Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this our first live Q&A session for UK Pet Foods nutrition course for veterinary professionals. My name's Liz Molyneux. I'm the current British Veterinary Association senior vice president, and I've been a practising vet now for nearly 3 decades, I think.

So it gives me great pleasure to be able to host this Q&A, session. I'm going to introduce our speakers in a moment, but I'd like to thank them all in advance for being here. And of course also thank UK Pet Food for giving us all this opportunity.

This is a question and answer session, so we'd really like it to be interactive with you, our audience, so I'd ask that you start posting any questions you have for our panellists into the Q&A box, which will be towards the bottom of your screen. So as you'll all know, so far we've had the 1st and 2nd weeks of, this course, and we're really pleased to have our speakers from the 1st 5 modules in our first week joining us today, so they're able to answer any questions relating to their modules. If you've not already, listened to those modules, both the modules and the PDFs are now absolutely ready for you to download, so you'll be able to do that.

We don't have Mar Marge Chandler and Alec German with us today unfortunately, and what we're going to do at the end of this session is just run a little interactive poll to see if you'd like a Q&A with them which we'll be able to organise at a later date if that's something everybody would like. But first I'm going to ask our speakers that are with us today, to introduce themselves. So I'm going to start with Christine.

Hello there everybody, my name's Christine Huggett. I've presented a couple of the modules. My background is in animal nutrition, studied at the university, have a PhD in nutritional biochemistry, and I've spent the last in excess of 30 years in the pet food industry working for a variety of different, manufacturing companies and also independently as a pet food consultant.

And happy to, to be on this webinar with you today. Brilliant. And John?

Good afternoon. I've been in the industry some, well in excess of 45 years, both working for large pet food companies and as an independent consultant working worldwide. I'm currently associate professor of canine and feline nutrition at the University of Nottingham and still do a small amount of commercial work.

Brilliant. Thanks, John and Anna. Hi everybody, I'm Anna Meredith.

I'm professor of er zoological and conservation medicine, currently working at Keele University where I'm Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. But, spent many years as, as an exotic animal vet, mainly at Edinburgh University, but also, at Melbourne Vet School. So I delivered the module on small pet mammals.

Delighted to be here. Peter, thanks Anna and Madonna. Hi, I'm Madonna Livingstone.

I'm an exotics vet the caseload of 80% exotics, 20% dogs and cats. I lecture in exotic animal medicine at Glasgow University. And I delivered the seminar or lecture on pet bird nutrition, and I'm excited to see what questions, our delegates have for us.

Brilliant, thanks very much. And Sarah. Hi, Sarah Hormozi, head of Science and Education at UK Pet Food.

I've been with the association for 14 years and my background is also in animal nutrition. Brilliant, thanks very much everyone. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen now so you can see everyone properly and we're going to start off with some questions.

So I think my first question to all of you is you've obviously put up some really amazing information during the course so far, but we've had some questions about how you manage to give this information to clients. So we all know when a client comes in and nutrition is part. Obviously if it's a clinical condition, we start talking nutrition, but the majority of the time we may all just put our heads down and ignore it because we know it's going to take up a lot of time in the consult.

So how do we get over that good veterinary professional education without making our consults impossible? So where will I go first? I don't mind.

Who wants to go first with that? Thailand sana. Yeah, I suppose with, with the small pet mammals, it's going to be very different, I think, to, to perhaps a cat and dog consultation, because, particularly with, with the small pet mammals, most of the conditions or a large number of conditions that they'll be presented are directly related to, to nutrition.

So it's a really integral part of the, of the consultation. And those of you who are dealing with, with rabbits and guinea pigs and other, other small mammals are probably very familiar with that and asking what the it is and how it's fed and what they're fed, and are they getting enough hay is, is so key to the history taking. So, I, I haven't found that a particular problem because it's, it's just such an integral part of exotic animal medicine, not, not just with the small mammals, but I'm sure Madonna emphasised this with birds and reptiles.

It's so integral. And I think most owners are at least have some awareness of that. So I think we've got a head start perhaps on our, on our colleagues dealing with dogs and cats.

Yeah, Madonna, do you want to follow up on that? Yeah, I would, echo what Anna has said there. I think that, .

Virtually all of the conditions that we're going to see are in some scope related to diet, but actually that's very similar in dogs and cats too. Simple things like instigating husband reforms, which we can do for dogs and cats as well, where owners can fill them out in the waiting room with specific questions around diet to allow because we do that with all our exotic species, but if The owners of the dogs and cats are filling them out while they're waiting to see their vet, including treats and the, oh, it's just a little bit of this tidbits, then it cuts down the time for us when we're, we can scan down what they're being fed. Problem is sometimes owners will tell you what they think you want to hear, because they're fearful of being judged or getting it wrong.

So sometimes I find I have to ask the same question in 3 or 4 different ways to get the, the relevant information. But also utilising your team fully so your veterinary nurses can be very, very good at having nutritional conversations, and rebooking animals in. But because I'm predominantly an exotic vet, that is part of my normal history taking, it's because if I don't know what they're eating, I don't know how to fix them if that makes sense.

Yeah, so John, how do you feel that obviously translates from exotics to dogs and cats, because I think we probably talk about diet a lot less with dogs and cats than we do with exotics, as Anna had alluded to. Yeah, I think you're right, I, I, I don't think diet is talked about probably enough in, in the consultation and usually people are coming in with, with very different reasons to the vets, whether it's vaccination or or whatever. One of the bigger problems you actually experience, I don't know how you solve it, is that if you do ask what are you feeding, they may well mention a brand or a particular product, and the snag is unless you're very, you know.

