Nutrition

Special Topic:
      - Vitamin C to the Rescue by Anitra Frazier
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At our workshops, we always tell caretakers to feed their ferals the best food they can afford. This maxim recognizes two important things - first, that good nutrition is important and second, the caretaker's budget is important, too. So like so many aspects of being a feral cat caretaker, you do the best you can without sinking your own ship. If you have the time and the money and a colony of 5 cats, and want to prepare fresh meals of raw chicken, steamed vegetables and vitamin-mineral supplements, then that's great and you should. But if you're pressed for time, are stretching to feed 30 cats and can barely afford supermarket brands of cat food, then that's great, too, and your sacrifice is no less.

Nutrition for ferals is particularly important given the rigors of their outdoor lives, and is the single most important thing you can do to help regulate their health. That said, it behooves any animal caretaker to gain a basic knowledge of nutrition. We urge you not to simply follow what anyone, including your veterinarian, says about nutrition, but educate yourself and make your own decisions. Few people know how to analyze the ingredients on a pet food label or realize dry food is just wet food baked to a crisp (with the vitamins usually added before the baking so they end up ruined), or that a raw chicken neck will do more for an animal's teeth than 100 pounds of dry food, and so on. 

You can educate yourself about animal nutrition by reading any of the following:

One way to tell the more nutritional kinds of cat food from the less is to read the ingredients label.  Ingredients are listed in the order of highest quantity first, lowest last.  Foods that list byproducts, especially as the number one ingredient, are of suspect nutritional value.  For example, meat or poultry byproducts can be feathers, hooves, or other items not normally associated with consumption.  Also beware of dry foods which list corn products as their main ingredients - corn meal is filler food, not good quality nutrition for obligate carnivores like cats.

If you can't afford the higher quality brands of cat food, and most caretakers can't, there are easy and inexpensive ways to boost the nutritional value of lower quality brands. The simplest is adding raw ground chuck to the food (or cooked if feeding raw meat makes you uneasy).  Ground chuck costs less then most cat foods and provides excellent nutrition.   If you feed the meat raw, be sure it is fresh (nice and red) and hasn't been sitting on the supermarket shelf for days.  Also (very important!) you must add calcium either in the form of bone meal or calcium lactate to the meat - one teaspoon for each pound of meat.  This is essential for balancing the high phosphorus content of the meat.  Consistently failing to add calcium could cause long-term damage to the cats' health.

In Anitra Frazier's The Natural Cat,  there is a recipe for a vitamin-mineral mix, easily and cheaply made, which makes a great supplement to any food, expensive or cheap. Anitra's Vita-Mineral Mix is also manufactured by PetGuard.   Certain steamed vegetables, like broccoli, carrots or zucchini, will enhance your ferals' diet and Vitamin C is also a real plus, as Anitra writes below:

Vitamin C to the Rescue
by Anitra Frazier

It is certainly easier, cheaper and a lot more pleasant to prevent illness than it is to trap a sick cat, transport him to a vet and then try to diagnose and treat the frightened animal.

Vitamin C, the first vitamin discovered by humankind, is truly a friend indeed to the caregiver of a feral colony. An efficient healer and powerful protector, it works like a nutritional knight in shining armor fighting against invasions and battling stress of all kinds. Germs, viruses, dirt, x-rays and chemicals such as antibiotics, steroids, tranquilizers, anesthetics, pesticides and the preservatives in commercial pet foods have all been shown to use up large quantities of Vitamin C.

Healthy cats can make some Vitamin C in their intestine. The operative words here are "healthy" and "some." Cats can manufacture enough C only if the diet is rich in all the other nutrients they need and only if daily stresses do not become too numerous, too extreme or too prolonged. Stresses such as extreme heat or cold, fighting, being wounded or hurt, being trapped or caged, loud noises, strong, unpleasant smells or forced change of territory use up Vitamin C at an alarming rate. Even a healthy, well-nourished cat couldn't produce enough to cover the kinds and amounts of stress faced by the feral on a daily basis. Depletion of Vitamin C leaves a cat easy prey to every germ or virus that happens along.

The life of a feral cat, especially a city feral, is full of stress every day. Any trap-neuter-release program is bound to include being trapped, caged, cut and having a shocking number of chemicals used on the body. The smell of the cage cleaner alone is enough to reduce a cat's Vitamin C to the danger level. The rest of the veterinary procedures raise the stress level to astronomical proportions. Is it any wonder that many succumb to upper respiratory and other diseases shortly after their neutering experience? What we need here is a knight in shining armor to bring the cats safely through all this stress. Enter Vitamin C. Just as Rescue Remedy works on the emotional plane, Vitamin C works on the physical body. This inexpensive and easily obtainable supplement will greatly enhance any cat's chance for survival.

The most common forms of Vitamin C are calcium ascorbate (which used in the buffered variety tastes nasty), ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate. Ascorbic acid is usually the cheapest and has the happy side effect of acidifying the urine. An acid urine prevents the growth of germs and the formation of crystals in the bladder. When found in its natural state in foods, Vitamin C is accompanied by bioflavonoids, rutin and hesperadin. Science has found that these nutritional sidekicks are provided by nature to help the body absorb the C and put it to work more efficiently. A cheap jar of ascorbic acid powder will certainly give a lot of support and protection and it will help acidify the urine. A C complex powder of ascorbic acid with bioflavonoids, rutin and hesperadin will do a lot more for only a little more money. Health food stores will have several choices available. I use Twin Lab Super C, yellow label.

Vitamin C does not need refrigeration but you must keep the contents of the bottle dry. Use a clean, dry measuring spoon. C cannot be stored by the body so it must be given every meal. A cat can absorb no more than 250 milligrams at a time; in most brands that's 1/8th tsp. of powder.
If everything is going well for a colony, I give only 125 milligrams or 250 for each two cats. If the weather turns harsh or some other stress presents itself, increase the dose to 250 milligrams per cat. During trap-neuter-release projects when stress will skyrocket, I give the full dose for two days before trapping. During confinement and treatment, I feed three or four small meals a day in order to get the C into them more frequently. If a cat objects to the sour flavor, as happens occasionally, cut the dose down by half or use just a few grains. Any amount is better than zero. I find I can get away with more if I add a "bribe food," something they love that has a strong flavor. PetGuard savory seafood works very well.  You can also sprinkle brewer's yeast on top.

Because we are practicing prevention, caregivers may find it difficult at first to pinpoint a clear demonstration of results. The benefits are mostly about what does not happen. Cats do not die under anesthesia; wounds do not become infected; there is no outbreak of respiratory infections shortly after a new cat arrives in the colony. Resistance is high; the cats are more resilient.

I would not feel even half as secure about managing a feral colony if I didn't have the help of Vitamin C, my trusty knight in shining armor, to back me up.