Water & nutrition
urination & defecation
Vn117 animal nursing practice
Sick animals frequently anorexic
 No animal was ever starved into wellness
 Maintaining appropriate nutrition status is a key nursing role
for ill animals
 It is essential the nurse is able to calculate the calorie
requirement for a critical care patient and monitors it is
achieved
A healthy inappetent animal
 Offer familiar palatable diet
 Familiar feed routines and environment
 Warm moist smelly foods
 Personalised attention/hand feed
 Force feed bolus of food short term
No sick animal was ever starved into
wellness
 Illness increases metabolic demand and decreases appetite
 Accelerated malnutrition and lean tissue catabolism follows
protien and calorie malnutrition
 Other affects: delayed wound healing decreased resistance to
disease and stress
 Assisted enteral nutrition is indicated when:
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Recent weight loss of more than 10%
Inappetant /anorexic 2+ days
Acute illness injury with high trauma index
Acute muscle wasting or protein loosing condition
Assisted feeding
 Force feed bolus/syringe
 Appetite stimulant
(diazepam munchies)
 Feeding tubes
Orogastric tube
Nasogastric tube
Oesophagostomy tube
Gastostomy tube/PEG tube
Care of tubes
 Monitor for blocks, kinks and position
 Flush with water before and after feeding
 Administer food slowly over 10-15mins and Monitor for
tolerance
 Start administering smaller amounts than calculated
requirements if anorexia prolonged, feed small amounts 4-5
x per day
 Offer oral feed and remove tube when ¾ daily requirement
taken in orally
Calculations!!
Defecation-frequency and posturing
 Consistency diet related
 Horses 12-15x per day faecal ball should just break when hits
the ground
 Dogs may produce 1-2x perday well formed cylindrical
material without excess strain(tensemus)
 Flat faeces with strain may suggest prostate problems,
common in old dogs
Water requirements
 Dogs and cats 50ml/kg/day
 2-3x dry matter requirements of the animal
 Horses 25-60L/day
 Water from food or drinking or metabolism of fats protiens
and CHOs
Urination frequency and output
 Dog 20-80ml /kg/day
 Cat 10-15ml/kg/day
 Posture varies with sex in dogs
 Neutered dogs 3-4x per day, entire animals marking
 FLUTD or blockage is not uncommon-tenesmus =emergency,
fatal rapidly
 Nursing requirement:
 exercise to assist elimination and allow kennel trained dogs to
eliminate
 Frequent litter tray change so cats will use
 Disposal according to hygiene requirements