Post by smilesbetter on Nov 2, 2014 11:44:11 GMT
Hey, so I'm not sure anyone else on here actually raw feeds their cats but I thought I'd start a post on it anyway.
So firstly here's the current stats (haha) for my two kitties:
We got Carlotta over a year ago now, early last Summer I think,as we had been meant to get someone else's cat to look after (Mieze) but it fell through and it gave me the opportunity to convince my man we needed a cat haha. She was about 4-7 years old and had already had two homes for some reason. She is a Turkish Angora (possibly cross), the actual Turkish kind not the fancy one you see at shows. She is a very light little cat but has one of those cat paunches haha so she looks a bit more substantial than she is. She suffers Feline Hyperesthesia but playing with the other cat seems to greatly reduce the amount of attacks but she never had a huge amount anyway, maybe a few a week before we got Mieze and mostly in summer when she's way less active. Compared to some cats, that's really not too bad. She also has really yellow horrible teeth and had one removed as the gum got infected and the tooth was horrible. It's one from the back. She now chews cardboard all the time and I suspect has sore gums or something that would cause this behaviour.
Until I got her, she ate Purina dry food and a supermarket brand of wet food. She was constantly being sick after meals. We tried her on loads of different foods, wet, dry and mixes of the two, but always after a week or so she'd start being sick again. We took her off dry altogether and for a while things really improved, however after about a month she started the vomiting again. This time though, the vomiting would be 10 - 12 hours after eating, and was completely undigested food. The vet just said to change food (ignoring the fact that clearly there is a bigger problem there), but no matter what food she went on, this was always the case. She was a bit better with those Sheba Filets so she was on those for a while and I began to mix in raw meat such as beef heart (which is very high in taurine), tiny beef muscle meat chunks and liver. She wasn't overly keen at first but eventually ate them. Then I broke my ankle and went back to Scotland for a month and my man took over and just fed them Felix (arrrrggghhhhhh!!!!). When I got back, I put them on Bozita which has 93% meat, but Carlotta still vomited lots. One day though I was cutting up a cows ladybits (haha) to encourage Rosa to eat it, and Carlotta marched in and started munching it. After that she's been on a raw diet although now and then has stolen Mieze's Bozita or been fed it by my man, both cases always result in vomit.
She now eats a raw meat paste by Petman which contains muscle meat, bone, and organ meat. She had had chunks from Rosas food but kept dragging them across my white desk, gross. I'm planning to put her on proper raw, so not just the paste, and feed her in Rosas feeding pen so she can drag it around all she wants. Anyway the Petman stuff she likes is duck, chicken and venison. She won't eat the mackerel one at all.
We adopted Mieze last Novemberish and actually just found out yesterday that she's almost exactly 8 years old now as the old owner had been looking at kitten pics with dates on. She was pretty hefty when we got her, as she had been having dry food poured out for her every few days by people who were feeding her for her absent owner, so just had a constant abundance of dry food. This happened fir a few months and we were going to take her for a while till the owner got sorted out, but the day he brought her in a taxi to wifi to give to my man, the manageress of the place said he could keep her there in the room he stayed in at work. We got Carlotta then. A few months later, my man and a colleague went to this guys room as he hadn't turned up for work. The room was littered with stuff used to take crack cocaine and there was remnants of the drugs on these naturally. He had been using for a while. My man texted me and the first thing I said was "where is the cat? We are taking her."
Well it turner out that a week before he had taken the cat to his girlfriends (so at least she was away from the drugs now) but then stopped going to his girlfriends, his way of breaking up with her. The girlfriends dog had bit Mieze, thankfully not hard, and so Mieze spent her entire stay there in the cupboard hiding. The girlfriend felt sorry for her and fed her a huuuuuge amount of Purina dry cat food. So to end the long story, when we got M she was rather large. She is a big cat compared to C too though. When we first got her, she drank loads of water, even when moved to wet, and kept vomiting pure water. We took her to the vets and they did a blood test which showed that she may have a possibility of getting heart problems or cancer. I do feel this is caused a lot by poor diet in many cases.
We have had her on a diet since we got her and although she initially lost a lot, she's still a bit big. She also has a cat paunch so it's not so easy to tell haha. She seems fine on most foods mostly and is now on Bozita (again, the 93% meat ones, not the tins). When I was mixing meat into C's Sheba before, M would refuse to eat it or eat around the meat. I'm now trying to mix some of Carlotta's meat paste into her food but will have to actually start watching them to see if it works. Currently she won't go anywhere near C's bowl haha. I always put C's food down first as M barges in to eat out the first bowl, but so far she just sniffs it them stomps off haha.
