. The last time I made bone broth, everyone liked it except for Tabs. This was years back before the arrival of Minnie & her Monsters or Samantha & her Blondies.
The Blondies are probably saying, “Make up your mind. You want us to eat raw, so why are you giving us cooked food now?”
Okay, never mind, there is still time to experiment with ways to make the Blondies drink more water.
Next is the target – Indy. Indy, by nature, already drinks a lot of water, and yet, he has Stage 3-4 CKD. So I still need him to drink some of this meat broth.
Oh, Indy drank…a lot! He loved it!
Yay! Way to go, Indy!! Drink up, drink up!
Next was Cow Mau. He wasn’t exactly very interested, but he drank some.
Indy wanted even more.
Next is another target – Tabs.
“No!!”
Not even a little bit, Tabs?
“No!!”
I seldom see Tabs drinking water, actually.
Cow asked for more.
I couldn’t find Riley, so anyway, I decided to use some of the soup/broth to blend the chicken meat, carrot and pumpkin into homemade wet food.
Blended!
Then I went to look for Riley and she was nowhere to be found. Panicking, I thought she had escaped so I went out to look for her. The council grass cutters were doing their work so it was very noisy outside.
It took a long time before we found her. She had not escaped, she was just hiding under the sofa inside the house!
She must have been terrified of the grass cutting noise.
Too scared to eat, or don’t like it….or Kai telling her, “Yucks, don’t eat this. It’s not nice!”
Later…
Cow ate some.
Later still, Tabs ate some too!! But this is not the meat broth, this is the homemade wet food (meat broth with blended meat, carrot and pumpkin). Well, at least it is wet food (with water).
The result: Not so bad. I wanted to get our seniors and super seniors to drink the meat broth and I got Indy, Cow Mau and Ginger to drink the broth. Tabs ate some of the wet food. The Monsters prefer it with some shredded chicken. The Blondies’ was a “No”. I still have many ideas up my sleeve.
For those new to the blog, I’m on a quest to try and increase the water intake of all our cats in general. So my first trial is to give them meat broth/soup. I’m not giving up even though this first trial wasn’t exactly successful with everyone. I’m going to try again and again because water is the key to survival, especially for cats.
Cats already do not have a natural thirst-drive. They end up drinking very little water and are prone to kidney disease.