When to worry...

So your little one is less interested in food today and maybe it's not the first time lately. Some will look for minor reasons: he's bored, or his system is upset over a change in litter or a change in foods. But is it wise to look for security in minor explanations and miss the chance to act before the majors surface?

You'll notice a curious pattern if you begin reading the symptoms of very many cat health problems. 'Inappetance' appears on nearly every list. Instead of writing the symptom off as simply non-specific, the real significance of this pattern is the fact that loss of appetite is a red flag that something is about to become a nightmare, so we have to do something. But what.

If you haven't switched your little companion to raw food yet for some 'gradualism' reason or because you're struggling with logistics or options or nutrient calculations or sourcing organization. Don't wait another day. Not necessarily totally to 100% raw foods -- unless you've already waited longer than the third day, but to at least 2/3rds raw foods. You shouldn't have any trouble finding saltwater fish and calf liver and chicken gizzards or giblets.

The absolutely simplest way of providing a sensible cat diet that I've seen after 4 years of experimenting is the 'natural prey' approach, namely assembling the basics of small critters. Animal parts are basically either 'muscle' or 'organ' or 'bone'. The latest thinking is that cats belong to the animal family with a 'seal' ancestor and their bodies are adapted to consuming fish and seaweed -- aka grass. Saltwater fish -- like whiting --comes in 5lb boxes, frozen. Freshwater fish has a different nutrient profile, leading to a B-deficiency if used extensively. We chose calf liver -- also frozen -- for the main organ meat because of the primacy of the liver's role among innards and the fact that there would have been fewer opportunities for inappropriate farm animal treatment with a young animal. And gizzards usually come with hearts, another major organ. Plus gizzards have the texture needed to keep cat teeth and gums happy. The bone/cartilage requirement is accommodated by using a meat grinder on the fish skeletal pieces every day or two, with grass liberally snipped in like an herb.

Weekly preparation area. Simulating a cat's natural prey diet -- 30-50% innards. It's neither time consuming nor expensive.

If your cat is already a raw-foodist, or if the inappetance reappears after switching -- including having tried at least one meal with a good dose of minced grass in it --, then it's time to worry, big time. Hepatic lipidosis is on your doorstep in addition to whatever is causing the 'inappetance'. Persistence in coaxing may be useful but flexibility and urgency are its partners. If an attempt at variation -- all liver, ground gizzards and grass, or maybe a few kibble in the mix, variety -- doesn't produce a vigorous return to eating, it's time for the urgency. This is death we're talking about.

With the rather impressive regenerative potential that grass has demonstrated among humans -- in an amazing list of situations -- , and with the example set by our cat companions themselves when not feeling well, the logical nutritional approach to take is to switch to grass -- juice, any which way we can get it into them.

If you are succeeding in getting 'some' fish into your cat's system, just not the required amount (averaging 15 calories of raw foods per day per pound of cat weight, or when quiescent, 4oz for a 10lb cat), you might get fish to absorb grass juice prepared at feeding time, but gradualism in the face of continued inadequate amounts of intake is not negotiable. Stubbornness in cats is frequently helpful when we are making a mistake, but with simulating their natural diet instead of baked and cooked concoctions, you're entitled to more confidence. And our cats have a fine sense of what nutrients different foods will provide, as our Butterscotch has demonstrated on our weedwalks -- in his prefernce for liver supporting greens. A cat who is resisting his favored natural food is telling us that his upper digestive tract is not functioning and can not handle any more foods.

You have two choices: force feeding in an attempt to get enough through their system with strenuous feeding sessions every couple of hours, basically 8 or 9 times a day for a possibly extended period of weeks and weeks on end IF you manage to catch up -- and if they throw it up undigested, it doesn't count, you've missed another chance -- OR using the tactic developed by grass juice advocates and accessing the nutrient absorption potential of the lower digestive tract without taxing the mechanisms in trouble in the upper tract. Or, of course, some combination of the two. It's been successfully done with humans.

I've discussed the second option with a friend who cares passionately about her animal acquaintences and was a practicing veterinarian in the country before coming to the unfortunate conclusion that there wasn't enough demand for veterinary services based on compassion in the country, which is where she wanted to be. The majority of rural vet treatment was not what she could face giving to their animals, considering them a cash crop not companions. But she didn't want to live in the city. Which is just as well, because the city veterinary practices have become very factory-like.

In any case, she said that among the equipment available to do what we're proposing is a combination she had used, consisting of a short length (about 3 inches) of aquarium air-line hose -- with its end finely file-rounded and smoothed and liberally lubricated -- which would fit well on the dispensing tip of an eccentric-tip syringe -- about 60cc size -- and be more comfortable than a rectal thermometer. The former is available at walmart for about a dollar, and the latter can be bought from your local veterinary hospital for about $3.

So why would you choose this option over force feeding?