So! That's the lengthy background on my girls and their diet & health issues. Now what I'd like to do...
I wanna get Mieze onto raw of course, first via this paste stuff and then put both cats onto a proper, varied home made raw. I have been doing a lot of reading into it and am on a German pet forum where quite a few feed raw, it seems to be quite a bit more popular in Germany (raw feeding in general) and I have even seen lots of adverts for pure bred kittens who have been brought up on full raw. I wish mines had grown up on full raw haha, life would be so much easier haha. But anyway, I am usi go this transfer time with Mieze to learn all about cat raw feeding so I will document my learning here, hopefully inspire someone to give it a try perhaps or at least give some food for thought for people haha. Anyway here's what I've picked up so far:
From what I've read, most people give their cats chicken bones for the bone content. This is something I'm quite worried about as I've never fed either bones and I have no idea how to encourage them to do so. Rosa eats chicken necks which aren't really bone and are very soft so I think I'll use that as a starter point. In the meantime, I have a calcium powder to give them mixed in their food to make up for the lack of bone.
Cats should be fed 2 - 4% of their body weight and unlike dogs can't be fasted as they can quickly develop kidney problems this way.
It's important cats have taurine as they can't make it themselves. This is contained in all meat, but it is in particularly high proportions in beef heart.
Apparently cats need 3 to 5 different protein sources in their diet, which should be okay for me with C as I know she likes duck, venison, chicken and beef. I'd like to get her to eat some sort of fish too but have never fed fish raw (to my dog either) so am worried about that one. This website ( catcentric.org/nutrition-and-food/raw-feeding/raw-feeding-your-cat-just-the-basics/ ) suggests keeping away from fish except maybe a single sardine now and then, as fish can cause urinary tract problems amount other things (but sardines are a good source of omega 3). That website also suggests feeding live insects.
Finally, that website states: "Ground and prey model raw home-preparing methods are based on a general guideline that has been used by raw cat and dog feeders for decades, the 80 / 10 / 5 / 5 rule; that’s 80% – 87% meat, fat, skin, sinew, connective tissue and heart, 5% – 10% edible bone, 3% – 5% liver, and 5% other secreting organ (kidney, thymus, pancreas, etc.)."
Anyway I am looking forward to putting my two on the Prey Model Raw diet and will let you guys know how it goes!
So firstly here's the current stats (haha) for my two kitties:
We got Carlotta over a year ago now, early last Summer I think,as we had been meant to get someone else's cat to look after (Mieze) but it fell through and it gave me the opportunity to convince my man we needed a cat haha. She was about 4-7 years old and had already had two homes for some reason. She is a Turkish Angora (possibly cross), the actual Turkish kind not the fancy one you see at shows. She is a very light little cat but has one of those cat paunches haha so she looks a bit more substantial than she is. She suffers Feline Hyperesthesia but playing with the other cat seems to greatly reduce the amount of attacks but she never had a huge amount anyway, maybe a few a week before we got Mieze and mostly in summer when she's way less active. Compared to some cats, that's really not too bad. She also has really yellow horrible teeth and had one removed as the gum got infected and the tooth was horrible. It's one from the back. She now chews cardboard all the time and I suspect has sore gums or something that would cause this behaviour.
Until I got her, she ate Purina dry food and a supermarket brand of wet food. She was constantly being sick after meals. We tried her on loads of different foods, wet, dry and mixes of the two, but always after a week or so she'd start being sick again. We took her off dry altogether and for a while things really improved, however after about a month she started the vomiting again. This time though, the vomiting would be 10 - 12 hours after eating, and was completely undigested food. The vet just said to change food (ignoring the fact that clearly there is a bigger problem there), but no matter what food she went on, this was always the case. She was a bit better with those Sheba Filets so she was on those for a while and I began to mix in raw meat such as beef heart (which is very high in taurine), tiny beef muscle meat chunks and liver. She wasn't overly keen at first but eventually ate them. Then I broke my ankle and went back to Scotland for a month and my man took over and just fed them Felix (arrrrggghhhhhh!!!!). When I got back, I put them on Bozita which has 93% meat, but Carlotta still vomited lots. One day though I was cutting up a cows ladybits (haha) to encourage Rosa to eat it, and Carlotta marched in and started munching it. After that she's been on a raw diet although now and then has stolen Mieze's Bozita or been fed it by my man, both cases always result in vomit.
