# Raw Diet For Cats?



## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

I found a reasonable pre made raw that contains meat, bone and organs for the cats. Do I need to add any supplements of vitamins?


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Depends on the mix. What is the taurine content. What is the analysis for vitamins and minerals?


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## dogfaeries (Feb 22, 2010)

The only pre-made raw that I've fed is Rad Cat, which is complete. My cat liked it, but it was hard for me to find here.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

It is just the meat, bone and organs. Example...chicken, bone, organ. From what I read taurine comes from the protein and loses value when cooked, so if they are eating a ground mixture of straight meat, bone, organ, is that enough? 

I'm looking at My Pet Carnivore, they have foods for cats that follows the whole prey model...

"_The average prey animal has about 10% to 15% bone, about 10% organs, and the rest muscle and fat and connective tissue. That is Mother Nature's model and therefore our model ratio for all of our Whole Ground products."_


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## bob_barker (Dec 31, 2013)

I give my cats most of the same supplements that I give the dogs. 
They have been thriving since the switch 3 years ago! 
I'm glad to see someone else with their cats on raw.... The amount of people that are shocked that my cats are raw fed.


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## Galathiel (Nov 30, 2012)

I really like the website Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition :: healthy cat diet, making cat food, litter box, cat food, cat nutrition, cat urinary tract health

It has a lot of good information I think about feeding your cats. I don't remember her adding supplements, but it's been a while since I read through it.
http://catinfo.org/


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

llombardo said:


> It is just the meat, bone and organs. Example...chicken, bone, organ. From what I read taurine comes from the protein and loses value when cooked, so if they are eating a ground mixture of straight meat, bone, organ, is that enough?
> 
> I'm looking at My Pet Carnivore, they have foods for cats that follows the whole prey model...
> 
> "_The average prey animal has about 10% to 15% bone, about 10% organs, and the rest muscle and fat and connective tissue. That is Mother Nature's model and therefore our model ratio for all of our Whole Ground products."_


Super important about taurine. Lack of taurine can kill a cat. At the very least cause major health issues.

Taurine degrades in air. So ground food has more surface area, more degradation. If the food is ground and no supplementation, then I would supplement. Feloform is a good one. 

Meats that contain the highest amount of taurine are the darkest meats. Hearts for example. Sardines are high in taurine (always a good addition).

I'm going to send you a link to a forum for a thread I started when I first started my cat on raw.


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## bob_barker (Dec 31, 2013)

Jax08 said:


> Super important about taurine. Lack of taurine can kill a cat. At the very least cause major health issues.
> 
> Taurine degrades in air. So ground food has more surface area, more degradation. If the food is ground and no supplementation, then I would supplement. Feloform is a good one.
> 
> ...



Oooo, I'd like to see this link as well


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## MyHans-someBoy (Feb 23, 2013)

The breeder, Sahja Siamese, has a great recipe for feeding raw. If you go to her website sahjasiamese, listed at the left is "feeding raw" and the recipe is there. She mentions "Hare Today Gone Tomorrow" as a source for the meat. I have used them and they are a super company with great customer service. I thought some of the prices were a little high, but it wasn't prohibitive since I was only feeding raw to one cat.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

MyHans-someBoy said:


> The breeder, Sahja Siamese, has a great recipe for feeding raw. If you go to her website sahjasiamese, listed at the left is "feeding raw" and the recipe is there. She mentions "Hare Today Gone Tomorrow" as a source for the meat. I have used them and they are a super company with great customer service. I thought some of the prices were a little high, but it wasn't prohibitive since I was only feeding raw to one cat.


I'm glad I came back and saw this. I'm having a heck of a time trying to get the cats to eat raw. Tonite I got one go eat a small amount of ground chicken with boneturkey hearts, liver, pancreas, herring and kidney mushed together. They will never eat whole pieces. I broke my blender making it more like cat food I like the recipe you listed and I have everything for it. I just got to get them to eat it. 2 of them won't touch canned food either. This will be a challenge.

I went snd got the powder taurine. At first I thought the lady wasn't going to sell it to me when I told her its for cats. She never heard that and said I trust you will talk to your vet...I said yeah yeah to shut her up.


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## BowWowMeow (May 7, 2007)

My cats eat Bravo balance preprepared raw. Sometimes I run out of that and give them the Bravo blend that Rafi eats (which doesn't have added taurine). I supplement the blend with taurine. They have been eating raw since I brought them home almost 4 years ago and are doing great.


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## bob_barker (Dec 31, 2013)

llombardo said:


> I'm glad I came back and saw this. I'm having a heck of a time trying to get the cats to eat raw. Tonite I got one go eat a small amount of ground chicken with boneturkey hearts, liver, pancreas, herring and kidney mushed together. They will never eat whole pieces. I broke my blender making it more like cat food I like the recipe you listed and I have everything for it. I just got to get them to eat it. 2 of them won't touch canned food either. This will be a challenge.
> 
> I went snd got the powder taurine. At first I thought the lady wasn't going to sell it to me when I told her its for cats. She never heard that and said I trust you will talk to your vet...I said yeah yeah to shut her up.



Will they eat canned tuna or sardines ?


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## kelbonc (Aug 25, 2014)

llombardo [QUOTE I'm having a heck of a time trying to get the cats to eat raw.[/QUOTE]

My once feral cat Finnegan looked at me like I had 2 heads when I offered him raw. I thought he would be delighted with the raw. I am still hopeful that he will change his mind. 