Up to speed on these things, you're not gonna know what that is or what that does, and 9 times out of 10, neither will the pet owner know what it delivers in terms of nutrition, because they're buying, based on, on, on reasoning other than pure nutrition, so it's much, much harder there, but to certainly, Talk about not necessarily the particular product, but talk about the needs of the animal in the context of what it might require, in terms of of energy input, in terms of feed per day, you know, without being abusive about the fact that the animal's overweight or underweight or whatever, you can, you can lead into the role of diet and nutrition. So at least at the first meeting, you get them to think more about what they're feeding, even if there's little you can actually do about it on the day in that short consultation. So maybe next time they'll be a little bit more averse about what's going on and more enthusiastic to talk to you as the veterinary surgeon and then you can deliver back what they should be perhaps looking for in the diet rather than just a a brand name or a a particular presentation, whatever that be, raw, cans, dry, whatever.

Yeah, it's a really good tip. I wonder if we actually even take enough history in most consults, you know, thinking about the standardised history taking that is in most, you know, computer systems. It's not always giving you a box for nutrition and at least that way you'd not keep having the same conversations.

You'd actually, you'd be a step further on in the next console, wouldn't you? So Christine, anything to add to that? Completely there with John, if, if the vet actually knows the brand and the, and the, and the product, you know, that's, that's great, if they know enough about it and they can speak authoritatively on it, that's brilliant, but.

A lot of the comments that, that I hear from vets is they won't interact with the sort of like pet food side of it because they just find it so completely overwhelming. There are so many brands and so many products out there, and I hope what I tried to do in my first, lecture was to try and simplify how I look at nutritional needs and the basic needs. To be able to give vets a story to talk about this is the animals, this is their origins, this is how they're domesticated, this is a bit about their anatomy and physiology, very, very simplistic terms, and then say well these are the nutritional needs, your animal is in this life stage, your animal has this lifestyle, so this is the kind of thing that you're going to be wanting to look for for this particular animal, and then you go into the marketplace and you see the selection of the different brands and products that offer, That's, you know, to, to fulfil those specific er needs for those, those animals in in their different physiological states and what have you, so that's how I would probably approach it and I.

It'd be interesting to hear from the vets that are actually on the webinar, the vet professionals on the webinar now, you know, what their reservations are about interacting, on the subject of nutrition with their clients and also on the subject of pet foods, if they could provide us with some tips as to their own experience, as to, you know, what their reservations might be or concerns or reluctances might be, then that gives us a, you know, a better idea of how to sort of steer them in the right direction. Yeah, I know, it's really good. And Sarah, of course, you know, there are resources that we can direct clients to as well, and UK Pet Food would have a variety of those, I believe, is that right?

Yes, that's right. And because we survey vets at London vet show every year for 11 years or so now. Something that regularly comes up is that lack of time, in the consultation to talk about diet in details, and I think if vets have these resources available with QR codes or, something that they can just direct their clients to, if you're interested in this particular topic relating to pet food, then you can just directly go to this research.

Source and I think that would be a good way of allowing those pet owners that are interested in more information, learning more, and very curious, then they can go and find out, especially from an impartial source of information, because I know of course companies also provide lots of really helpful resources, especially around clinical diets. And clinical conditions, but on more generic maintenance related topics, UK Pet Food is a very good source of information that's not recommending any brand or any format in particular, just giving the overall direction and as Christine was saying, kind of shortlisting what you and your family as a lifestyle and as a pet needs and go down that route and the list of products or companies that you can go to. Brilliant, thank you.

So I think you guys can probably see the questions too, but we've got a couple of questions about dietary protein. So we often get asked how much protein a diet should contain, and we know quality is as important as quality, but is there a practical way of assessing protein content of the diet without having specialised software to do that? And also around proteins, how do you know if they're of higher digestibility and how do you know if they're good quality.

So lots of things that I'm gonna come to Christine first. Hit me with a big one to start off with. I know.

Oh, protein is such a, such an interesting topic in itself, and we do talk about, you know, the quality, the quantity, and also the digestibility. Can you actually tell by looking at a pet food can whether the proteins that are incorporated in it are of a high digestibility or if they are of a good quality. In some cases you can, you know, John and I work with these proteins on a, on a daily basis and we understand some of the differences, in terms of digestibilities and also qualities when it comes to things like amino acid composition, etc.

And we we've got to know them over the years, but for a layperson looking in or a vet looking at a label, it is very, very difficult unless you have that knowledge behind you, it can be quite difficult, but there are good resources out there to, guide you, in terms of, quality and also in terms of digestibility, it's just a matter of finding them, and we can certainly provide you with links to some tables that may give you a good indication. The challenge is, what is described in the ingredient composition may not necessarily. Be reflective of the actual ingredient used.

It depends on how the marketing of these products has, has, has worked or whatever. So there are some, you know, differences potentially between what's actually written on the can and what the actual ingredient may be, although we do advocate transparency with regards to ingredients listings. The only, the only really solid way of being able to go about determining it is actually through in vitro testing basically, so some kind of analysis to understand your amino acid composition.

and also some sort of digestibility studies whether in vivo or in vitro to, to, to give you that data that you do. So I'm sorry, I can't give you a really concrete answer. John, can you think of anything else to build on that?

