The Zev thread (was "Anybody want a kitten?")

[TimO]

Yes, cooked chicken and white fish are best, because they're mild foods and protein works best with the d-word.   Carbohydrates and fats are best avoided, so no dry cat food or cat milk. I've also got some beef flavoured paste to feed her, Pro-Kolin+, which should either solve this immediate problem by Monday, or she needs to go back to the vets.

[TimO]

She's been very quiet since I brought her home, not very active at all.  Up to about ten minutes ago, she hadn't eaten or drunk anything significant, but I cooked some cod in the oven, and when put right in front of her, it went down a treat !  She immediately ate the small portion I gave her, and then the second, and then the third.

I've got a little left, in the fridge (I'll warm if up before I give it to her again), but I'm going to buy some more.  Cod steak probably costs about twice as much as the most expensive premium cat food, but given I've paid out almost £300 in vet bills so far, it's a minor addition, and if it works.

Hopefully this means the Pro-Kolin+ is having a positive effect on her digestion.  She has been using the litter trays a lot, but that's either instinct or irritation, because I don't think much is coming out, solid or liquid.  The next dose is due in a few hours, and I'll be happy when she starts becoming difficult to treat.

[barakta]

Aww kitteh!

[TimO]

Unfortunately, aside from that one bout of relatively enthusiastic eating, she has had very little to eat.

She has eaten maybe a quarter of a tin of chicken cat food (about 15g) yesterday late evening, and about the same amount of ocean fish cat food this morning.  She was clearly licking up all the juice in the cat food today, but wasn't interested in any water when put near here.

It's more difficult to give her the Pro-Kolin+, and this morning she actually managed to bite the nozzle to the extent that the cap would not fit back on, until I straightened the tube out.

Having said that, she is not very active, aside from walking upstairs sometimes to use the cat litter tray in the bathroom, and then she seems to prefer to stay there, rather than walk back downstairs.  She even curled up in the litter tray, which was a reversion to her early life with Kim and Barakta.

Unless something dramatic happens, I'm going to have to take her back to the vets tomorrow morning.

[hellymedic]

I am not a vet but it seems she craves the fish juice; could you make her some sort of fish soup?
Hope she improves!

[Mrs Pingu]

When I do the boiled chicken I put a bit of the cooking liquor in when I whizz the chicken up to make it a bit moister.

[lou boutin]

Sending healing vibes Zev's way

[TimO]

I am not a vet but it seems she craves the fish juice; could you make her some sort of fish soup?

Actually, that isn't a bad idea, although I need to make a soup with essentially nothing else added, aside from fish and water. 

I think I can probably boil the fish, in a strainer, and then mix with some of that water.  I may slightly over cook it, to make it as easy for her to eat as possible.  That should produce something which has a relatively high liquid content, and which is quite smelly.

They didn't have any cod in the supermarket yesterday, but they did have Basa, and that's frequently used in the same sorts of ways as cod, with the benefit of being cheaper!

[barakta]

Suspect any plain white fish is fine. Good idea re overcooking it and making it as wet as possible. Might help rehydrate her.  Biting the pro-kolin might also be a slightly good sign.  Keeping fingers crossed. Poor Zevcat.

[TimO]

She wasn't really interested in the cooked fish at all.  She has been drinking some water, so hopefully she's not too dehydrated.  Mostly she's been sleeping all day, so no real difference from normality, but when she does get up, she is not moving very fast.

I had to wrap her this evening, to give her a dose of the Pro-Kolin+, which certainly means that she's not entirely without energy.

The diarrhoea hasn't noticeably stopped, but I may as well keep on giving her the Pro-Kolin+ because I've got nothing else to do at the moment.  I'll ring up the vets when they open at 8am, and I'm sure they're going to want to see her, and decide what else can be done.

   

[Mrs Pingu]

Aw, poor toot

[Kathy]

Poor little lumpkin.

Coley/pollock is a cheap alternative to cod - you can buy bags of "frozen white fish" from the supermarket and this is usually what is in it. I used to take a lump out and nuke it up to temperature when Emmie was terminal and would only eat fish.

[TimO]

I just gave her the last of the Pro-Kolin+, and tried her on the Basa that I cooked earlier, and which she wasn't interested in.  She promptly scoffed all of it down !  The first half she ate and licked the bowl clean, with the second half she wasn't interested in eating every little speck, but that's about as much as she'd normally eat in one meal, so I'm not complaining if she felt full.

