Raw food for cats

[Seaweed]

I thought I would start a thread about raw food for cats as I have currently 9 raw cats in my house :giggle:7 are kittens so they are only temporarily with us.

Quick bit of background. We have a tonkinese tom cat who eats raw food. I feed him chicken necks whole & various ground up muscle & organ meats. The idea behind it is you frankenstein up a prey animal for them. His other job is my mobile rat & mouse trap which he does well. I was originally planning to get him neutered but he hasn't developed any of the annoying tom cat behaviours like spraying & fighting & roaming. So I got him a girlfriend who is half siamese half ragdoll & figured we'd let them have 1 litter then get her speyed. She is a raw cat too. Anyways we ended up with 7 healthy kittens which is a huge litter. They are 3 weeks old right now & the mum is currently munching thru in excess of 1/2kg of raw meat a day. She looks good too not all skin & bone at all.

So.... I have been looking around at things like cat nutrition & vaccination. It makes sense to me if I don't vax the kids that pet vaxes would be even more dubious. Then when you read about raw cat food & the reasons why & you then see all those vets promoting & selling dry cat food full of grains, you start to wonder even more.

A few interesting links I have come across are

http://www.eden-lea.com/Vaccination.htm

http://www.rawfedcats.org/

[Serephina]

I don't know much about cats, but we've been feeding our dogs a raw diet (BARF style) for the past few months and they've never been healthier. After seeing the changes in them I felt horrible for feeding them that nasty dry stuff for so long.

[Seaweed]

I'm not sure what the precise diff is between raw dog & raw cat diets but my cats get bones too. Not huge as dog bones but I give them chicken necks, chicken frames & lamb neck bones. Their teeth are all really good as well from all that gnawing which dry biscuits does not do. As they don't use the whole tooth to eat, they get a tartar build up & then they need to get their teeth cleaned by the vet once a year under a general. Or they get rotten teeth & gum infections etc.

[Serephina]

My dogs eat mostly raw meaty bones - chicken necks, wings or frames, lamb offcuts or kangaroo tail, with some vegetable material and organ meats. Their teeth are certainly cleaner, but the major difference I noticed was the huge increase in energy. My golden retriever started jumping and running around like a little puppy :D

[deesalie]

I've tried my cat on a raw food diet & she wouldn't have it! She doesn't eat canned food either. ATM she seems to be living on dry food & that can't be good for her!

Did your pets take time to adjust? Or did they eat eagerly? I'm at a loss with this cat....

[Serephina]

How old is your cat deesalie? I've heard it can be more difficult with older animals as they are more set in their ways.

Fortunately my dogs aren't fussy - they will eat anything and everything!

[deesalie]

She's about 10. I'm concerned about kidney damage with all the dry food

[Serephina]

Would she eat some small fish, like sardines? Or chicken necks? What about grinding a little bit of meat and mixing it with her dry food and then gradually decreasing the dry food over a few weeks?

[deesalie]

Chicken necks are no go.

I used to buy tins of "human" fish which she nibbled at, but I was throwing out massive amounts.

She didn't seem to mind kangaroo meat, but again, I was chucking out heaps.

I read somewhere that fish is an allergen for cats, & they prefer meat with a high blood content.

[Seaweed]

I can get finely or coarsely ground chicken necks. Plan A is to give them to the kittens when they start solids altho I am also going to give them whole chicken necks once they are a bit bigger.
My old cat would never touch raw food. I wish I had persisted as he went off to die when he was almost 12 & I miss him terribly. I vote for trying to mix it with the dry biscuits & then slowly increasing the raw food & removing the dry biscuits. The 2nd link I posted above, has some tips on transitioning cats to raw food diets.
Does your cat hunt? if so, does she eat what she catches?

[deesalie]

Does your cat hunt? if so, does she eat what she catches?

She does hunt :blush: and yes, she eats every morsel

[Seaweed]

Well there is definitely hope then that she will get into a raw diet :) The 2 oldest & healthiest longest living cats I knew were farm cats whose only trip to the vet had been for desexing. One of them had never even been drenched. They hunted for the vast bulk of their diet.