Well, if you want to know how much protein's in the food, it will tell you on the packaging. But of course that tells you what it is relative to that particular pack, it doesn't tell you what it is on a dry matter basis, so you perhaps need to think about that. You also need to remember that dogs don't eat percentages or cats for that matter, they eat grammes per day, and so 2 kg of a 10% protein diet delivers exactly the same amount of protein as 1 kg of a 20% protein diet.

So just seeing high or low protein content. On a package does not necessarily mean good, bad, or indifferent. Again, in terms of digestibility, one of the things as Christine pointed out, we understand these proteins, so if we're worried about delivering a particular amino acid or a particular gramage of available protein, for want of a better term in this short Q&A session.

We will have made allowances for differences in digestibility, either as a due to the source of the material or due to the processing of the material in order that the animal gets what it needs. So again, it's not, it's not just always that simple, but if leading manufacturers aren't gonna make a pig's ear of this. Our pig's ears are used, of course, but people wouldn't make a mess of it, people would actually know what they're doing with the ingredients they're using and put the right amount of of of protein in that dart for the amount of that dart that is recommended to be fed, so you should have a a degree of confidence in that, but a good starting place is look at the packaging and then correct it for the actual feed intake.

Excellent, thank you. Anna and Madonna, anything to add? I don't think I do actually, in terms of, of, of the small mammals that I was talking about, other than, I think what's been said already is relevant to, to ferrets, for example.

So I don't have any more expertise than, than John and Christine on that one. No, that's great. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm I'm the same. I don't get anything extra to add, . No, that's fine.

So I'm combining another two questions here. We've got a question about how do you explain bio bioavailability and digestibility to owners, and then also, is it true that fresh diets have better digestibility. I know Anna, before we came on the call, we're talking about, you know, what we might feed rabbits and we think about wild rabbits, which is probably more my interest than pet ones.

So yeah, so how do we explain, bioavailability and digestibility and all fresh diets more digestible? Anna first. Gosh, I think this is probably depends again on the context of which species you're talking about and where the question's coming from.

So I imagine the question's probably directed at cat and dog nutrition, but obviously, it can have different meanings. So, so I'm thinking particularly of the herbivores, for example. We're actually, you know, digestibility, we're actually more more concerned with fibre content and, you know, digestible fibre versus versus indigestible fibre.

And for a lot of the health conditions that we're seeing, so I'm thinking the obvious ones, you know, dental disease. GI stasis, etc. We're more concerned with this sort of indigestibility, of the diet and, and the fibre content.

So, so it very much depends. And I, you know, I don't, I won't go into more detail at this, at, at this stage, because I think there's probably more of a conversation around, around the, the more carnivorous species, but certainly for small. Small herbivorous mammals.

It's, it's the indigestible fibrous portion of the diet that's that's more important. That's not to say that digestible fibre is not important for the nutrition of the animal. But so I think the question depends on the context and how much detail you want me to go into, because I could wax lyrical about fibre and all day to small mammals, but I'll leave it there for now.

Good, yeah, go for it, Christine. I was about to say, I have a slide in one of the presentations, so I think this is probably directed at me. So how do you, how do you explain it in simple terms to the owner?

Well, the digestibility is the proportion of the nutrients that is ingested, taken into the body and retained, and it's the difference between intake and excreted, and it's represented as a percentage. It's very, very simple, so it's, it's literally the amount of the nutrient that is retained. The bioavailability though, is the amount of the nutrient that is retained and gets to the target tissue and can be used by the target tissue.

So it's a slightly different way of looking at things, and in one case we talk about digestibility. And often, rightly or wrongly, it's in the context of faeces quality, and the other side it's about what's actually getting to the body, what can the body actually use, so that's how I, my simplistic mind works, works it through in terms of, you know, how I would communicate it. One is the amount that's absorbed and retained, and the, the, that's the digestibility and the bioavailability is what actually gets to the tissue and is used.

So that's how I would probably go about explaining it, and I don't know whether anyone else would agree, disagree, what have you. Well, that's the best explanation I've ever heard, but I'm gonna ask John if he can better it. No, I can't measure it because that's exactly what I would have said.

The only thing I would add to that is stress the fact that digestibility and faecal quality in dogs and cats are not necessarily related. People talk about I have bad digestibility this diet, which is why the faeces is so awful. That's not necessarily true.

You, you joined a bit on the end saying, are, are raw darts more digestible than others, not necessarily, depends how you set about designing them. Excellent. Anything for anyone else?

Go for it, Madonna. I'm stepping. I'm Anna can feel free to batter me later because I'm, I'm just going to mention quickly about ferrets.

We've got to remember about the fact that the difference between the proteins because some of the, diets that can be available are too high in plant proteins. So they might say that they've got a good percentage of protein in the diet, but we have to ensure that the, where the protein source is coming from is the animal protein because they can't utilise the plant proteins properly, and that has been shown to cause problems, such as a bladder calculi or uroliths. Excellent, thank you.

That's really useful. So John mentioned raw diets, and we've got a question inevitably about raw diets. So raw food diets are becoming increasingly popular amongst pet owners, even though we know there's risk with pathogens like salmonella and E.

Coli. Do you think these diets are, well, it still being entertained. Why do owners like these diets?

And do dogs and cats actually have more natural defences to make them less vulnerable, one presumes to those pathogens than humans. So I'm going to go to John first. Why are they more pop, why are they, why are they continuing?