Because... For one, the prognosis with force feeding is that this approach has had a low probability of success which is understandable if you've tried to force feed a cat. Our Butterscotch was difficult enough, but he was more sedate and dignified than some cats. Next, we've noted that taking a cat's temperature is better tolerated than pilling in most cases, and that means the energy expended by your patient does not exacerbate the problem of deficiency of nutrients as much as strenuously resisted force feeding. There are fewer hazards as well, for both the patient -- choking -- and the caregiver -- lacerations -- which is important for a process that needs repeating for long days and many weeks. In addition, the delivery is much more rapid than one morsel or dollop or pump at a time, with pauses for swallowing and managing to breathe, followed by prep of the next morsel, re-establishing mouth control and patient soothing. With quick delivery, the fix is in and you can focus on soothing and comfort. Importantly, the liver and pancreas of the upper digestive tract are relieved of their burden since the grass juice reaches the absorptive areas of the colon and comes with its enzymes for digestion intact so those debilitating problems of the upper tract are bypassed.

When things are normal... After an hour out of the freezer, the fish are separable, though frozen solid, and a serated butcher knife can carve each fish into usable portions. Next to the box of 'dressed and headless' being processed in this session, is a container suitable for a day's feedings. Each frozen fish is divided into segments -- each segment approximately 1-2 feedings in size --, to be packed into the day-container, and replaced in the freezer. One day-container will be moved to the refrigerator to defrost for the next day's needs when the previous one is about used up.

The 60cc (2 oz) size of the syringe is about appropriate for a cat's colon to handle. The absorption of calories is more limited than in the healthy upper digestive tract but that normal route is currently less than available. Absorption is dependent on retention time and efficiency of the lower colon, which time can be made more pleasant with grooming and petting. For humans, the target time is about 30 minutes, with about 30-40% absorption achieved.

The strips along the fins are quick to defrost, so we keep those strips for the first feedings.

By comparison, we found that when the upper digestive tract is in hepatic lipidosis trouble, then kibble -- and likely similar cooked concoctions such as canfoods -- was undigested to any degree after even 2 hours in Butters' stomach and would be vomited when it was time to begin the next needed feeding. The same serving size of raw foods was successfully digested over the same time period. From the appearance, the absorption of kibble was definitely no more than 20%, if that. The shapes of the kibble were still quite clear. Considering the marketing advantage any cooked/canned food manufacturer would have if the differential between digestibility of canned and kibble were more than say 2-3times, it would seem generous to estimate the absorption of canned foods over a 2 hour period to be no more than 60% but probably closer to 20%. Especially since we were hydrating Butters after each feeding but the kibble shapes were unaffected. Raw foods went on to 100% absorption.

The kitchen shears with fine serrated jaws is ideal for this process of cutting the strips away from the fins. The dorsal and ventral fins are about the only part we dispose of, along with the tail fins.

Besides absorption levels as factors there's also caloric data to consider for each kind of feeding. With raw fish and liver, the caloric content is about 25-30calories/oz. The commercial standards for kibble are 106calories/oz, for canned 25cal/oz. For grass juice, caloric data is unfortunately limited but we've been working on a practical estimate and this is what we've found.

For grass juice there's a figure of 7calories/oz that's found at some weight-loss sites. This number is however not supported by several very dramatic demonstrations. During the depression, a family -- the Charles Schnabel family in Kansas -- lived for several years on grass and raw milk with very healthy results and they were successful for a while in attempting to develop a health food business later based on their dietary experience. Many of our ancestors were avid 'spring greens' officianados, maybe from pioneering days, and knew their weeds.

Nor is this greens-skill gone, we're not dealing with urban legends. One woman, as a demonstration, hiked from San Francisco to New York in the mid-80s, eating only weeds and grass. The adventure took a bit less than two months and she arrived quite hale and hearty, effectively walking over 60 miles a day, energy supplied by grass. Roughly a brisk 4mph 15hours a day, grass calories.

The other classic example is the story of Ann Wigmore's cure of gangrene from an accident which crushed both her legs. She sat outdoors everyday, courtesy of her uncle's help, and ate only grass. The rest of her family, sided with her doctors, and wanted her to choose amputation but she refused so they refused to care for her, except her uncle who however wouldn't defy her father except to carry her in and out to the meadow every day while he was working long hours in the local tannery sweatshop. Her full nutritional needs were being met -- with grass--, which implies that she must have been getting between 450 to 500 calories a day from grass. Those figures take into account the benefit of eating raw vs eating cooked, as well as the difference between active lifestyle and her very sedentary life.

Now the grass juice sites are stating that there are only 7 calories per ounce of juice grass. If Ann had been using their grass juice instead of simple grass, she would have had to drink over 64 of those shot-glass cups of juice sold at juice bars every day -- by their calculations, not the 4-5 max that enthusiasts manage -- or she would have wasted away and died miserably, instead being cured and healthy.

Next think how much grass she would have had to have eaten to get that half-gallon of juice equivalent. A pound of grass, comfortably fills a standard freezer storage bag. And the juicebars put about a third of that through the machine to fill the shotglass, which means that Ann would have had to eat the equivalent of nearly 12 bags of grass a day!! Picture eating 12 pounds of whatever when a substantial meal -- check the size of large frozen dinners -- is around a pound.

The only logical conclusion is that the juicing process used by dieters and juicebar patrons is the 'pulp-free' first pressing, and further that they are leaving behind the major portion of the nutrition in the grass that produced the healthy results we are wanting to emulate. The straightforward eating of grass produces the full benefit and if you study the product data for grass juicers you'll notice that others in the juice field have also figured out that the juicing process could produce a more fully squeezed product. They compete to claim that their design extracts 'more' of the benefits of grass. That their pulp is drier.