[unherdof]

I'm not sure what the precise diff is between raw dog & raw cat diets but my cats get bones too.


Apologies if this was answered (shame on me for not reading ahead)... but the biggest difference is taurine. Cats are also subject to liver failure if they go without food, where dogs (wolves) can literally fast for days at a time. I once read where a pack of wolves shared a bison, each of the 5 in the pack having close to 22 pounds of its kill. Then they went almost 6 days before eating again.

[magical1]

I heard that it is the high salt content that cats love in the biscuits hense also making problems for the kidneys. Could be an urban myth but perhaps weening off of the salt might be in order for a cat refusing anything other than crunchies... Just a thought

Cats are so tricky! One day mine will scoff something new and the next day he just turns his nose up at it. They say dogs have owners and cats have staff. Having both dogs and cats I'd agree!

I changed my two dogs onto a raw diet mostly consisting of bones and raw veg over the last couple of months. The problem that I have is that my small younger dog will not eat until the older much larger dog is finished. So he eats his bone and she watches and then he steals her one. It's a pack thing. I found she wasn't getting enough so I'm giving a plate each in seperate areas of raw beef, chicken necks, eggs and veg and then they get a bone sometime in the day which usually lie around. They must think all their christmases have come at once!

I did lots of reading about raw for dogs, the vets do not like you giving your pets bones! Have a look around on the internet and then look at the hills science diet and eukanuba ads at the top of the pages when vets say raw is a terrible thing to do. :LMAO:

My understanding is that dogs have a very short digestive tract and much stronger stomach acid than humans. Therefore bones get digested quickly and move through fast.

Amongst many things that I love about my dogs new diet is their output. There isn't nearly as much mess on the back lawn. It doesn't smell as bad!

[unherdof]

I changed my two dogs onto a raw diet mostly consisting of bones and raw veg over the last couple of months. The problem that I have is that my small younger dog will not eat until the older much larger dog is finished. So he eats his bone and she watches and then he steals her one. It's a pack thing. You're right, it's pack order. My younger one is totally vax free, not fixed, and my word.....she's like an adult human once you get into her mind a bit. My older dog is totally vaccine damaged, and was fixed very early... she's like an infant in comparison.

Your observations about digestive tract and juices are spot on. And output... what output?

[Seaweed]

Your observations about digestive tract and juices are spot on. And output... what output?

You know one of the main things that has put me off getting a dog is having to pick up the dog poo.

[unherdof]

You know one of the main things that has put me off getting a dog is having to pick up the dog poo.

I live on about an acre, the back is fenced and the dogs have pretty much free roam. I do have a kennel, for when we have company and they are being too "friendly". The poo disintegrates before I have a chance to pick it up... I'd compost it if I could find it.

[Seaweed]

We've got 4 acres & I still would not risk it :giggle:

[Tici]

Hmmm Ive never heard of this BARF diet. It sounds really good after looking at the website and reading here. Output is minimal you say ?

I'm going to try it for my dog and cat. I gave her a raw chicken neck this morning and she loved it :) I didn't think she would as she never eats the mice she catches, just leaves them on the back mat :rolleyes:

All the biscuits + salt and crap in that commercial food, surely cannot be good.

[unherdof]

Hmmm Ive never heard of this BARF diet. It sounds really good after looking at the website and reading here. Output is minimal you say ?

I'm going to try it for my dog and cat. I gave her a raw chicken neck this morning and she loved it :) I didn't think she would as she never eats the mice she catches, just leaves them on the back mat :rolleyes:

All the biscuits + salt and crap in that commercial food, surely cannot be good.

My cat frequently leaves me offerings as well. Drives me mad for a couple reasons... 1) it's wasteful 2) my kids tend to find them.

There is a really good rawfeeding myth website hosted here:

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/

I noticed considerable change in dental health in all my critters.