Well, I think it's the old, old story, it it's, as I said to you just before we started this thing, it's tribalism and peer pressure again, it's dead trendy that the raw darts are being talked up. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a raw dart, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a dry dart, it's, it's what suits you as an owner, there's no right or wrong way. But there is certainly a swell behind that, and I think people still see, particularly the dog, as, as a, you know, the, the old wild carnivore, which it's not, but it copes very well with the raw dart.

The pussycat, of course, gets out and gets a takeaway, in most cases anyhow, so, you know, they're into raw darts themselves if they're give them freedom to roam. So I think it it's much more about social and peer pressure amongst pet owners that's kept the raw darts going and developing and getting more and more popular, which is fine, it's not an issue, not an issue. Do they do a better job?

Not necessarily, there's an awful lot being talked about in the literature at the minute, er, observing differences when you feed raw as opposed to other forms. Yes, there will be differences, but not necessarily do we know whether it's good, bad, or indifferent, those differences. And the point around sort of our dogs and cats better able to.

Well, that's, that's an awkward one, certainly they are more tolerant or it would appear to be more tolerant as, as natural scavengers, but I, I still think your greater risk is, is with the, the human, but it's no different from you handling or utilising a raw chicken in, in your kitchen. It's not a, not an easy one, if you overload the pet with enough pathogens, you will cause it problems. Sarah, did you want to come in?

Yes, I just wanted to highlight that when it comes to manufacturing commercial raw pet food, the animal byproducts regulations have very specific microbiological standards for production of raw pet food. So if a company produces raw pet food commercially, they have to comply with stricter legislation because the product will be handled by people. And also UK pet Food additionally has a raw pet food manufacturing guidelines, which is specifically designed for manufacturers of raw pet food, and we have a scheme that we have an auditor that go and er audit these companies against that guideline, so if er vets or professionals are interested, all this information is available on our website.

Regarding a raw pet food certificate or scheme, so that's an extra additional layer of reassurance, for people that want to purchase, raw pet food. All companies that produce it have to comply with the legislation, but this is an extra reassurance. So I recommend looking into that, for, for those of you that would want to, advise your clients on that topic.

Brilliant, that's great, thanks ever so much. Do you want to come in, Christine, on, on this? Yes, well, no, well, yes.

So, no, everything that has already been said has been, has, has been, has been been perfect, so I think it's answered the question admirably or whatever, . Yeah. Good, that's fine.

So obviously raw pet foods are a bit of a feeding trend in dogs and cats. So, Madonna did come up with what's a scary, potentially scary feeding trend in exotic pets. I'm sure you've got a whole breadth of things there, but can you think of one that might be of interest to the audience?

Oh, Or am I the, well, I've, I've, it's scary what people will feed their pets. I mean, I remember with one owner, that was referred to me with a rabbit with dental disease, and she was feeding her rabbit, Linda McCartney vegetarian meals. So it's, there's some very scary trends out there, that, OK, that wasn't a trend, that was an individual, .

I think for me with with or Anna, are you wanting to talk about raw feeding and ferrets or would or because I saw a lot of problems with raw feeding and ferrets. So I didn't know whether I wanted to take that because she was technically doing the, the small mammals. No, you go ahead, Madonna.

But I was just gonna say is, you know, obviously raw feeding in, in, in the other small mammals is absolutely essential because they're herbivores, granivores, whatever, insectivores, which are naturally raw. So there's no, no real issues there. But with, with ferrets, I mean, if anyone's who's who keeps ferrets in the traditional way and has seen a ferret enjoy a freshly killed rabbit that they've just eaten, you know, what's the problem?

I think, I think all the same issues apply that that have already been discussed in terms of of hygiene and handling. But in technically, you know, for the ferret, that's, that's probably the preferable options to feed. But I, I, I haven't encountered any specific problems, recently, Madonna, but it'd be, be really useful for you to share those.

Yeah, cool, thanks, and I totally agree with the herbivores, and yes, I can understand if you're feeding a whole carcass, a mature animal carcass to a ferret, then, I, yeah, it's environmental enrichment, and, it's allowing it to live naturally. Unfortunately I've had to euthanize a lot of ferrets due to inappropriate raw feeding. Notice my terminology, inappropriate raw feeding.

These are obligate carnivores. They did not have, and yes, they're, I mean, they've domesticated for over 3000 years. They did not evolve.

The European poca did not evolve to eat mussel alone. And the problem is that I see a lot of the ferret owners will say, oh, my kit has swimmers. No, your cat's got metabolic bone disease or rickets, if you want to put it in a human terminology, because it has been fed on a diet that's mainly muscle, high in high in phosphorus and too low in calcium.

And there's a big difference as well about, you know, a wild rabbit carcass being fed to a business of ferrets opposed to as opposed to someone going and buying raw meat from the supermarket because the meat that we consume is covered in bacteria, and you know, if you swab it because we're supposed to cook it, yeah, and I have had an owner whose seven year old daughter ended up in intensive care with E. Coli poisoning, and when the minist, when the health got involved, it was found it was the same E. Coli that was on the raw feed that was being fed to her pet ferret because the ferret had, she'd been cuddling and kissing her pet ferret.

So, you know, and that was confirmed. So I think that there can be risks if it's done inappropriately. And we have to look at the percentage of, you know, bone density that these animals have evolved to eat as opposed to, you know, necessarily what some of the homemade raw feed people.

