Diet for cat with kidney issues?I have been feeding my cat Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, which gets very high ratings as a good quality food with few artificial ingredients. My elderly cat, however, is starting to show early signs of kidney disease, and I think the food may have too much protein for her. My vet has recommended Hills K/D for her, but I swear I'm convinced that vets get some sort of kickback from Hills because they recommend their food for one thing or another everytime I'm in there. Does anyone know anything about pet nutrition and what a good food for a cat with burgeoning kidney issues would be ? (BESIDES Hills ?....unless you can give me a good argument of why they really would be the best food. I've heard their foods really aren't very good from an overall nutrition standpoint)
Wow, great answers so far. I expected a lot of "opinions" but it sounds like a lot of you have experience and/or have done your research. Thank you so much !
Posted by Bill L
Please listen to your vet.
bl
Posted by Joseph Shmo
Feed him grilled cheese with tomato soup. And if he doesn't want it, I'll take it.
Posted by Elaine M
The original thought was that low protein diets helped the cat deal with kidney stress. Hills K/D was developed for this--however cats don't want to eat it.
CURRENT thought, due to new research, shows high protein diets are best, with a high water intake for the cats so their kidneys are helped in their function. You need to keep the cats hydrated, that's the biggie. Canned food is best, it has higher moisture content.
Mine is CRF, showing kidney disease (he's 19 after all) but he's been stable for 4 years with this. I put out extra water bowls and he's on a canned diet, good quality food.
There are very good CRF sites online (Chronic Renal Failure) in regards to cats, just go to google.com and type in 'feline CRF' and read the basics. There are also feline kidney issue groups over on YahooGroups for cat owners as well, and you can discuss the disease with other owners who are treating their cats. Even the Handicats group has talked about kidney issues, so there's plenty of places to go for help.
Posted by ♥Pretty♥ ♥Kitty♥
Vets get very little training on cat nutrition and often only know what they do from classes taught by the pet food companies. My cat has CRF and my vet gave him KD. I didn't like it so I put him on Wellness wet and he's doing fine. A high quality wet food that doesn't contain corn, wheat, soy, or meat by-products (all hard to digest and rough on his kidneys) will be fine for him. Avoid fish flavors. Ask the vet about sub-q fluids and medication for your kitty as well. Here's some excellent information on CRF. Make a copy to take with you to the vet and discuss it. My vet couldn't come up with a good argument for it.
http://www.felineoutreach.org/Education/Kidney.html
Posted by grlcatd4
You are right. You need a food with low protein as the goal is to lighten the work load on the kidneys. You don't necessarily have to get Hill's. There are other kidney diets for cats out there. Also there are homemade recipes you can make for your cat if you like. Hill's is a good prescription food but some are not that palatable. Check out this information. There is a list of different feline kidney diets available.
http://www.vetinfo.com/feline-prescription-diet-formulas.html
http://users.ameritech.net/critterz/crf_recipes.htm
http://www.petplace.com/cats/homemade-diet-recipe-for-cats-with-kidney-disease/page1.aspx
http://www.felinecrf.com/
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