Feeding Cat Raw Food At Night A Good Idea?
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Question & Answer on
Dec 16th, 2009 |
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as in dry (Origen ) during the day and a raw complete diet at night ( ground rabbit with organs )
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You can feed both kibble and raw but you should never feed them together(although if you want to do this Orijen is a great kibble to be on). Are you free feeding the dry during the day? You need to make sure that the dry has had time to pass through the digestive system first before feeding the raw.
If you want to feed raw and kibble, you should feed a set amount of kibble in the morning (based on the cat’s weight and reduced to account for the raw you are feeding) and then, from what I have read, take it away at least 6-8 hours before feeding raw. Raw digests much faster than dry and if the digestion is slowed down by the system processing the kibble, the raw “sitting around” can cause bacteria to bloom in the intestines and this is when problems can arise.
If there isn’t a particular reason to feed both, you may be better off just switching to an entirely raw diet.
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I know that there are those who will berate you for feeding dry and if you could feed just the prepared rabbit, that would be great, but I realize how expensive that can be.
I’ve done a split diet before and my cats adjusted well. Two daily feedings, one dry the other raw, each 12 hours apart. Sounds like you’re on top of it, but just in case…Be sure to supplement with taurine unless you’re grinding fresh rabbits daily. Freezing reduces taurine content (both pre and post grinding) and there are some indications that grinding does as well: http://rawdiettruth.blogspot.com/2009/02…http://www.catinfo.org
Commercial raw rabbit diets are usually supplemented already. (You did say complete, but I’m just being thorough.)
I’ve never fed Orijen, but I don’t think there’s any harm as long as both foods are complete/properly balanced and their digestive systems don’t show any signs of upset.
Best wishes to you and your pets!
If you are going to using a commercially prepared raw rabbit diet with taurine added it should be fine. Otherwise I would add at least 100 mg of powdered taurine to each meal. You can buy 500 mg capsules, open them up, and sprinkle it on.
Rabbit does start off with plenty of taurine but seems to be very susceptible to its taurine content breaking down during the grinding and the freezing processes.
Another issue with rabbit is that it is very low in fat and relatively high in bone. If you are buying a prepared food that has probably been taken care of but you should check.
I think the rabbit is fine but shouldn’t be a main part of your cat’s diet because of these potential problems. If your cat also eats other raw foods such as turkey, chicken (with organs and bones) I think having rabbit as part of the repertoire is good.
My cats eat 3 meals a day, two canned and one raw. Of their 7 raw meals per week one is rabbit chunks (with bone) with a little, 10-15% chicken liver. If I were going to feed it more frequently, which my cats would prefer since they LOVE rabbit, I would add taurine and fat.
So check the labeling on the raw rabbit diet. If you have questions email the company and see if they have addressed the taurine and fat issues.
rabbits are deficient in taurine. So unless you are supplementing it, they are not healthy as a sole food source for your cats. I am still looking for scientific evidence supporting raw diets. If I decide to make that diet change, I want to be very well informed about it. It seems that if you don’t know which nutrients are available in which animals and how to supplement the ones that are deficient then your cat is better off on the commercial foods. Serious side effects can occur because of nutrient deficiency.
The article I read yesterday said that canned food is just as digestible for domestic cats as raw food is for sand cats.
If you find any articles in your own search, please email them to me.
That raw diet is good for the cat any time you feed. Cats should never be given dry food.
Why? Everything they need is in their food. Especially with cats,they may one day decide that is all they want and refuse to eat regular food.
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