Question:
In an earlier column, you ran a letter from J.S. in Brookeville about dealing with constipation in cats. After one of my cats had a serious bout with constipation, I was also advised to mix pumpkin with her food. This worked up to a point, but a big can of pumpkin goes bad long before a cat can finish it. I wished that the pumpkin came in smaller sizes, and I wanted to give the cat more variety in her roughage, but I didn't know what to do.Then one day when I was in the store, I happened to walk by the baby-food shelf. I noticed that there were little jars of squash -- and what is pumpkin but a big squash? I also realized that there were many different baby vegetables, all just the right consistency to be easily mixed into cat food. Now we buy a selection of baby-food vegetables and our kitty gets a varied diet of roughage that stays fresh until the jar is gone.An added bonus is that our other cats love the vegetables, too. One of them found immediate relief from a lifelong hairball problem when we started a
C.F., Washington, DC Jul 25, 2004
Answer:
Thank you for pointing out the benefits for constipation and furballs of feeding cats pureed, high-fiber vegetables.The next step is to cook and puree in the blender fresh organic vegetables high in fiber, beneficial carotenoids and antioxidants, like carrots, squash, sweet potato, kale and mustard greens. Put the mixture in empty yogurt cups and store them in the freezer, and give each cat a tablespoon or two full every day in their regular food. Raw, sprouted and chopped beans and seeds are also excellent for cats and dogs -- and people, too.CAGED-BIRD HEALTH WARNINGHundreds of pet birds (canaries, parrots and parakeets) are falling off their perches and dying from the fumes released from Teflon-coated cooking utensils, according to experts in the United Kingdom. Teflon contains toxic perfluorinated compounds that are also in stain-proof carpets and clothes. This latest hazard to modern life warrants further study in terms of human health risks. Pet birds may well be like the canaries that miners took into
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