Chub Paste for feline babies (M&C Nurish-Um Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Cats)

Member Name: Tracy_1127

Product:	M&C Nurish-Um Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Cats
Date:	15/05/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see review

Disadvantages: see review

I have two cats and one of my boys has gone off his food a couple of times and as a result lost quite alot of weight. The first time it was for no apparent reason, I took him to the vets for tests and there was nothing wrong. He was quite young at the time so they just suggested offering different kinds of food to see if I could get him to eat. I did and he wouldn't eat any of it so I started looking for something to help get some weight back on.

I found this Nurish Um paste made by Mark and Chappell Ltd on www.vetuk.co.uk for £3.42 a tube. The tube is 70g and it contains omega 3, biotin and taurine along with other ingredients. It is 32% fat so in our house we started calling it "chub paste".

Cats need taurine as part of their diet, they cannot make their own without ingesting it and without it they can get very ill. Blindness is a possibility as are heart problems which is why taurine is contained in the cat version of this paste. Obviously if your cat isn't eating they aren't getting any taurine.

The tube looks identical to the picture above and has a screw on lid. Inside the lid is a foil cover over the nozzle and once removed you just squeeze the paste out. The recommended dose is a quarter of a teaspoon daily for kittens over 6 weeks and half a teaspoon daily for adult cats.

Nurish Um contains lots of vitamins and minerals but should not be used long term to completely replace food, it is a short term fix for cats that aren't eating but can be used daily for extra vitamins, minerals and calories if your cat is still eating a bit.

My boy was eating nothing at this point so I bought some of the paste and prayed he'd like it. He did. It is malt flavoured (think Horlicks) and a dark brown paste that resembles thick petroleum jelly in texture. He happily licked some of this new delicacy off my finger once a day for a couple of days and this seemed to stimulate his interest in food and he started eating again much to my relief.

I continued with the "chub paste" for a week or so after alongside his food to get his weight back up and after 2 weeks he was looking alot more like his normal self. I stopped the paste at this point and he did the rest himself by eating everything in sight! A month later he was completely back to himself and back to his normal weight.

A few years later he developed hyperthyroidism and I got him started on talets to control this. However the inital dose the vets gave him was too high even though it wasn't a particularly high dose and this made him hypothyroid. Instead of making him eat lots it had the opposite effect and he went off his food, sat huddled under blankets to keep him warm and was generally very unwell as well as rapidly losing weight.

I immediately bought some of this Nurish Um paste again and started to give him a daily dose while we changed his tablet dose. It had the same effect as before and got him interested in food again and as the tablets did their work on his thyroid the paste kept him nourished until he suddenly recaptured his interest in food again.

I was lucky that my lad would accept this directly off my finger but if not they recommend you smear some on their paws so they feel inclined to wash it off and get the calories and vitamins that way. This of course won't work if they have stopped washing as well as eating but in that scenario I would think a vet visit would definitely be in order.

This paste has been a godsend, as it's high in fat it soon helps them get the weight back on, it's got protein, fibre, moisture, ash, magnesium, potassium, iodine, iron, manganese, vitamins A, D3 and E, B1, B2, B5, B6 and B12, folic acid, biotin and taurine all contained within a tasty paste.

I always have a tube of this in the house so if either of my lads stops eating for whatever reason I can get some nutrients in them. One word of caution though, if your cat stops eating please take them to the vets to rule out any illnesses, as demonstrated by my lad sometimes it's nothing and sometimes it's something a vet needs to treat.

I highly recommend any cat owners to have a tube of this paste in their medical supplies, it's high in calories, has vitamins and minerals to keep them nourished while they aren't eating and seems palatable to most cats. I wouldn't be without it and my boy is quite keen too!

Summary: Thoroughly recommended by me and my boy