The Raw Deal – Chew On This!!

A cat’s dental health is something very important.

I know, especially after giving palliative care to Vincent who had stage 4 kidney failure. For Vincent’s case, we did everything possible for him, but he simply had extremely sensitive gums. He went through two dental surgeries earlier on, had good teeth removed because his gums would react “violently” (it was also an auto-immune condition, which we had not much control over). Vincent had stomatitis and that eventually lead to kidney disease. The simple explanation is this: Stomatitis makes the gums react, the body manufactures globulin to fight the disease, globulin destroys the kidneys.

After Vincent and I fought that brave battle together for 9 months; after Vincent passed away, I brought all our cats to get their teeth checked. Prevention (if at all possible) is definitely better than cure. Cow, Bunny, Ginger and Indy had teeth removed and scaling done. Why did it only affect the boys, I do not know. Pole, Cleo, Tabs and Heidi did not need any scaling. Well, Heidi didn’t have many teeth left (she was already that way when she first came to adopt us, 7 years ago).

So, how does nutrition help with the gums, gum disease and the teeth?

Cats need to chew – that’s the short answer.

This link is good: https://feline-nutrition.org/the-blogs/chew-on-this

For me, this website (Feline Nutrition Foundation) is an excellent website for reference on, well, as the name clearly suggests, “feline nutrition”.

If only I had known years ago that raw food was best. If only I had known years ago to give the cats meaty bones to chew on.  If only……..  But never mind, it’s still not too late now.

So, now, 6 of our cats chew on meat chunks. That would be Indy, Tabs, Ginger, Heidi, Bunny and Cleo – they love chewing on meat chunks. I’ve tried meaty bones way back, but they did not know what to do with it. I might just try again soon.

Important note: Never give cooked bones (they splinter). Only raw bones, like chicken wings or chicken necks.

However, Cow and Pole do not know how to chew on meat chunks. But, they love chewing on Primal chunks, so I let them do this instead.

Cow, Bunny, Ginger and Indy are the ones with gum problems, so they have to chew. So do the rest.

All cats have to chew.

It’s also a blessing in disguise that Cubgrub uses a 6mm plate now, so the grinded food pieces are bigger and hence, are more chew-able.

Recently, I also trained the cats to transition from fillet chunks to thigh chunks. The “hardworking” dark-coloured muscle meat has more taurine and less phosphorus.

Some opine that kibble help to clean the teeth, but kibble is mostly carbohydrates. Have you eaten biscuits before? Does it help clean your teeth? It sure doesn’t help to clean mine.

Ginger insisted on being the model for this post as well.

But er…this post is about chewing your food, Ginger, and you are not chewing food right now.

Like this, Ginger. I need a “chewing food” photo. Not you getting some sunshine.

Gimme food, then.

*Chomp, chomp, chomp!*

Source: https://myanimalcare.org/2019/12/26/the-raw-deal-chew-on-thi..

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AnimalCare is a registered society that promotes caregiving to street animals and helps in their neutering and medical needs. AnimalCare has a Medical Fund, Food Fund and Education Fund.

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