food advice for kitten,
 

we took one of our kittens to the vet today, to check out an ear infection that took a long time to go, she's had an extra week of the ear drops (which the vet suggested) and the good news was the infection is all cleared up and her ear was clear,

but...

while checking her over the vet picked up a heart murmer, we were just completly thrown, she told us thats why baggins is smaller then her litter sister gandalf, and why shes not as active, both things that we had thought were just part of baggins' character. she also said that extra care would have to be taken when she went to be spayed, to look after the heart during the proceedure and explained that it would also be more expensive.

they are going to keep an eye on her and when we take her to be spayed they are going to find out more about it, and what is actually wrong with her heart, but for now we want to know what we can feed her to give her the best chance, if there are any foods out there that will keep her heart and the rest of her healthier.

i hope someone has some advice for us, we are pretty worried about our baby now, and of course we want to give her the best chance of a healthy and long life.

thanks

Caney and Emma

I don't know of any cat food brands that are specifically made for kitties with heart problems. I do know that heart murmurs are not always that serious and that they are graded from 1 to I think 5. There are other members here that do own cats with heart murmurs that will be more helpful to you.

A couple of good premium cat food brands are Felidae and Innova. :cat:

Yes, that's very true, some heart murmurs are more serious than others. I had a cat with one and it did not seem to affect him at all. He's still going strong at 11 (but living with my ex). Did your vet mention anything about the severity of the murmur? I hope she does ok with her spaying!:fingerscr

Well, a murmur that they're born with is usually less serious than a murmur that they develop when they're older so I wouldn't worry too much. I was born with a heart murmur and I'm just fine. :D One of my Greyhounds has a heart murmur and it doesn't affect her in any way, and I had a cat with a murmur who died of something completely unrelated. I'm not a vet, but I'm not sure that I agree that Baggins is smaller because of a heart murmur, or that her energy level would be less because of it. I've never come across anything in my research to suggest that that would be the case. Again, I'm not a vet and I don't know the severity of the murmur so I could be very wrong, it's just my opinion. I would be more inclined to think that Baggins is just the runt of the litter and therefore smaller and less active.

As for food options, I would give a really good quality canned food for now. I find kittens tend to eat more canned and less dry so canned might help her growth. I prefer Wellness, but my cats don't like it. :roll: Merrick is another good one and cats seem to love it. I would stay away from anything you can buy at the grocery store or at the vet, they're full of not so good ingredients.