feline motor control

Question
I have a female cat she appears to be a year old or less as she has grown since i first found her eating out of a garbage dumpster august of 08. in later august or September of 08 she gave birth to 4 kittens one of witch was still born. One was born with a curled under tale. I don't think she ate it as it just looks hooked under. one only has a stump tail and the other long . the kittens are 7 to 71 1/2 months old they are very healthy and active. During her pregnancy I noticed she had a waddle type gait i thought was due to pregnancy. after delivery she resumed normal walking. Then one day i noticed her flicking her right leg when she walked like an akward sideways arc to the front . Not a limp. I checked her paw and handled her joints and leg witch didn't seem to bother her at all. She seemed in no pain. Then it went away only to come back. i checked again with more pressure this time and still no reaction on her part. she did not wobble at all more like lurching her leg to the side when she brings it forward. it went away again. we are now to or three months later and last week i noticed it again. This week i noticed it in her other front paw. Today it is ALL 4 paws/ this was this morning and now she is back to walking normal. Her eyes are bright . her fur is good. her breath is good. her stools are fine she seems fine but definitely looks like she has some kind of neurological thing going on. She has been like this since i first found her coming and going but only with the one paw but now today first time back paws. with the exception of her pregnancy. But of this i am not sure as it looked more like a pregnant mummy waddle. 2 of her other kittens are in a good home vaccinated and neutered fixed and the vet gave them a clean bill of health. I see them frequently and see no signs of this in them. I kept one of her kittens and he seems to have no problems. My 8 yr old male also seems unaffected. I was wondering if you could prioritize what tests to give first. I am myself on a disability and my income is small. I am worried that a vet will recommend a gambit of tests i cannot afford so prioritizing the most important or likely tests would help me allot. other than that her balance is excellent she runs and plays with her kitten allot and seems energetic. she was till feeding her kittens up until 6 to 8 weeks ago. she does not fall over but her knees seem a bit personated in the front paws. I noticed her legs were short this week. I am hoping i didn't notice this before as opposed to it being them getting shorter? collapsing . I don't know. her appetite is normal. My cats are not vaccinated and are on a raw meat and vegetable diet plus salmon oil purchased from the vet and other nutritional supplements bought from the vets. Thank -you so much for your time this is very nice of you to do for people. sincerely , lisanna Garrett

Answer
This is a really long story and I am not quite sure what to make of all of this.

The first thing that jumps out at me is two things: 1. your cat is not vaccinated, and she could be harboring the leftovers of feline distemper. She would show neurological signs from that. 2. Her diet is far from ideal and very unbalanced.
She might be having issues from that. Salmon oil along with raw meat is a good way to give a cat a very toxic level of vitamin A. Vitamin supplements only serve to unbalance her nutrient profile even more. Unless this cat is put on a balanced diet such as Science Diet or something less ideal, she will really start to suffer from some problems such as kidney issues, lack of taurine problems, too much vitamin A, etc. What you are describing might all be attributed to diet. For one thing, she has been nursing kittens on a very inadequate diet for a long time. What this does is pulls calcium out of her bones. She could even be suffering from osteoporosis at this point. Probably the only thing that has kept her from going into seizures at this point is the calcium she is getting from the vegetables, and that amount is very small.

This cat needs a work up done at the vets. She should be on a good diet and then vaccinated for feline distemper, leukemia etc. She will live a much longer and happier life if she is spayed once she gets stronger. But for now, you need to get some blood work done on her for her bones etc.

Putting her on a good balanced diet is going to save you a lot of money in the long term. Meat and supplements are very expensive. Science Diet is so complete and nutritionally superior to raw meats that she will need very little to keep her needs met. Even with two or three cats it is still cheaper than less costly brands. I buy less food and feed less per cat then I ever did before I fed Science Diet. It costs about 41cents a feeding for a 10 lb cat. The average grocery store brand, canned- costs about $4.00 a day to feed and about $2.50 a day for dry food.

So that is the first thing you need to do. Get her on good food and then have the vet do a typical panel on her for kidney, liver and calcium values.
Also have him check her vitamin A levels.

I hope she gets well soon. Please keep me informed about what the vet finds out.