Thread: Recent poops:Not very solid and well formed!

Let me try to respond in what I hope is a reasonable way to Woodside's post and then I will drop this, as we are unlikely to agree.

Originally Posted by WoodsideMaineCoons

I have used food4-cats for a year now and many of my fellow breeders have used it for much longer without issue. All meat used in the preparation of this raw diet is of human grade and therefore very safe. Cats digestive systems are much stronger than ours which is why they can eat raw chicken etc without issue.

Unfortunately "human grade" raw meat at least in the US is hardly what I would call safe. There are constant recalls of ground beef products, people sickened and even killed by undercooked meats, and testing shows relatively high levels of bacteria in food. E.g.: For its latest analysis, Consumer Reports had an outside lab test 382 chickens bought last spring from more than 100 supermarkets, gourmet- and natural-food stores, and mass merchandisers in 22 states. Among the findings:
• Campylobacter was in 62 percent of the chickens, salmonella was in 14 percent, and both bacteria were in 9 percent. Only 34 percent of the birds were clear of both pathogens.

Exactly what bacteria and what level of each bacteria is safe for cats? I have no idea and I do not know of a credible source for such information. I do know that cats (and dogs) cannot just eat anything without getting sick, so just saying their digestive systems are stronger than ours doesn't satisfy me (there are things we eat all the time that are fatal to them). If I could guarantee that my cats (and I) would not get sick from raw food, I would be interested in including it in their feeding. I do not find, however, that there is sufficient information for me to be able to be certain of this when human beings are sickened from raw meat in this country.

Originally Posted by WoodsideMaineCoons

There is a huge amount of bacteria present in a bag of dry food that has been opened several days and most people wouldn't even think about that!

There are bacteria that can make a cat sick? I would be very interested to see some proof that opened bags of dry food end up with bacteria capable of causing illness. Where does this bacteria appear from in a cooked food? People buy giant bags of cat food that sit around for months and it does not make their cats sick. Most dry foods contain ingredients that act as preservatives. The dry foods have sell-by dates like a year in the future, so they can sit for a year and be fine, but within a few days after opening they are somehow riddled with dangerous bacteria? Not very likely.

Originally Posted by WoodsideMaineCoons

Just wanted to add that dry food would only cause the stools to be stiffer if the cat didn't have sufficient water intake and was therefore becoming dehydrated.

That is not what we observe in our cats. They drink lots of water (each pees multiple times per day), yet the more dry they eat in a day, the firmer their stools. It is very predictable and repeatable. It is certainly related to amount of moisture in the foods, but there is a vast difference between eating dry food and having a firm stool and being "dehydrated." Our experience is consistent with everything that I have ever read about dry food vs. wet, so I find your comment very surprising. Do you have actual experience feeding dry food?

Originally Posted by WoodsideMaineCoons

A dry diet is not a natural diet for a carnivore, which the cat is. If you choose not to feed raw then you should feed the very best quality wet food that you can.

A dry diet is not what what cats would eat in the wild (obviously) but that alone does not make it bad. There are a host of problems with people trying to theorize about what domestic cats "evolved to eat.". I personally would not feed my cats an all dry diet, but I know many people that do, and there are certainly many thousands (millions?) of people in the US that do that. Most of these cats live nice long lives. How can that be if dry is so horrible?

The Wikipedia article on raw food mentions a number of the issues and I think makes it pretty clear how unsettled the key questions are: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_feeding"]Raw feeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg/220px-Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/1/19/Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg/220px-Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg[/ame].

I am sure most people on this list are trying to do the best for their cats that they can (within the confines of their money and time budgets). Unfortunately, there is simply not the kind of research that could definitively answer questions about what the absolute best diet is for our cats. I am certainly not opposed to raw food in principle and I agree it makes some sense. On the other hand, there is incontrovertible evidence of various disease causing bacteria in our meat supply, so I am not as sanguine about the safety of raw foods as some people on this site are. I do not feel that an all dry diet is probably best for cats, but I also recognize that huge numbers of cats eat such a diet and live long lives so my opinion on dry food is largely that--my opinion.

The issue of raw vs. dry came up here because of kittens with soft stools. Certainly it is possible for bacteria in raw meat to have caused this. Denying that is absurd when you have no idea what bacteria might have been in the meat and there are absolutely bacteria that cause diarrhea in cats. It is also certainly very possible the raw food had nothing to do with it and some ingredient in one of the dry or wet foods has caused this. Some cats simply do not handle certain foods well. All potential causes need to be investigated by gradually changing the diet, but also considering medical issues (it may have nothing to do with any of the foods). I hope that Tomiam can figure it out quickly.