Come up with, so I, I personally have a big issue with it in ferrets from the point of view, you know, I've been keeping pet ferrets for 25 years and I see loads of them, and I've had to euthanize quite a lot of ferrets over the last few years, with it basically metabolic borne disease. Yeah, just to come in there. So that is a recognised problem.

And that, as you say, there's still a lot of, you know, the mince plus a bit of mineral, you know, powder, those, those sort of homemade recipes are not advised. And that's what I said in my slide is either fresh raw prey or preferably a commercial diet because you don't run into those problems with metabolic bone disease. Quite right, Madonna.

Brilliant, great answers both. I'm gonna change tack a little bit and ask her what. It's a fairly basic question, but it's a really important one.

So what advice do you have on setting up a nutritional clinics? So it says specifically for veterinary nurses, but I guess it could be interested vets as well. And then the question goes on to say that owners feel quite judged if weight is mentioned in those clinics.

So I guess it's really a question about how do you set up nutritional clinics and be confident doing that, so. You, as I say, everybody obviously on this course is really interested in nutrition, but that's really key to people being able to develop this subject. So where shall I start, Christine, do you want to kick off with that?

Oh, this is a, this is a really, really good one. We've had lots of discussions actually within UK pet food at the various, nutrition, well, the vet nutrition subcommittee and also communications team. Give some guidance on this, and there's some, some work being done by Sarah will have to help me with this, Professor Thomas at Sheffield, I think it was Professor Thomas Webb.

That's the one, thank you, about, you know, ways and means of, of, of going ahead and, and doing this stuff, especially around the complex topic of obesity because it is such an emotive one and, and, yeah, owners do feel well, shamed, guilted, you know, whatever you want to call it or whatever, but just, just in generally. In general on on setting up sort of like a little nutritional clinic, I don't think it needs to be huge, it just needs to be, you know, er a series of you know people within the the team who have say particular passion for nutrition or knowledge of nutrition to just organise a few evenings, invite a few owners who might be interested, you know, put a few notices up in the waiting room or send an email out to the client, the client list or whatever. To encourage people to just come in and make it abundantly clear right at the start that there's absolutely no judgement and it's an opportunity for them to ask all the questions that they want to ask about nutrition, or even, you know, poll what areas Owners would like to have more nutritional knowledge about to help them understand how better to feed their pets, so I think it's, it's, it's simple steps that you can do to start off with and then build and as and as it gathers momentum then you can build a bit more and provide a bit more information, so I, I think it's, it's just about setting, you know, casting the first stone and getting something down to encourage owners to come into practise and, and, and engage with you on the topic of nutrition.

And I think that's the starting point for it because I'm sure they will become fascinated and, and want to ask the right questions if, if the health of their pet is, you know, going to benefit from it. Brilliant, thanks Christine. John, do you want to add anything to that?

I don't think I can usefully add anything more to that. I think that's that's summarised it neatly. Good.

Sarah from UK pet food perspective, you must have resources on this sort of thing. Yes, we have plenty of resources actually, and I was going to say anybody on this call that is interested in setting up a nutrition clinic or obesity clinic, please do contact us, we have. A lot of really colourful, beautiful posters that are good conversation starters, not just on issues like obesity, but also specific to like, for example, importance of hay in a rabbit and guinea pig diet, lots of fact sheets on a variety of topics, and also, This, beautiful catalogue of fact sheets, if I can show you here, and the, the blur issues not showing it, but anyway, it has basically all of our fact sheets and resources in it with QR code, so even if you don't want to hand over lots of paper to people, you can let them just scan the QR code from, this to whatever topic they're interested in.

So, yeah, please do get in touch with us and we're happy to support, by sending you these materials by post. Brilliant. Anna's sort of nutritional clinics for nurses to run specifically on, say, small mammals, is it, how, how does that work?

Have you seen that work well? Yeah, I mean, I think anyone running an exotics practise or doing lots of exotics in practise, you know, the nurses are obviously so good at this because they spend so much time feeding and, you know, and looking after these, these types of species. So exactly the same principles apply.

I think you can either have, you know, specific You know, nurse sessions, nurse clinics, or, you know, I remember at at Edinburgh, we used to run sort of tortoise evenings or sort of species specific, events for clients where you can really hone in on a particular, particular species similar you know, with rabbits, which, you know, aren't aren't exotic as we all know at all. None of these really exotic. But I think, you know, having those focuses, focusing on those, those owners because often they're very sort of species specific, you know, have a chinchilla evening, have a, have a, have a rabbit evening, all those things and all the resources.

And there's so much out there now, that, that, that I think those, those can be really popular newsletters, you know, those sorts of things. I think it applies whatever species. Madonna, birds and reptiles, I need different tacks, very, very similar, very similar, but what I would like to touch on more, if I may, is about the owners feeling shame about trying, trying not to trigger the shame and, and owners, and that, that can be really difficult, especially for some of us, you know.

You know, I am of the generation where shame was raised, used as a parenting tool to raise, you know, so it, it, it can affect how, you know, especially when we're younger, how we consult, and 23 years out, I definitely consult way differently compared to when I was a new graduate. So I tend to be quite open and, explain to owners, look, you, your, your, your pet is overweight. And I don't want you to get embarrassed.

I don't want you to feel judged by this. I'm a firm believer of once we know better, we do better, and these are the problems it can cause. It might not be causing it at, at the moment, but this is the problems that poor nutrition.