To confirm these ideas, BJ Sandoz used her Omega juicer and quantified the data we need to get a working value. Using a 1 pound supply of fresh tray-grown grass, precisely one of the ones used by the juicebars, she measured the first pressing as only 5ozs, only about 1/3rd the grass's substance. The Omega neatly ejects the pulp, so she cycled the damp pulp through the juicer a second time and the result was a more velvety 3 ozs. Repeating the process, she extracted another oz of more sauce-like juice, getting much more of the 'dry-matter nutrients' into the juice liquids. Almost twice as much as the juice bar/weight loss product, with its 7 calories/oz. The pulp, by that time, was extremely dry.

Each squeezing must produce a more nutrient/calorie dense result, or else some microbe in our gut is extracting caloric nutrients from the cellulosic part of grass, in order to get the Wigmore effect. With 7 cal/oz in the first squeezing, if we triple-cycle the grass when we juice it -- which is fully compatible with our delivery equipment -- our feedings could be closer to the 16 calories per oz in other sweet juices. Provided you're using the juice as soon as you process it, more dry matter nutrients in the liquid is the key to the full nutritional value in the grass Ann Wigmore, and other grass eaters were receiving.

There's one more source to confirm our estimating of juicing's limits. There is another route to consider, namely the dehydrated grass powder as a desirable backup source of grass nutrients.

One of the difficulties with juicing is the need to deliver the nutrients to your system, or in this case, your cat's system, within a 30 minute timeframe because the nutrients begin oxidizing, another reason no drug company or hospital offers what has a demonstrated history of health-giving results. Nor is it likely patentable. To avoid this difficulty the dehydrating route folks have developed some well thought out practices.

First the Wheatgrass People in Kansas grow their wheat, or barley, grass outdoors organically and monitor its growth til it reaches the appropriate peak -- the so-called jointing stage -- after which the plant begins to focus on reproduction. Their harvesting equipment is especially designed to sweep the grass into processing rapidly and without touching the ground. They then use a low-temperature dehydration process to protect all the enzymes and nutrients. This is followed by a careful grinding/crushing process, done in a high-nitrogen environment to minimize contact with oxidizing. Their nutrient calculations and testing provide a confirming upper limit of 13 calories per the amount of grass we've used for a 1oz dose of juice. The powder also offers the opportunity of being re-hydrated with a living liquid, say liver or fish drippings or even keiffer whey. We will get to the mechanics of these choices soon, but first the strategy analysis to ensure we've got a viable program for our patient.

The meat/fish re-hydrating choice adds another needed nutrient. The grass is a complete protein source for humans but cats need their carnivore nutrient, namely taurine which is basically a meat source nutrient and vital to obligate carnivores like cats.

Since this data is many-faceted, we'll organize it in a table.

From the cat's point of view, the calorie requirements generally recognized for normal cat foods are 30calories/day for each pound of your cat's weight. For this calculation, let's do the scenario where your cat is about an average size, say a nice mid-size 10lbs, so that we need to get him or her a total of 300 calories of kibble or cooked/canned food per day.

For raw foodists, the calorie requirements are about 1/2 the cooked foods, so our hypothetical 10lb cat needs 150 calories per day. In addition, the difference between struggling every couple hours for a half hour at a time versus a brief few minutes delivery with the remaining half hour spent in quiescent petting and grooming, while resting on a slant board, is a substantial 40% reduction from average -- about 90 calories per day for the sedentary mode of life for the colonic patient.

We also found in practice that a cat that is resisting will vomit all your and their hard work if you push for more than about 1/3rd to 1/2 their normal intake per feeding, or for a 10lb cat, that's about 1/2 oz dry to 1 oz moist, of whatever food.

Summarizing, for our 10lb cat..

Nutrient/Delivery	Caloric Content	Serving Tolerated	Absorption %age	Calories Achieved per Session	Sessions Needed/Day	Hours Needed per Day
Kibble/oral 300cal/day needed	106cal/oz	0.5oz or approx 1/6cup	20% over 2 hours	10.6 cal	28	70
Canned/oral 300cal/day needed	25cal/oz	1.0oz or 1/5th of the can	20-60% over 2 hours	15 cal max	20	50
RawFish&Liver/oral 150cal/day needed	27cal/oz	1.0oz	100% over 2 hours	27 cal	6	15
GrassJuice/colonic 90cal/day needed	7-13cal/oz	2.0oz	40% over 1/2 hour	7-11 cal	8-13	8-13

Finally it's time to address the mechanics and logistics of each day's doses.

**** More coming soon ****


Monitoring progress and routine health examinations for baseline knowledge to implement before the crisis

**** To be continued ****

But come and see the battle royale, aka the cat fight,
as we attempt to tell even our cat health acquaintances in alternative medicine

..navigating our escape...

CatLovers Showdown over Intracolonic Feeding

By now, you may be struggling with your cultural taboos as well as the establishment's diminishing of your ideas and skills, with their not-small incentive of taking charge of your responsibilities and supporting funds. We've subjected this proposal to the brainstorming tests among our fellow cat lovers and found some very useful supporting ideas inspite of the ubiquitous cultural taboos about our bodies. We invite you to wade through the battle, in search of your own perils. Then you can ask the ultimate question. Will you deal with your taboos and focus on saving your cat, or will you cringe before your taboos and risk your cat's life.