I think she still needs to go to the vet tomorrow morning, but that's definitely a good sign.

I'm not sure I want to make a habit of feeding her at midnight.

[TimO]

I woke up at about 6-20am and she promptly decided to have a "normal" wash, not just cleaning her rear end (which she's been doing, probably due to irritation from loose stool).  That's a very early morning Zev thing to do, so I wondered how enthusiastic she was about eating.  I gave her half a can of chicken cat food, and that disappeared in short order.  She almost ate all of the remainder of the tin, so about 45-50g in total (vs 70g of contents).

That's the first time she's eaten two reasonably sized meals, a sensible time apart, probably in almost a week!  It was still breakfast in bed, she didn't follow me downstairs in search of food, I quite literally had to put it right in front of her.

Hopefully that means her digestive system is working more normally, and she's on the road back to recovery.

I'm probably still going to take her into the vets, and let them check her over, and see what they think.

[lou boutin]

Good news that they is an improvement.

[TimO]

I talked to the receptionists at the surgery, and she said that she would pass the information onto one of the vets, and see what they thought, but it was likely that if she was eating OK, they wouldn't need to see her, and it was probably better for her stress levels to not travel, which is very true.

I just cooked some more basa for her, and she ate almost all of it, in a few minutes.

Before :      After :

Video :

She seems a bit more active and comfortable now, even to the extent of being annoyed by things she sees in the back garden !

   

She's had a meal at midnight, for breakfast and lunch, as well as a brief afternoon snack (about 1/3rd of a can of fish cat food).

Clearly she is feeling a lot better, which is not to say that I'm about to let her outside, yet !

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Aw, I'm glad she's on the mend.

[peliroja]

Yay for getting-better-Zev! Hope she continues to improve. Do cats like salmon oil? We give it to Tilley and she wolfs down anything slathered in it. It's really good for her, too.

[lou boutin]

\0/ \0/. Great news.

[Kim]

I've been catching up on the saga of Zev due to being in ABROAD, but good to hear she's on the mend.

[Wombat]

Baggins and Alfie send their regards!  (and according to Baggins, the ghost of Squidget, who lives halfway up the stairs.)  This last bit freaks me out, as I am utterly sure there are no such thing as ghosts, but Baggins, who desperately missed Squidget when he died at least 10 years ago, persistently looks for him in his usual resting spot halfway up the stairs, and seems to hold a conversation with him.  So, that's best wishes from 3 cats, apparently, so Zev had better complete his recovery, or I've got some explaining to do.

[TimO]

... Do cats like salmon oil? We give it to Tilley and she wolfs down anything slathered in it. It's really good for her, too.

I'm not sure how good it is for cats.  Dogs are much more omnivorous than cats, who are definitely obligatory carnivores.  Generally most of a cat's diet should be protein, and to help her digestive system I actively avoided fat and carbohydrates.  She certainly had some oil, because when I cooked the chicken and dish in the oven, I used a little on it.

I'm sure she would eat it, because cats generally like fatty and oily items, it seems to be their equivalent of "sweet and bad for you". 

(Which is why they like cheese, cream, milk, and dairy spreads, even though some cats will get ill from the lactose content).

[ian]

Bad Cat will eat any unattended poppadoms. Thieving little shit. They'll drink the juice from tinned salmon or tuna with great relish. Both cats will do anything for tinned tuna (oddly, they're not nearly so interested in fresh tuna, or fresh fish in general) especially Bad Cat who can hear me open a can no matter where we she lurking. She's nonplussed when it turns out to be a tin of sweetcorn. Because I cover the remains the juice with cling film so they don't slurp it all in go, she also goes mental when I get out the film dispenser. I'm wrapping half an onion, you furry little doofus.

[TimO]

... especially Bad Cat who can hear me open a can no matter where we she lurking. ...

Talisker's Hamdar could hear the fridge door being opened, so I could make sandwiches (generally with ham, corned beef or cheese), at a thousand paces.


Zev followed me down to the kitchen this morning, and waited for me to serve up her breakfast, which she then ate 95% of.  She hasn't done that for almost a week, so I think she's well on the way back to normality.

I'll probably wait a couple of days before unblocking the cat flap, just to make sure everything is working exactly as it is expected to.

[simonp]

The Dog can hear me pulling the plastic lid off a pot of yoghurt from the other end of the house.