She now eats a raw meat paste by Petman which contains muscle meat, bone, and organ meat. She had had chunks from Rosas food but kept dragging them across my white desk, gross. I'm planning to put her on proper raw, so not just the paste, and feed her in Rosas feeding pen so she can drag it around all she wants. Anyway the Petman stuff she likes is duck, chicken and venison. She won't eat the mackerel one at all.
We adopted Mieze last Novemberish and actually just found out yesterday that she's almost exactly 8 years old now as the old owner had been looking at kitten pics with dates on. She was pretty hefty when we got her, as she had been having dry food poured out for her every few days by people who were feeding her for her absent owner, so just had a constant abundance of dry food. This happened fir a few months and we were going to take her for a while till the owner got sorted out, but the day he brought her in a taxi to wifi to give to my man, the manageress of the place said he could keep her there in the room he stayed in at work. We got Carlotta then. A few months later, my man and a colleague went to this guys room as he hadn't turned up for work. The room was littered with stuff used to take crack cocaine and there was remnants of the drugs on these naturally. He had been using for a while. My man texted me and the first thing I said was "where is the cat? We are taking her."
Well it turner out that a week before he had taken the cat to his girlfriends (so at least she was away from the drugs now) but then stopped going to his girlfriends, his way of breaking up with her. The girlfriends dog had bit Mieze, thankfully not hard, and so Mieze spent her entire stay there in the cupboard hiding. The girlfriend felt sorry for her and fed her a huuuuuge amount of Purina dry cat food. So to end the long story, when we got M she was rather large. She is a big cat compared to C too though. When we first got her, she drank loads of water, even when moved to wet, and kept vomiting pure water. We took her to the vets and they did a blood test which showed that she may have a possibility of getting heart problems or cancer. I do feel this is caused a lot by poor diet in many cases.
We have had her on a diet since we got her and although she initially lost a lot, she's still a bit big. She also has a cat paunch so it's not so easy to tell haha. She seems fine on most foods mostly and is now on Bozita (again, the 93% meat ones, not the tins). When I was mixing meat into C's Sheba before, M would refuse to eat it or eat around the meat. I'm now trying to mix some of Carlotta's meat paste into her food but will have to actually start watching them to see if it works. Currently she won't go anywhere near C's bowl haha. I always put C's food down first as M barges in to eat out the first bowl, but so far she just sniffs it them stomps off haha.
So! That's the lengthy background on my girls and their diet & health issues. Now what I'd like to do...
I wanna get Mieze onto raw of course, first via this paste stuff and then put both cats onto a proper, varied home made raw. I have been doing a lot of reading into it and am on a German pet forum where quite a few feed raw, it seems to be quite a bit more popular in Germany (raw feeding in general) and I have even seen lots of adverts for pure bred kittens who have been brought up on full raw. I wish mines had grown up on full raw haha, life would be so much easier haha. But anyway, I am usi go this transfer time with Mieze to learn all about cat raw feeding so I will document my learning here, hopefully inspire someone to give it a try perhaps or at least give some food for thought for people haha. Anyway here's what I've picked up so far:
From what I've read, most people give their cats chicken bones for the bone content. This is something I'm quite worried about as I've never fed either bones and I have no idea how to encourage them to do so. Rosa eats chicken necks which aren't really bone and are very soft so I think I'll use that as a starter point. In the meantime, I have a calcium powder to give them mixed in their food to make up for the lack of bone.
Cats should be fed 2 - 4% of their body weight and unlike dogs can't be fasted as they can quickly develop kidney problems this way.
It's important cats have taurine as they can't make it themselves. This is contained in all meat, but it is in particularly high proportions in beef heart.
Apparently cats need 3 to 5 different protein sources in their diet, which should be okay for me with C as I know she likes duck, venison, chicken and beef. I'd like to get her to eat some sort of fish too but have never fed fish raw (to my dog either) so am worried about that one. This website ( catcentric.org/nutrition-and-food/raw-feeding/raw-feeding-your-cat-just-the-basics/ ) suggests keeping away from fish except maybe a single sardine now and then, as fish can cause urinary tract problems amount other things (but sardines are a good source of omega 3). That website also suggests feeding live insects.
Finally, that website states: "Ground and prey model raw home-preparing methods are based on a general guideline that has been used by raw cat and dog feeders for decades, the 80 / 10 / 5 / 5 rule; that’s 80% – 87% meat, fat, skin, sinew, connective tissue and heart, 5% – 10% edible bone, 3% – 5% liver, and 5% other secreting organ (kidney, thymus, pancreas, etc.)."
Anyway I am looking forward to putting my two on the Prey Model Raw diet and will let you guys know how it goes!