The cat fight over intracolonic feeding..

The invitation to engagement -- >Re: Kitten not eating. Need advice...

Honestly when it happens to me after shots I have found the best way to start them eating again is to give a course of Amoxi. Within 24 hours for some reason the kitten is eating and playing again. I am not a big fan of antibiotics but it is so easy to lose a kitten.

What this seems to imply is that the viruses in these 'shots' are not truly dead. Which is precisely what happened to our cat, whose younger house mate brought the virus home at vaccination time. The symptoms our Butterscotch had, emulated a chronic version of one of the viruses (panleukopenia) and we nearly lost Butters. By all means, not eating is time to worry, and act.

We made the switch to raw foods, but under the duress of having to force feed him. With raw foods, his caloric needs are better met, possibly because the nutrients are more accessible than foods damaged by heat and processing. So every bit of raw food you can coax him to eat will count double, compared to getting him to eat the usual kibble, sci-diet or whatever.

If the point comes where he's still not eating and he's not playful, we noticed that cats are much easier to handle for their temperature taking than for pilling. I also discussed this with a friend who studied veterinary medicine but said it wasn't financially possible for her to do it in the country where she wanted to live but she loved the work and had a very caring personality. She was not one to lose a patient, yet she was into natural medicines.

Absorption of nutrients takes place to an appreciable degree in the colon, and she said that there was a type of syringe (eccentric tip and 60cc) that would fit with a short piece of airtubing from the aquarium dept of walmart which she said could be smoothed and oiled well so that grass juice (and potentially juiced liver) could be comfortably delivered into the 'backdoor' when you can't get the front door to work. Then you'd have to pet, groom, whatever for maybe a 1/2 hour to keep your kitten quiescent.

For the record, Butters would only consider grass and drinking lots of fluids before he began to show signs of retreating instead of being social. And grass juice is used by humans for several medical purposes. Amounts would have to be figured to ensure calorie intake was adequate.

You could possibly watch his weight if your scale was precise enough, but you'd have to check his belly and chest to make sure it was his weight, not some fluid retention that sometimes goes with liver or heart problems. And with a kitten, you're probably not familiar enough to his 'normal' feel.

Best wishes to your little patient.

I'm thinking that *if* the FVRCP shot and worming were the problem, he should have had problems the day after the vet visit, but he was fine then. So that makes me suspect the diet change. Any thoughts? If the shot is suspect, I won't be allowing more shots.

Immune responses are a juggling act and there's no reason to believe the non-dead virus would immediately take charge of the kitten's systems. Think how long it takes for exposure to a simple cold to show signs. This thing is not dead but it's weak but injected past normal defenses. The result isn't simple.

Our Butters, who'd been vaccinated before, is an example. When he was exposed to the not-so-dead virals, his system reacted a couple days later but we figured out the pattern from the fact that our cats were not exposed to anything unusual or new other than the vet trip, and from the description of the symptoms. The analogy in his case, since he had immunities from the original shot as a kitten, is that his titers (immune function defenders) were like firefighters playing cards in the firehouse, not expecting trouble because their usual alarm systems were not breeched, but arising to the challenge when the situation was recognized.

For a kitten, I'm wondering if any basic immunities are passed by the mother cat, the same as our children receive some in their first days.

Butter's bout of vomitting and diarrhea passed too, and his system started to bounce back but without nutritional inputs of sufficient amounts his body was drawing on its stored nutrients which of course are the fats. But that imbalance on a several day's timeframe put him into the dangerous area of hepatic lipidosis. Short term the body's response can get a little cat through a crisis but after a few days, you're into another whole strange world of liver damage and HL.

This is not like exposure to a toxin like anti-freeze. I'd really think focussing on 'upsetting food changes' or 'litter box changes' is a dangerous decoy. You can lose a cat while focussing on the wrong problem.

Why not get some raw liver from the grocer and snip pieces into his kibble that he's used to. Kitchen shears will do nicely. The liver is not only raw but it supports his body's little compromised liver from this ordeal.

although intracolonic absorption is true to some degree, this is NOT something that your average pet owner should even attempt to undertake.Your friend was a vet or vet in training and had knowledge that the average pet owner does not have.I have heard more horror stories of breeders(who are usually more knowledgable than your average pet owner)who have bungled things, thinking they know how to do something.By all means if a vet shows you how to do something, use it--but do not attempt it yourself without proper instruction. i would definitiely try to find the right homeopathic rx first. if there are no homeopaths close by, then you can contact any of several vets who will do phone consultations. it is a lot less draconian than the force feedings described and the right rx can work like magic without the pain of the anal feeding tubes

First of all, Linda was certainly trained as a veterinarian and further it was her opinion that this was doable by someone who really cared about their little animal companion.

