วันอังคารที่ 13 กันยายน พ.ศ. 2554

What Should You Feed A Cat with Diarrhea?

The biggest problem with cat diarrhea is that it’s not a disease but, rather, the symptom of some primary problem. Veterinarians generally divide the problems that can cause cat diarrhea into minor problems and major problems.

Minor problems are typically a stomach or intestinal virus, intestinal parasites or what are called “dietary indiscretions,” meaning that the cat has eaten garbage, spoiled food or something else that has irritated its intestinal tract.

Major problems that can cause cat diarrhea are more severe and are typically caused by conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, a fungal or bacterial infection, hyperthyroidism, or even feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV).

Minor Cat Diarrhea

If you believe your cat’s diarrhea is on the minor side, you may be able to manage it through the feeding your cat food for cats with diarrhea.

No Food With Dyes Or Artificial Ingredients

First, try not to feed your cat any cat foods containing dyes or other artificial ingredients. Many cat foods are processed with these ingredients to look like chunks of meat or to stay moist in the can for months. However, these are nonfoods and cause the cat’s gut to work harder which is the opposite of what you want with a cat that has diarrhea. Any change in diet can cause diarrhea but switching to a brand without dyes or nonfood ingredients will help prevent future diarrhetic episodes.

Switch A Bland Diet

Another thing to try is to feed your cat go a bland diet. Many experts suggest a combination of cooked white rice mixed with either boiled chicken or hamburger meat. Some cats may refuse to eat this mixture. If yours is one of them, try substituting cooked potato or pasta. If you don’t feel like cooking up this mixture, there are lamb and rice cat foods available at most pet stores.

Fasting

You can also fast your cat for 24 hours. If nothing goes into the cat (except water), there’s nothing for its gut to process. By the end of the 24 hours, there should be nothing coming out. When you do begin feeding the cat again, begin with the rice mixture and then slowly mix in its regular food. As you do this, you can reduce the amount of the rice mixture until the cat is back to its normal diet.

Buy Quality Cat Food

Feeding you cat marked-down, generic cat chow can cause cat diarrhea. As in most things, quality costs money. When you buy cat food below a certain price, you can bet it will have cheaper ingredients. Even foods marked “high protein” can cause diarrhea because the protein can be feathers, hooves and beaks - all of which are not digestible proteins.

Dietary Therapy

If your cat were suffering from chronic small bowel diarrhea, the ideal diet would be based on a highly digestible, single protein and carbohydrate source that’s gluten and lactose free. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of commercial, hypoallergenic products that meet this criterion.

You can find cat foods with a single protein. This can be venison, rabbit, chicken, fish or lamb. Before you buy any cat food, be sure to check its list of ingredients as those with several protein sources are often marketed, as with the claim that they are hypoallergenic though they really aren’t.

Large Bowel Diarrhea

If your cat has large bowel diarrhea, dietary issues can be very complex. Some cats have shown improvement on low residue, hypoallergenic diets, while other have improved on less digestible diets with soluble or insoluble fiber sources. This means you should count on your vet for a recommendation as, in the case of large bowel diarrhea, no diet may help.

Don't Feed Your Cat Table Scraps

Feeding your cat table scraps is just not a good idea. Food that you prepare for yourself is not always good for felines. In fact, diarrhea is one of the least harmful things that can happen to your cat from eating these scraps.

Be sure to check and make sure one of your neighbors is not also feeding your cat. You could have a well-meaning neighbor who is feeding your cat those inappropriate table scraps.

Also, remember that cats are hunters and predators. So, your cat’s diarrhea could have been caused by an animal or bird it killed and ate.

Visit The Vet

If your cat’s diarrhea does not respond to a diet of food for cats with diarrhea, be sure to get it to your vet for a check-up. It’s sad but true that the cause of the diet could be something more severe than an irritated bowel or intestine. In fact, it could be many different things, including a chronic bowel obstruction, a failure of pancreatic function, worms, or even something as serious as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). And only your vet can administer the tests required for a definitive diagnosis and to start the treatment required to get your cat back on the road to good health.


http://www.cat-diarrhea.net/food-for-cats-with-diarrhea.html

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