Hypervitaminosis A from excessive liver consumption causes painful skeletal changes in cats. Understanding this preventable condition helps owners avoid causing chronic suffering through diet.
Hypervitaminosis A causes progressive, severe pain from bony outgrowths that fuse vertebrae and restrict movement. Affected cats experience constant musculoskeletal pain that worsens with movement and fundamentally impairs quality of life. The tragically preventable nature of this condition adds to its welfare significance: it results entirely from well-intentioned but uninformed owner feeding decisions. Owners who feed raw liver believing it to be a healthy supplement cause chronic suffering without realizing the harm. The irreversibility of established skeletal changes means that welfare damage caused by dietary excess persists for the cat's lifetime. Owner education about appropriate raw feeding practices is the most important welfare intervention.