I can tell you that genuine caring is more important than some specialty as it was in Butter's case first an allopath who administered that vaccine and told us that there were no side effects to be concerned about (I had specifically asked)

It was a holistic vet who advised us to continue applying hot compresses to Butters abscess when Butters had a detoxing episode when we had to change to raw foods to stop his slide into HL, why? Because he didn't believe in detox. He was wrapping up for the weekend and figured he could 'fix' up whatever damage was occurring on Monday, ignoring our pleas that Butters was being hurt by the process. What he was proposing to do on Monday was a lot worse because of the delay. I ended up draining the abscess myself and switching to cold compresses which Butters accepted well. I had to convince the emergency vet where we'd taken Butters when we'd first found the abscess that I was not going to continue 'following' their orders. Then she at least was forthcoming with a shortlist of what she was fearful about, which did not apply in our case.

And it was a homeopath who overlooked incredible warning signs in Foxfire's bloodwork as well as diminishing the importance of fluid accumulation.

So don't be misled that it's a matter of finding the 'right expertise' and abdicating your responsibilities, as scary as that may seem at the moment.

Second, you have the medical cases of humans doing intracolonic feedings using grassjuice. There are multiple sources of information on technique and equipment, as well as your innate insistence on appropriate soothing of little soft tissues.

I'm really puzzled by the reference to 'pain of anal feeding tubes'. There is no necessity for there to be pain. Think of the oily smooth passage of the rectal thermometer and how there are now on the market versions that are flexible. The aquarium air tubing is barely any bigger than the diameter of a thermometer, and a LOT more flexible. The smoothing that was prescribed was a matter of rounding and polishing the leading edge to match the effect of a thermometer.

Humans, these days, are also handling catheters and I don't think anyone who's caring and self-educating (which is what we're doing here) should be told to sit on their hands or stick with an ineffective and self-defeating strategy when they have minds and hearts to figure their way through a crisis.

You have to be watching your kitten's weight situation as well as their emotive behavior. With 'inappetance', the hazard is HL, for which you would be watching for any sign of yellowing in your kitten's eyelids, gums and ears. You would be feeling your kittens belly for any signs of fluids outside their appointed organs which would signal serious problems and nullify any confidence of weight stabilization and indicating something even more complicated than liver damage.

Since there are a variety of ways to provide nutrients to a kitty that is not eating, I find this "back door" approach quite unsettling to say the least. If a kitty is not eating and weak, etc., a vet (holistic or otherwise) should be consulted and the kitty could be put on IV nutrients (at vets office) or syringed liquid food by mouth (vet can teach for use at home). I cannot imagine under any circumstances where a "lay person" should even attempt this procedure. I also cannot imagine a vet doing this to get nutrients into a kitty when other means are available that are much less invasive and more nutrients would be delivered. The "appreciable degree" of absorption by using this method, IMHO, would not be enough to offset the fact that nutrients would be better served by mouth, whether syringed or vet IV, where nutrients could be delivered that would benefit a kitty in a more usable manner through the digestive tract. Maybe I am missing the point on why this would be done, but I guess that I feel that this is a very invasive, let alone quite uncomfortable (for kitty), way to give nutrients for the limited benefit that would be provided - and an affront to kitty's dignity.

Apparently, you've clearly never had to force feed a cat/kitten with hepatic lipidosis. They don't call it 'force' for nothing. If you think that's not an affront to kitty's dignity, your idea of dignity is rather strange. You do it because you love your cat and it's the only way to get food into him. And without that food, he will die.

That's assuming you can get food into him, and do it without injury. It took two of us, one to restrain and one to open his mouth, quickly position an appropriately sized morsel *just* far enough into his mouth so that his tongue wouldn't propel it out but he wouldn't choke on it, then hold his mouth closed and feel his throat to montior for swallowing, all the while talking to him, coaxingly, encouraginly, and attempting to accomodate his need to reposition and to avoid the overheating of close quarters, working every two hours to prepare and feed our little Butters, around the clock.

If you've ever tried using a syringe or baster to attempt this with liquids, you will know that you and the cat and the surfaces around you will be where you will find the carefully prepared foods. Not in the cat much at all, judging by how much is everywhere else.

That's the real reason the success rate for force feeding is so low. And that's the reality, the reason the holistic vet we were working with didn't give us enough meds to last the week between bloodtests. Whether he was willing to say it or not, his gut feel was obvious, he didn't expect the 'front door' to work, which is precisely how he explained the amount of meds, AFTER we managed to make it through each hurdle.

As for the ludicrous idea that the intravenous is less invasive that the intracolonic feeding... I have no idea how you can manage to keep a straight face while saying it. Really. And on top of that, more comfortable, you're joking, truly.

And if your idea of nutrition for cats is sugar water calories...

Oh and btw, the colon IS part of the digestive tract, for future reference.

But most of all, what I'm here to tell you is that there are other cats who are more wild and stronger than our little Butterscotch. We've had that experience too and I will tell you that you have a choice, if you want to save your little one, go with what has a better chance of working or succomb to some culturally induced squeemishness. Even the wildest of our cat companions was relatively tolerant of having his temperature taken compared to pilling, much less attempting even one complete feeding.

Nor is the stuggle, requiring precious energy/calories from your little cat, improving their chances of surviving. Your choice. I will tell you now that the syringes are made for fine liquids and they jam and slip when used for any significant food broth or fine food. We tried the baster and a paste consistency but if you've never seen what a cat can do to the baster, well plastic is not on any nutrient list for cats that I've ever seen. We tried cutting the ragged tip off between feedings but decided the results were not getting enough sustenance into Butters anyway, even if we had been using a metal baster.

