Old boy now has Kidney Disease

[SedentaryCat]

My 12 year old male cat has just been diagnosed with early stage kidney disease. We have been advised to put him on a special diet...however, we are a two cat household and the other one will eat all his food.

I've been looking at microchip-activated food bowls so that they will only have access to their own food. Does anyone have any recommendations or advice?

Cat tax attached. Black and white cat is the boy, tabby the girl.

The special food is apparently bland, tasteless and disgusting according to my cat. So you may find that girl cat does not steal boy cats food after all!

My girl cat had this disease too, but refused to eat the special expensive diet, so i just gave up and thought itll shorten her life but she will be happy with the tastier normal meals. Which she was for another few years.

We used the surefeed one for our old girl. She quickly mastered it, but our greedy boy worked out how to hang over the back and steal while she was eating, so we had to get the aftermarket hood thing.

We tried it with one of our boys later but he just wouldn’t take to it, the noise of it opening freaked him out.

I do think they are brilliant though and have since seen them used really successfully in rescue when we have large family groups with different need.

I’ve now got two 15year olds but they were both diagnosed with Kidney disease so we have no issues with them eating the wrong food. Mine won’t eat any kidney wet despite trying loads of brands. They will do the kidney dry food though. I’ve just started them on the Astro scrub after checking with my vet, and so far it seems to be helping them despite them still preferring to eat thrive and 11+. Check out the website Tanya’s kidney cats, it gives you loads of help on kidney cats.

@Elieza Thanks - that's useful to know. She's quite a picky eater so might not take to his food. Interesting to say that your girl lived a few more years - it's really down to their happiness, isn't it, and if they don't enjoy the special diet it doesn't seem fair to push it on them.

@Lilyjfree Useful info re the Surefeed automatic feeder. That's the one I'm currently looking at. I suppose we're OK in that we have an automated feeder with a timer, so they are used to the sound of that and don't get spooked. Thanks too for the info regarding Tanya's kidney cats...plenty of good information there.

We had two boys with kidney disease and the one who was diagnosed first lived for several years with it as identified so early (through pre dental blood tests). He actually died from something else. Anyway, all brands of wet kidney food smell disgusting to cats as well as to humans but the dry kidney food was treasured. I carried on with normal wet butchers food as vet said that had low protein content plus dry kidney food. This was a few years ago and both cats have now sadly passed. When there food was different I sat between them whilst they ate but had to do that anyway as one stole from the other. This summer with the heatwave I have been mixing teaspoons of water into current wet cats food and lickilix treats as they don't drink water and wish we'd done it with kidney cats as might have helped. It is scary to have a diagnosis but early renal cats can have longer than you might think and the main thing is that he enjoys life. If he starts losing weight suddenly, vet can inject a steroid to boost appetite.

If give him a water fountain. I was surprised how much more my cats drank from a fountain as before they hardly touched water in bowl despite me changing it twice a day for them.

We have this situation- older cat with CKD, younger one eats everything in sight!

2 x wet meals per day, feed in separate rooms. Gannet cat who inhales his food kept behind a door until CKD cat has finished (all of 5 seconds later).

Remainder of daily calories given as renal biscuits- CKD cat has a microchip feeder so he can help himself and tends to graze. Gannet cat gets served the full day’s calories once a day and inhales the lot in one go….

Go easy on the renal food transition, some websites do selection boxes so you can work through the options and see what he likes. Ours selected the 5th of the 6 options presented to him- a kind of pate in a tin.

Also, if he’s very early stages, a full renal diet may be too much- our boy is stage 1/2 and the full renal diet shot his calcium levels through the roof which made him more unwell and the vet explained it’s because the renal food is designed not to be filtered but at stage 1/2, the kidneys still work well. So he now has renal dry food and normal but low protein wet food. We’ve been in and out the vets but he’s doin well.

forgot to say, i added a teaspoon of water to the wet food and mashed it in and she ate it anyway.

anything to get her to ‘drink’ more.

as a pp said gey a water fountain. i used to leave the kitchen tap running at a peep.

Thanks, all, for your comments and advice. He's currently drinking well, but if he slows down I'll look at a water fountain/adding water to his food.

I initially took him to the vets as he had blood in his wee. Poor thing also had a UTI, which the vet said could be related. Anyhow, she injected a long-lasting antibiotic and he's looking much brighter.

We've been away for a few days so I'm now looking at making the transition. Interesting that as he's in the early stages we could just adjust the food he's currently eating, rather than moving over to a renal diet. I'll have a look at the early renal food that's on offer as well.

He's currently in his favourite spot in the garden, sunning himself under the Buddleia....

I have one with stage 2 CKD. He's not even 5 yet. Tried the renal diet food and he refused it to the point of losing stupid amounts of weight. He now gets regular high quality wet food, picked white fish and he has Lily's Kitchen dry food, which all five of them love.

2 years post diagnosis he is a healthy weight, glossy, active, on medication which he takes happily and doing well.

I have got a drinking fountain. It's a revelation, wish I'd got it years ago. So easy to clean and refill, and they all love it.