Thanks MyHans-someBoy for sharing the website shjasiamese. Good info. Maybe he will like one of her recipes.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

kelbonc said:


> llombardo [QUOTE I'm having a heck of a time trying to get the cats to eat raw.


My once feral cat Finnegan looked at me like I had 2 heads when I offered him raw. I thought he would be delighted with the raw. I am still hopeful that he will change his mind. 

Thanks MyHans-someBoy for sharing the website shjasiamese. Good info. Maybe he will like one of her recipes.[/QUOTE]

Same here. A mouse could run past them and they would walk the other way.

They will not eat tuna or sardines. Very picky!!


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## Shade (Feb 20, 2012)

I've tried to switch my cats, they refuse  I've tried a few different proteins, frozen, fresh, etc All nada, sad thing is you can't starve cats so it's not like if they don't eat for two days they'll be hungry enough to eat and that will be it.

I hate feeding them kibble but they love it apparently, they've been on it their entire lives. My dogs switched with 0 issues, but the cats are a headache and a half


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## MyHans-someBoy (Feb 23, 2013)

I have a Siamese from Sahja. She weans them onto raw, so that kitty has been easy. 
I adopted a Burmese mix from the shelter and he looks at me like I am crazy if I offer him anything but dry cat food. He was 8 when I adopted him and pretty set in his ways where food is concerned.


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## bob_barker (Dec 31, 2013)

I had a really hard time switching my guys, it was a real process. 

I started by mixing a high quality canned with their kibble, did that for a couple days, and then slowly started to take the kibble out. It took close to a week before they were eating Straight canned food. I let them eat that for a couple days and then started mixing tuna with the Canned food, same as the kibble, slowly started taking the canned food away. After a week it was just tuna, then I started with sardines, adding sardines to the tuna... And then I brought in chicken necks.... It took close to a month before they were fully switched. 


I also had to take ALL kibble out of the house (which was fine by me) or else they would just focus on trying to get into wherever it was. 

It took ALOT Of patience... But they THRIVE on it now.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

You could breed your own pet mice and feed these (once euthanized). I think I would do that nowadays if I had a cat. (had to give them up due to severe allergies


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## Galathiel (Nov 30, 2012)

When I took in Sienna, her previous owner told me that she wouldn't eat anything but canned...period. It took me about a week to switch her completely to canned. I was determined that she was not going to fall victim to renal failure like my previous cat (hey she might still, but it WON'T be because she's dehydrated from having kibble for years). 

I'm not sure about how well she would do with bones, but I've found a sure fire way to get her to eat most anything. I have Varik sit and feed it to him first. She rushes over to beg for some as well.

She's still a recovering addict, though. She hasn't tried in a while since she got told off, but she was forever trying to get into the dogs' food so she could get a fix.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

llombardo said:


> It is just the meat, bone and organs. Example...chicken, bone, organ. From what I read taurine comes from the protein and loses value when cooked, so if they are eating a ground mixture of straight meat, bone, organ, is that enough?
> 
> I'm looking at My Pet Carnivore, they have foods for cats that follows the whole prey model...
> 
> "_The average prey animal has about 10% to 15% bone, about 10% organs, and the rest muscle and fat and connective tissue. That is Mother Nature's model and therefore our model ratio for all of our Whole Ground products."_


If you are buying from MPC, feed with confidence. Their mixes are spot on and you don't need to add a thing.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Cats are notoriously hard to switch foods. Try cooking the food partially and gradually decrease over time. That's what worked for my cat.

I started Cracker with chicken drummies, partially cooking in a frying pan so the outside was cooked but the bone was still raw. I gradually decreased the cooking over a month. If you are feeding a balanced commercial raw, try that. Don't cook it all the way thru, just enough to heat it up and cook the outside.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

I made my concoction the same consistency as wet food to try tonite. I think I can convince the one cat for sure. I make sure it's not cold too. I thought for sure the fish would entice them if the chicken didn't. I might have to try lightly cooking it next.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

What did you feed them previously? Wet food? Kibble?

Have you tried mixing it and slowly transitioning?


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

Jax08 said:


> What did you feed them previously? Wet food? Kibble?
> 
> Have you tried mixing it and slowly transitioning?


They have always had dry food. One of them will eat canned food, depending on the food. The other two won't eat anything but dry. I'm ok with this because they drink a lot of water. It will just sit there and rot if I mix it, tried that already.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

I remember reading somewhere that with cats, you need to start with a bit of food the size of a dime.


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

Sunflowers said:


> I remember reading somewhere that with cats, you need to start with a bit of food the size of a dime.


This is kinda what I'm doing. There is quite a bit of waste any other way.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

llombardo said:


> This is kinda what I'm doing. There is quite a bit of waste any other way.


You would think that a cat, being an obligate carnivore, would dig right in, wouldn't you? My cat sniffed raw, did the twitchy thing with his front paw in disgust, and walked away. :crazy:


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

I have a cat that was feral(not anymore), she was on the streets, hunting for food and she is one of them that wants nothing to do with it. I don't understand that one. I thought she would be thrilled, but then again she absolutely wants nothing to do with the outside world and is completely content laying on top of the couch in front of the window watching the world from inside. She has it good and knows it


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

My cats have refused any high end foods over and over so I fed them mediocre super market food which they love and eat enthusiastically. They will eat any canned cat food.

When I started them on raw, they took to it immediately and never looked back. I still keep a bowl of kibble out on the side and they do continue to eat the kibble as well.


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