We're talking about matters of life and death. Cultural squeemishness in the face of necessity for someone you care about is non-negotiable in my book.

Clearly you do not understand vaccines and what they do.Vaccines actually SUPPRESS the immune system for about 10 days to 2 weeks after vaccination.If a kitten has a sub-clinical infection(meaning it is not apparent> a vaccine will push it to the surface.

Suppression is a rather peculiar description for an immune system under seige by a viral attacker. As for the sub-clinical infection coming to the surface and escaping the control the immune system was providing while the immune system is pre-occupied with another more potent threat, is hardly a counter example to the 'understanding'. However your attitude is very clear.

No, some vaccines are killed and some are modified live.The killed viruses have supposedly been inactivated, but improper storage can cause them to "re-activate" and become a live and very deadly form of the virus.Modified live viruses have been modified by taking viral protiens out and using them.These can cause a whole mess of problems. Then there is also the preservatives used(like thermosol(a form of mercury) and aluminum.Plus there is the tissues that the virus has been cultured in to make the vaccine...Then when you add to the fact that vaccines are injected sub-cutainiously (much the same way an allergen is to do allergy testing)as opposed to the normal route the disease infects the host(oral-mucosal route).Well it sets up the immune system for a crash course.

You say 'no', but in fact you arrive at exactly the same point, namely that the vaccine is not dead, that it carries a threat directly into the body, avoiding the usual defenses and brings a cornucopia of unpredictable results along with it, namely it's not simple, like exposure to a toxin like anti-freeze.

Titres do NOT indicate immunity and they are NOT what defends the immune system.A titre is merely an indication of recent exposure to something.You DO NOT understand immunity and your advice is more confusing than helpful in this case.

According to the veterinary books, specifically the homeopathic one promoted by this group originally, the veterinary schools were proposing to establish the viability of previous vaccinations -- and the hence the need or not for subsequent shots -- on the basis of the presence of titers of the specific type. If that's not an indication of immunity, what's your definition?

We found out that such a test requires a substantial blood sample and is only done at a limited number of labs which suggests that the proposal was not genuine, but that doesn't change the veterinary estimation of the 'indication of immunity' just that it's not practical.

I would suggest you have a problem with NOT.

There comes a point in time where common sense plays a big part.Your experience is not the same as this kitten's.As a breeder I have nursed many a kitten back from death's door.Most of these kittens stopped eating as a result of a vaccine reaction or teething.And yes sometimes a change in diet will do this.I think the person is doing the right approach and is on the right track... but this comes from nearly 20 years experience, not the experience of one incident.

"Sometimes a change in diet will do this" is not very comforting to someone who's lost a cat thinking it was just a 'change in diet' when something else was causing it. If you think comfort is more important than awareness of risk then we differ on what's negotiable. As one who cares for my cats, I'd rather know there's one chance to be alert for as well as the view that "sometimes" it's the change in food. But even here, you've revealed that "many" times they were "at death's door", which makes our experience quite relevant, whether it's 20 years or not.

Eh? How does raw liver support a compromised liver?

The liver is in many ways similar to a chemical factory, and in hepatic lipidosis eating raw liver relieves the cat/kitten's liver of much of the work of digestive chemical support when the food is raw. (maybe 1/2 since caloric needs are about half of the calories needed when the food is cooked).

If in addition, that food is also liver, there is likely additional traces of its original functioning along with its own sustenance. In Butterscotch's case, the veterinarian even prescribed, along with samE (be sure to supplement samE with vit Bs), a tablet composed of a range of glandulars (primarily livers) from a variety of sources (porkine, bovine).

Cats are not humans.There are many things that humans can take...medications, herbals that would KILL a cat.Advocating such things is at best foolish, but IMO are downright irresponsible.I don't care if it worked for your friend and I don't care if YOU think she is the most wonderful vet on the planet...clearly many on this list have a problem with her treatment methods(and at least one well qualified holistic vet) Again this is for humans--humans are NOTT cats and things DO NOT APPLY.

We're talking about grass, something cats frequently eat of their own choice, and eagerly at that. We're not talking about some risky med like essential oils or chocolate or whatever. Grass. Please stay focused on the medical treatment being discussed.

The idea you're insinuating with innuendo that grass would 'KILL' a cat is 'at best foolish'.

Have you EVER tried to take the temperature of a cat on a regular basis?Vets are pretty skilled at it and can usually do it in a manner that is not so invasive...but I have NEVER know the average cat owner to be able to do it.I can't and as a breeder I KNOW I have had way more practice than your average cat owner.I have taken rectal temps on co-operative and not so co-operative cats.Cats so ill they can barely move too...and I have to say...ALL cats HATE it and fight like mad...even the ones at deaths door.It is an extremely invasive procedure.I expect giving a colonic to a cat is 100 times worse.I know PEOPLE who have had them--they DO NOT consider it pleasent.I remember as a child being given anti-nausea medication that way(I had some sort of bug where I could NOT keep any food down and I didn't LIKE it.I darn well know how a cat would feel.

So which is it, 'you can't do it' or 'I have taken rectal temps'?

