Experience Feeding Cats A Raw Diet?
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Nov 19th, 2009 |
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I was considering switching my cats over to a raw diet, and was curious if anyone has any experience feeding raw. Did your cats take to it right away, and if not how long did it take. Do you prepare your own food, or do you buy it premade? I’ve done alot of research so I really don’t need links to websites, I was looking for personal experiences.
Thanks, and please star!
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Percy gave you great advice and it wasn’t fussy at all! I purchase mine pre-ground and in your other question that I answered, it’s only muscle meat, organs, bones and blood. I choose not to add supplements but others do add supplements, such as taurine, to this particular food. I do, however, add one 1000 mg Fish Oil pill to their food once a day.
I started my cats, Binnie and Marble, off fairly young. Binnie was 9 mos when I introduced her and Marble was 3 mos old. Both ate turkey as soon as I placed it in their bowls. It took another month to get them to eat chicken by itself, instead of mixing it with turkey. Duck took about 1 week for them to eat it by itself. Binnie eats deer with no problem, whereas, Marble will not. You’ll have to experiment with different meats to see which ones they’ll like. Neither would ever eat ground fish or rabbit. I haven’t tried beef, cornish hens or lamb yet. I won’t try pork since there’s so much sodium.
If your cats are already used to eating wet/canned food, hopefully it won’t be too difficult to have them eat ground up raw. You should soak the raw in lukewarm water for about 2 minutes before feeding them. Not too hot, otherwise the bone could cook. Warming it up will make it smell a little more and attract the cats. After a while, you can get them used to eating the food cold from the fridge. I just continue to warm the food up though instead of feeding it cold.
You’ll have to figure out how much your cats will eat per feeding. I suggest, unless you purchase pre-measured, that you measure the food out at 1/4 cup in baggies or what have you. My cats eat 1/4 cup in the morning and 1/2 cup at night. Right before I go to bed, I give them a small handful each of Blue Buffalo Wilderness dry food OR I give them 1.5 oz of canned food AvoDerm Select Cuts, which come in 3oz cans.
You should also try raw meaty bones every once in awhile to help clean their teeth. Two good ones would be chicken necks and cut up turkey necks. I haven’t tried necks yet with my cats but I am aware they needs a RMB to clean their teeth. I’ll be purchasing chicken necks with my next order.
Several benefits I’ve seen in the months I’ve been feeding raw is their poop is smaller and a significantly less odor, which means litter lasts much longer and my upstairs doesn’t smell. Their coats are very shiny and the glitter gene shows through more easily (they’re Bengals). The stinky breath has improved about 75%-80% since I stopped feeding them dry and canned. That’s all I can think of now, but I’m sure there’s more. Good luck and I’m very happy to hear you’ll consider raw!
The only one I’ve tried so far is Nature’s Variety Organic Chicken prepared frozen raw diet. Two of my cats loved it, the third eh kinda so so and Percy the Persian wouldn’t touch it. But then I’m not surprised as he’s the only one that doesn’t come salivating when I grill salmon. If he was kid he’d be the one wanting TV dinners all the time LOL
As it’s not all that easy making up your own raw diet – since there’s FAR more to it than just feeding your cat raw meats – I’d definitely suggest trying one of the prepared diets first. Nature’s Variety comes in a bag of these frozen medallions you just microwave on defrost for a couple of seconds. Not very expensive either, per ounce actually ends up less than most premium canned foods. Their site has a store locator, too http://www.naturesvariety.com/raw_produc…
This site has an easy recipe to prepare your own but would probably cost you more than buying Nature’s Variety plus of course, quite a bit of time to prepare – http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac…
edit: “Someone at a pet store once told me that cats have been raised for generations on factory-made catfood & that raw meat could give them all kinds of diseases they’re not bread to handle.” That’s a ridiculous statement but quite expected – most pet store workers are minimum wage teenagers that don’t have a CLUE about pet nutrition. They’re encouraged to push specific brands NOT to tell you what’s in the best interest for your pet.
Someone at a pet store once told me that cats have been raised for generations on factory-made catfood & that raw meat could give them all kinds of diseases they’re not bread to handle.
There is one company called Mud Bay that sells logs of raw meat mixed with vegetables & nutrients. You keep it in the freezer & have to thaw each serving. I tried it, but when it comes to wet food, they won’t eat anything but Fancy Feast Medleys & shun cooked tablescrap meat as well. Hell, they won’t even eat tuna. Creepy thing is that it’s all 4 cats & none of them are from the same family. Makes you wonder what they’re putting in canned food these days.