Can cause an obesity. It, it's an excess of calories, but your animal actually, it be a parrot, you know, a small furry, a dog or a cat, a reptile, maybe, mal have malnutrition because it's deficient in in vital vitamins and minerals, and I tried to like call out the elephant in the room, as it were, rather than just hope that I've not shamed them and embarrassing them, . And have that conversation going from there, and a, a lot of the feedback from clients have been they like the phrase once we know better we do better.

There's going to be people that don't like that approach, but I've certainly found it to be very useful for, for me and my team. Yeah, that's lovely. It's really nice approaches there.

Right, which way are we gonna go next? I think we're gonna go cats. So is there a really good question is actually, is there any benefit at all in recommending early renal diets in elderly cats that you think might have renal dysfunction, but the owner can't afford any sort of blood testing or ultrasound or anything.

So John. I'm not the veterinary surgeon here, it's a difficult one to answer that, I. I guess if you suspect the animal of being unwell, then it needs to.

Have appropriate treatment. If the owner can't afford it. I wonder, and I'm a bit hard-nosed about these sorts of things, whether one even starts down that route because it's only gonna get worse and therefore it's only gonna get more expensive.

So it may be appropriate to discuss the longevity of that cat's life in a different way, but that's purely a personal opinion, as I say, I'm not the veterinary surgeon here. I guess the question here is maybe is, is there a problem with going to a renal diet versus say feeding a senior cat diet because that's, that's what it's almost been suggested, isn't it? So is there, I mean there, I would assume there is.

Sorry, changing the diet in a fit cat is not necessarily gonna help prevent further disease in the future. There's no reason to, to start using a a strange or modified diet in a normal fit, healthy animal, so these specialist diets are designed to help manage the condition, not prevent it from happening in the first place, that's as I understand it as a nutritionist. Christine.

Yeah, I completely agree with John. Yeah. Not, not, not a vet, er, you know, if there were some clinical signs or whatever, then the vet would make a call on us, as to, you know, whether that decision would be made.

I think early renal diets exist on the market, so I guess it's a matter of diagnosis. So once a pet is actually diagnosed, then an early renal diet would probably be applied again, it would be the vet's decision, whether that diet is suitable or not, and. I suppose this, this question would be perfect for, Marge because Marge gave a clinical nutrition on cats and dogs, and if we go, to arranging a Q&A session with Marge, I'm sure we can put the clinical questions to her and to Alex as well on obesity.

I would also probably, sorry, I was just gonna say I, I re-emphasize the fact, you know, there's there's there's little to no evidence to suggest you prevent conditions by using those darts, you know, you prevent conditions by using an appropriate balanced dart for the age of the animal. For sure, once it's then showing signs of a particular illness, diet must be considered as part of the treatment, or management of the condition, you may not treat it, you manage it. I mean, I'm no expert in all this, but I would say there are reasonably cheap ways of narrowing down your differential diagnosis there without very expensive blood tests.

So a urine sample, for example, is going to help rule out diabetes. And so I think you need some veterinary input there. These diets aren't always cheap either, so you know this could be really bad false economy as well.

Anna, do you want to add anything to that? No, I was gonna say, I mean, I'm not a, you know, I haven't treated cats and dogs for many, many years, but, but common sense would, would say exactly the same thing as you, Liz. Yeah.

But I think John makes a very good point that there's no evidence, you know, as far as I'm aware that these diets for cats and dogs are preventative. But I suppose I think the question was more, you know, if you've got, if you suspect it, is there any harm? So, I suppose, turning the question around, I'd maybe ask John and Christine, is there any evidence that those renal diets.

In themselves would cause any harm if it, if the animal did not have early renal disease, I suppose would be my counter question. So one of the things that we always say. When we're looking at typical, diets in the marketplace versus a diet that is a par nuts diet, is that, you know, you should never feed a par nuts diet to any healthy animal.

They have very specific, nutritional parameters. They can in some cases be fed for only short periods of time. They, for the most part comply with FedDAF but not always.

So we actually do see that feeding, we do believe that feeding er a a a veterinary diet with that is a par nuts diet can actually cause harm in a healthy animal, so we would not advise that. Yeah, that's great, great advice. Yeah, no, I think that's really useful.

Yeah, yeah. Excellent. So Madonna, I've got a question for you.

So Julia has a bird that they're trying to transition from mixed diet onto a pelleted diet. How quickly can you switch? How many days can you let the bird just not eat anything?

She's tried mixing pellets and seeds with the budgies, but they just pick out the bits they like, obviously. So any suggestions for making diet transitions? So, yeah, there's no one way that's going to suit all birds.

The paper, which I have here, because I can never remember authors, by Cummings at all, and that was from. A date that I can't find. OK, that's embarrassing.

2022, right, they looked at three different conversion, techniques, and I mentioned it in the talk, and with, we all know that parrots are stubborn. They're, they're a stubborn species, and a little bit of it is about how are you more stubborn than the bird, OK, and like 96% of these parrots converted and the 4% that didn't convert is because the owners gave up. And 2 days, 2 days is, is, is probably, well, it's definitely not long enough, I, I recently inherited a la cockatoo from a client that passed away, didn't tell me that he'd willed it to me right enough, and it came as a seed junkie, and I managed to get it.

It's now on pellets, and nutri berries as well, . So it, it can be done. So the, the way, the three main ones that they looked at was one called Birdie's Choice, because remember there's also that, there's lots of different pellets in the market, and what one bird might like, another bird will dislike.