Apparently your friends were not grass juice users, because that's not the experience of those in the grass juice community. There are others who do all sorts of other treatments, 'high colonics', coffee, whatever, which is not what is being suggested.

As for the 'fight like mad', our cats also respond to our own attitudes when we're caring for them. Independent of the behavior characteristic of HL. And even if it was necessary to restrain a little cat to save them, the struggle and duration for an intracolonic delivery are shortlived compared to the ordeal of force feeding.

The struggle is less, reducing the cat's expenditure of needed energy. Every struggle increases the need for calories at a time when they can't even keep up with ordinary caloric needs.

Isn't it amazing how illogical is this animosity towards part of our bodies. In your own case, your MD prescribed exactly what you are denying to our cats, making your claims of 'abuse' and 'KILL'. If what you had was even as dangerous as HL, you would have been saved by exactly this method.

You cannot compare human treatments to cats.As a breeder I have treated many a kitten who would probably have died.But I have treated the kitten with dignity and compassion.I have chosen methods that are the least invasive as possible.NONE of my strategies are self-defeating or ineffective.I have heard many a story from people on this list about kittens and cats that people have saved...so I'd have to say the same is true for most, if not ALL of them.I will say though that all of the measures people have used on this have been compassionate the least invasive possible. No one is telling anyone here to sit on their hands and do nothing.But we are advocating compassion and common sense.There is the adage that says to do no harm--questionable procedures might work, but their potential to cause harm far out weighs their usefulness.

Look around at the websites on force feeding, they'll confirm the impotence of this strategy. That's the justification for calling it self-defeating. The odds that an owner/caregiver can successfully manage force feeding are not very good, and particularly in some cat's cases.

Your own medical experience removes the issue of 'questionable' and 'potential to cause harm'. Exactly how do you manage to compare the likelihood of dying from HL within a week to 'indignity' and 'invasive', especially when what the vet would do in the office is hugely more invasive, requiring large doses of sedatives, painkillers, antibiotics, anesthetics on top of restraining.

Yes hepatic lipidosis is a risk...but the solution to that is NOT colonic feeding.It is force feeding, giving fluids and if necessary getting a gastral tube inserted surgically by a qualified vet so the cat may be tube fed.Anything else I would consider inhumane and unethical.

You consider taking a knife and surgical instruments to cut open your little cat to be preferable to 'indignity' and 'questionable', and the latter only in the opinion of one vet vs the opinion of another equally qualified vet. Not to mention your own pediatrician. Now that's inhumane.

Think about it, for a moment. Your cat is presumeably 'at death's door' by your phrasing, and you want to subject them to cutting them open and all the machinations necessary to maintain this tube and sedation and all the rest of the medications required to sustain such an extreme procedure. Yet you balk at intracolonic feeding as beyond cat tolerance and dignity. Can't you see that your resistance is a cultural taboo, for which you would pay with your cat's chances of wellbeing. Refusing to consider something your physician considered quite ethical.

If a cat is seriously ill and DOES have hepatic lipidosis the owner should be working with their vet to remedy it.If ANY of my cats had HL I would not self treat(in spite of the fact that I likely have enough knowledge to do so), I would be working with my vet to treat my cat.I expect most on this lit would do the same. Negative experiences with vets does not excuse failure to give a cat or kitten proper care when required.When a kitten or cat is seriously ill, veterinary care is required.Anything less is abuse IMO.I know quite a few breeder who think like you...that they know better and don't need a vet; they can do it themselves.Well they often end up with dead cats or cats that are more ill than they were to start with.Those kinds of people do not impress me one bit.

Do you ever look at statistics to see what the odds are on vet treatment? A lot of vets lose their little patients, not just your fellow breeders.

According to vet websites, the odds are not good that they can save a little cat with HL. So before you get so exercised over your fellow breeders' successes and failures, you'd better have some hard stats to compare with.

When we put naive faith in high tech methods and medications we are doing exactly what is done in current medical practice on humans, with about as much chance of good results. In case it hasn't been in your reading list, the JAMA studies show that drug/doctor/hospital caused death is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US, right up there with heart disease and cancer. In English statistics comparing midwife results and obstetricians, even when controlled for level of difficulty in birthing, the surgical and mechanized methods had much worse results.

As for your diatribe on 'negative experience' and giving 'proper care when required'... allowing a cultural phobia about your body to inhibit you from considering a method with more chance of success is precisely denying your cat his needed 'care when required' based on *your* negative experiences.

As for the choice by 'many' with the same cultural taboos to do the same, namely abdicate their decisionmaking to the experts. Did no one ever tell you that just because everyone else does it, doesn't make it, or them, right? More precisely, in Milgram's experiments on how far people would go in inflicting pain on an innocent, the staggering majority by a large margin, would follow the expert/authority figure's choices. And they subsequently consider themselves as non-abusive and condone the expert's right to abuse.

Those kind of people do impress me.. negatively...

...And using a tube inserted into their rectum/colon is not going to cause a struggle??? Let alone the possibility of internal injury as you suggested aquarium airline tubing. I have a couple large aquariums and airline tubing is not soft, rubbery, and pliable, it is somewhat rigid - yes, you can bend it, but that doesn't make it safe; and IMO it is not suitable for this purpose.

