16 months - October 28, 2009

A few things to talk about today....................................

Well, it had to happen at some point, our first "almost raw fed disaster" and I do smile about it now, mind you, I've not seen the vet bill yet! It was October 10 and my entire day had been planned out (or so I thought) in that I was in the process of renovating our stairs which meant ripping up carpet, sanding back floorboards, and putting on coats of varnish, followed by plastic coating. Whenever any house renovations are being done, the fur kids have to be confined in separate rooms throughout the home for obvious reasons. So everyone was in groups, in rooms, I fed everyone their breakfast, went back to the stairs, checked on everyone again at around noon, and also did litter trays when I discovered Mokatika. I had entered the main back cat room to do their trays and saw Mokatika sitting in one of the bottom beds in the bunk beds, hunched over, and everyone else was staring at her.

I instantly knew something was very wrong and with my heart in my mouth I ran straight over to her and picked her up. Both front paws were soaking wet and there appeared to be blood on one of the paws. I was panic stricken, flew upstairs with her into our bedroom, put her on the bed, showed her to Graham and said "What the hell is wrong with Mokatika". We had no idea, I placed her on the floor and within minutes it became very obvious. She started pawing her her mouth, over and over, with first one paw, then the other, trying to stick her paws in her mouth. I instantly realised that she had a chicken bone lodged in her mouth. I knew it wasn't her throat because a) she wasn't choking and had no breathing difficulties, and b) it was the right hand side of her mouth she was pawing at.

So, Graham held her, I tried to get her to open her mouth, a huge battle commenced which Mokatika won, and after about 15 minutes of trying (and me panicking), the decision was made to phone Jo, our vet. And this is so very bloody typical of cats because our surgery is open until 12 noon on a Saturday, what time did this occur and what time did I phone them? 1 bloody PM!!! In other words, an emergency call out fee etc. etc. At the time however that was the last thing on our minds, I spoke with Jo, she opened up the surgery and I took Mokatika straight in there. In less than 1 minute, Jo had successfully removed a large part of thigh bone with her forceps. It was so quick and easy and the moment it was out, Mokatika was back to her normal self. I could have cried with relief. So then Jo gave her a thorough check over, all was fine and home we went. Within 2 minutes of being out of the carrier, she was bouncing around the home as if nothing had happened.

It scared me at the time, however, this has not put me off feeding raw thighs/drumsticks/wings. The thing is, we have fed chicken bones right from the very beginning of our raw feeding. We have over 15 cats in our home and this is now our 16th month of being a raw fed cat home, so that isn't bad going actually. Had we have been a pet family with just one cat, then chances are, we'd have never had this problem but with as many as we have, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Yes, I continue to feed drumsticks, turkey, and thigh and am confident to do so.

One of the next things to mention is what is seemingly another successful raw fed litter, not one of mine, but a litter belonging to our dear friends, Gwen and Tony of Chrestomanci Siamese & Orientals. On October 10, 2009, the first ever Chrestomanci litter was brought into the world.............. "The Teas" and if this is not a recommendation for breeders to become raw fed, then I truly don't know what is.

The sire and dam of Gwen/Tony's litter are both Schimmel bred cats who were raw fed, in fact they are the first 2 raw fed kittens that we produced. JB (now Phoenix) from Cointreau's 2008 litter, and Bloody Dougal (now Valentine) from Toussaint's "Magic Roundabouts" litter. As Gwen is also a raw fed cat home, she continued with the raw feeding that both cats were used to whilst I raised them.

Well, darling Phoenix went on to deliver 7 fantastically healthy, amazing babies, now that on it's own is perhaps no great feat however...................by Day 1 all 7 babies had gained weight, by the end of week 1, all 7 babies were making fantastic gains and were thriving.

With big litters, it is not unusual at all to lose babies within the first couple of days, nor is it unusual for babies to not gain weight for the first couple of days. Some breeders will tell you that this is down to cats producing big litters so that only the strongest will survive etc., others will tell you that it is because of an underlying infection. We have lost babies from litters of 7, however, after becoming a raw fed home we had a litter of 7, and a litter of 6, and never lost a baby. In fact, we haven't lost a single kitten since becoming a raw fed home although we did make other changes as well as just raw feeding.

I find it so interesting to see that Gwen's litter, out of 2 fully raw fed parents, is thriving even better than our own litter of 7 did (our Boxing Day Babes), because even though they were raw fed, the parents had not been raw fed all of their lives and I know it's very early days but this is the whole point of the raw fed cat diary, to see what differences, (pros and cons) the raw feeding brings about. Mind you, I'm not expecting to see actual, proper results for years to come but the Teas are living up to both my own, and Gwen's expectations when it comes to a naturally, raw fed cat.