It's like. Like us, we've got food preferences. So Birdie's choice was they, which they, they found was particularly good for your ground feeding species, which would include budgies, and they put 3 different types of nuggets down or pellets down on a mirror, and the reason they put it on a mirror is because these species are social feeders, and they believed that especially if it was a sole budgie, if it saw another bird eating it.

Then it was much more likely to eat it itself. I actually find, especially if they're very bonded, I get the owners to eat the pellets because the bird's like, 00, what have you got? I want that.

And they're trying to get it out of your mouth. And I have eaten lots of different brands of pellets. So that can really help.

So the, the birdie's choice one was we gave you 3 different brands, and basically the bird got to choose which one out of the 3 it liked. And then you converted it onto that. You should never leave a bird eating nothing, at all.

That's their metabolic rate is far too high, and that's really dangerous. So I would give them access to their normal diet, at least twice a day for a short period of time, even if it's just half an hour or twice a day. And I would strongly recommend weighing these birds daily to make sure they're not losing too much weight.

The other way of doing it was the tough love approach, which was, you picked the owner picked a, a brand which is, to be honest, what I did with my glass. and that was for fussy birds. And I picked a brand and put it out for the bird, and again she got access to her, her seed junkie diet twice a day for, for, short periods of time.

Everywhere where she would normally get food, she was pellets everywhere and her least favoured feeding area is where I put the seed diet. OK, and within a week she was eating pellets. And the other, the other way of doing it is the, the kind of softly softly approach which is 3/4 pellets with some seeds mixed through and then sorry, 3/4 seeds with some pellets mixed through and then just gradually changing the diet over as you would with more.

Familiar species. I tend to personally, I tend to find the owners find that less useful, but that this study did show that actually regardless of the technique used, within a month, all 96% of those parrots had converted. so it is possible, but it is about monitoring faecal output, monitoring the bird's weight, and are you more stubborn than your bird?

I love that. Anna, if you got anything to add to that. No, absolutely.

I was gonna mention that study as well. I think it is, it is about 7 people worry too much and I've never certainly in all my career, I've never met a parrot that starved themselves to death. Or had serious problems.

So it is about you just persistence and just, yeah, and, and supporting the owners and, and warning them in advance that they'll need to be really persistent and, and, and, and, and support them with that. Sorry, one more thing I've just remembered when, when Anna said that, was that sometimes, especially with your bigger parrots, you need to warn your owners that the parrots may get hangry. So you do sometimes get an increase in screaming behaviour initially and they might be a little bit more bity because when you've got parrots, it's not when it's not if you get bitten, it's when you get bitten.

So just, you know, reassuring your owners about that as well, that they might have hungry birds, but that's not a reason to give up in the short term. Fantastic. That's great.

I could stay on this subject. I'm, I'm conscious of the number of questions. So, a really good question.

So I guess John and Christine really, can we talk about vegetarian diets for dogs and maybe even vegan diets for dogs and where we are with that, what the evidence for or against is. So who wants to go first? I'd rather answer that question.

John, go on then, I will, yeah, I, I mean, it's, it's just another way of, of feeding a dog, if, if you design them properly and you use what is available in terms of the information as to the usefulness and and suitability of all the ingredients, I do believe you can put together certainly a vegetarian dog food. Quite successfully, and indeed there are a number of papers in the literature now that show that dogs do really very well on those, so I have, I have no problem with with vegetarian diets either in their design, construction, or suitability for dogs. The only thing that I would add on that is I have not had sufficient confidence in reading the papers on some of the, of the vegan diets to really reassure me.

If, if I'm absolutely honest about it. Yeah, excellent. Sarah, anything from your end on these, because you must have members that now do produce these diets.

Yeah, still a very, very small part of the market, I would say. Still some people are interested in it and as John said, in principle it's possible to design a vegetarian diet. To meet all the nutritional needs of a dog, however, I find it hard to put everything under the umbrella of every product that exists under the umbrella of just vegetarian.

I find it hard to say every vegetarian diet that's on the market will be OK, because I, I think when it comes to vegetarian, it needs to be extra caution taken, and you need to make sure you're buying from a really reputable company. You, you're sure that it's designed by someone that really understands ingredients and processing and bioavailability of the ingredients and nutrients. And we do have a useful fact sheet on this topic, which I will put a link here because that basically summarises everything that we said just now with a link to references as well.

So, yeah, it's a matter of caution, but it's possible to feed, but we don't know the long-term effects of it on generations and generations of dogs, you know, in the same way that we do with animal-based products. Super, that's great, it's a really good answer. I think one of the things here is, you know, it's not always a great thing for us to just look in concern when people say these things and you know, you, you want to try and explain things properly to your client rather than go just that's a bad idea, you know, I think as veterinary professionals we need to engage with them and talk to them about why it might be a good idea and how they mitigate the risk, which very much just what you've said, isn't it?

So you can change tack again. So we've got a question in module 4, we were talking about using junior food, and there's a quote here that if the puppy is very active and using lots of energy and play activity. Energy dense diet might be helpful.

And does that mean continuing with puppy food for longer? So I guess there's, when would you use a puppy food versus a junior food is the question here. Christine, that's a nicer one for you to answer.

Bless you, thank you. So the junior foods we would typically only feed to the, the larger and giant breed puppies while they're transitioning between the puppyhood stage and the adulthood stage. They've got so much more growth, er, that has to happen before they can then sort of consider be considered to be adults.