As I've pointed out before, in another post, maybe you missed it... the time of struggling is during delivery of the fluids. This should be considerably less than the time of struggle involved in force feeding, not to mention the hazards of choking for your cat, or risk of injury to the brave soul positioning food.

As for the degree of flexibility appropriate for the tubing, compare it to the flexibility of the new thermometers. It's more flexible than that, which is considered medically appropriate for the tissues involved.

I am quite vigilant with my kitties and have never had a kitty that got to HL, so in that regard, no, I have not had to "force" feed because of this. But, I have had to use a syringe to introduce a less-than-paste-type mixture (the right consistency works very well, with the correct size syringe) when he wasn't eating enough to get calories into him. I used a cat-sack with Tuffy when he didn't want to cooperate; he didn't struggle being put inside the sack, and it seemed to comfort him to be "snuggled" inside. Each kitty is different, so you have to use whatever is most comfortable for your kitty. IMHO, getting into a wrestling match with your kitty is not the way to go.

As for vigilance, I would like to remind you that the reason we got into the HL situation was precisely because we were vigilantly following vet admonitions to get our cats vaccinated. The insinuation that we were careless is undeserved and untrue.

Tuffy apparently didn't have HL. With HL, it's not simply that the cat is uncooperative. Two hours after feeding our little cat an amount that was appropriate for this length period (because more was so strenuous that he would throw up, defeating the entire progress), those fancy consistency canned foods promoted by the veterinarians were still sitting undigested in Butters' tummy as we saw when he would promptly throw up at the start of the next feeding. The only thing that would make it through his system was raw foods.

Our cats came to us, not as wee kittens. They adopted us, one by one, with the last coming after we'd exceeded the limit the landlord would allow, even with a $25/cat/month bribe. In your humble opinion on wrestling, I'm glad none of your cats ever got HL or they'd be dead.

Your attacking me by saying that my idea of dignity is rather strange, comes from someone that thinks intracolonic feedings isn't in the least bit an affront to their kitty's dignity. Dignity aside, if you try to stay on top of things, HL might be avoided in the first place.

Talk about nasty attacks and unfounded insinuations. You have no idea what the circumstances were, yet you pontificate on organization. It wasn't even the cat who got the shot who got sick.

Kindly refrain from changing what I've said. Force feeding is not very dignified, do you think? I specifically said that dignity be damned when it came to saving a life. Squeemishness was not negotiable either.

Again, the attack, calling the idea that intravenous is less intrusive 'ludicrous'. There are ways to say things that don't totally alienate someone from listening to what you have to say...really, there is...

How exactly do you intend I should say that a ludicrous idea is being pushed at me without being offensive except by considering it must be humor.

Apparently it was blindness that you can't see that inserting knives and needles into veins and belly is more invasive than inserting a short flexible tube into a natural opening at the end of the digestive tract.

It also seems you are content with the quality of sugar water and artificial nutrients being pushed into your cat by comparatively heinous methods instead of finding whatever way possible to get natural raw foods, not infrequently desired by your cat, into their natural path of absorption

If a kitty needed more than an intravenous feeding i.e. more nutrition, a port for feeding could be used in the long-term, or less of an aggressive approach (but that seems to be part of your personality) to "force" feeding with a syringe. I have never had a kitty struggle when an IV (in > a vet setting) was used. From my experience with my CRF kitty, intravenous feeding and fluids boosted him when his appetite was almost nonexistent (after ONE day of hardly eating) and helped > him immensely. The IV feeding with my CRF kitty was to introduce calories, vitamins, electrolytes, etc. to give him help in the short-term; and to avoid HL.

I'm going to ignore your slander because any rational reader can see you have no foundation.

Aggressive? You don't call stomach tubes aggressive? HL is not this wimpy inappetance. It's resistance because their body cannot take any more in the upper digestive tract.

Also, for intracolonic "feeding", I would imagine if Butters struggled so with trying to syringe him, that anesthesia would be required to do the intracolonic procedure, no?

No, no more than it was for temperature taking.

Yes, my dear, the colon is part of the digestive tract, but at the **end** of the digestive tract, where **less** nutrients are absorbed and used by the kitty. And I am taking it that the intracolonic feeding was a last resort for you and Butters to introduce nutrients in a time of immediate need

Yes, my dear, it is at the **end** of the digestive tract but in case you were asleep earlier, the upper digestive tract was not functioning, dear.

And no, actually we made it through with around the clock vigilance, meticulously monitoring of intakes and adjusting technique and tactics with each and every 2 hour interval and all three of us helping, for a period of almost 3 months. But, as stated earlier, some cats who've come to us had been on the street for longer and were wilder.

We lived for 4 years with one amazing beauty, a gorgeous ragamuffin, one elegant cowboy who could leap with grace over 6' high walls with such ease and seeming lack of effort, who would dash like a demon whipping around obstacles so suddenly as to take your breath away, yet be so loving and insistently affectionate. And so proud and independent. He just could not tolerate any other cats around his new precious home. So we divided our home up for him. Anyone thinking they could handle him for something he didn't want has another think coming. Intracolonic feeding would be about the only way possible to save him. Which is why I was bringing it to the attention of the group, because cats like our Foxfire may be rare, I wouldn't know, but definitely a candidate for desperate measures, and others may need it too.


Our elegant, passionate cowboy.