Typically, and I don't want to make a generalisation, the larger and more giant breed puppies aren't always as active as the smaller medium breed puppies, and I know John's going to slap me for saying that. We would typically consider if, if you had, for example, a er fairly highly active, large giant breed of puppy. That was coming towards, I don't know, 1218 months or whatever and there was still a high level of activity, and you noticed that, based on the feeding requirements and versus its weight curve that it was starting to lose a little bit of weight, then there's certainly in my mind, good justification to be able to keep it on a slightly higher energy density diet for a little bit longer, but then, you know, at some point you do, you would have to transition them so, If you've got a small medium breed dog, and they are clearly quite mature for their age and they definitely need to go through the transition from puppyhood into adulthood, it may be that what you look at doing is rather than keeping it on the puppy diet for longer if the growth phase is is already over, that you transition it more onto a, a diet for a dog that is a little bit more highly active, something like a performance diet which would be transitioning it into an adult life stage, but it's giving them that extra benefit of, additional energy levels, so it's, it's very much, Dependent on the animal and the situation, you know, whether it's a small breed, medium breed, large breed, giant breed, or whatever, how active it is and where it is on its growth curve, and whether it's following the growth curve or it's actually starting to, to lose weight.

So there's lots of different. Variables that you have to consider before making that that choice to, to change the diet. So I can't, I, you know, I'll have to have a specific case in mind to say that's great.

So apparently John, it's a husky malamute cross that we're talking about. Have you got anything to add to that? Sounds like a beautiful dog, no, no, I think Christine's right, you, you're gonna, you're gonna have to look at its body condition score relative to where it is on its, it's predicted growth, curve.

I mean, the, the big problem is between, between animals, even within a breed, the growth curves vary enormously, so it really is a case by case job of looking at those animals, and I would tend to always want to, Have a slightly Thinner dog than a a a thickset dog in its, in its growth phase, there's less of a chance of it becoming, you know, you don't want it being overweight and it's growing phase, it, you know, makes more of a problem later in life, so, case by case basis, look at its condition score, look at its position on the growth curve, and juggle the darts appropriately is, is the answer. And a lot of what you need to do, you can just do by increasing the feed intake very slightly, you don't necessarily need to go out and buy a specific high energy diet, you know, and if you really just want a bit of energy in there, there's nothing wrong with adding a little bit of supplementary fat, cos then you will not upset the balance of the pre-designed diet, you're just topping up neat energy essentially. So Anna, Junior rabbit foods exist, I believe, do they?

Is that a thing for the bigger breeds? I, I'll confess I'm, I'm, I'm no expert on that. Madonna, am I right they do, they do exist.

I, I'm personally not convinced that they, there's a requirement, a lifestyle requirement for them. I don't think there's, I, to my knowledge, there's no evidence base for it. I think it's more the size that when I've looked at them.

That's the size of the pellet, but I admittedly I've not looked into it in a huge amount of detail, because really the pellet should be the smallest part of the diet anyway. The vast majority of it should be forage hay, yeah, I agree. I have exactly the same opinion.

I think it's probably more a more, more a marketing. Thing to bring, you know, similar to other to to cats and dogs, this idea of having different, different diets for different life stages, but it's not something that I would recommend personally. So can I, can I just add to that, that there are, there are nutritional differences between junior and adult life stages in rabbits and the, junior.

Although we don't call it a growth, we call it a junior, which is very different to junior in a dog, is very, it's, it's at least a 2% higher protein level, just purely based on growth. But we know that they get a lot of protein from secret trophy and they're absolutely, Madonna and Anna are absolutely right, you know, the main basis of the diet should actually be hay, but there are diets out there to your point, Elizabeth, for rabbits which are called junior diets, and they're more typically used for the smaller. Breeds of, of rabbits, and they're, there's often an overlap between a junior and a dwarf rabbit because they have a slightly higher metabolic rate, so there's a slightly different nutritional composition to them, but they are out there.

That's, that's interesting as well because often in the, and like young growing rabbits or nursing, do, we recommend feeding alfalfa hay because it's got a higher protein content. Yeah. Good, I'm conscious of time, guys.

I can't believe that's gone as quickly as it is, but I'm just gonna share my screen again. So, next week, we move on to week 3 of the course, which is in pet food safety, quality regulations, and, manufacturing. So that should be a really interesting week for you.

And what we need to do is decide whether or not you would like a Q&A session with Marge and Alex. So we're going to launch a poll for you, those of you who are here to vote and just say, it was really struggling getting everyone together today. And maybe in a way actually breaking up a little bit it's not a bad thing.

So, so far we've got, I think it's 35 of you. So if you all can vote there, that would be really good, but it seems like we've got quite a positive response so far. So I think that's looking like a yes, Rebecca.

That's perfect, noted, thank you. We will organise that with Marge and Alex, and both of them are happy to, yeah, participate in one. Super, that's lovely, thanks ever so much.

So that just leaves me to say a huge thank you thank you to Christine, John, Sarah, Anna and Madonna, that was really amazing. I was worried we wouldn't have enough questions. I'm sorry we actually didn't get through all your questions, but thanks to all of you here for contributing so well today.

The recording of this webinar will be available in 24 hours, as will your CPD certificates, and it only leaves me to say thank you to UK Pet Food for inviting us all to do this today, and I hope you all have a nice rest of your day. Thanks very much. Thank you, Liz, thank you, bye everyone.