Started them on raw tonight :D - Page 3

No, I meant I gave them 100% raw. I haven't mixed proteins - I just switch proteins. Because I wasn't 100% raw, I didn't intro new raw proteins with whatever raw they were already eating, I just replaced it as the mix with the canned.

But last evening I just gave them 100% raw. OK, I'm sure this isn't the vet's definition of slow , but I have to be able to fit new food in the freezer by tomorrow.

Gary gave us a set-back last night. He went to use the bathroom, and Flowerbelle followed him in there. As he went to put her out, Lazlo went in. Gary said it was a "cat train." So to get them all out of there, he took a little bit of kibble (there's a very small cabinet in there, and that's where I kept one of the bags) - he said it was about a tablespoon, and tossed it in the hallway - so everyone naturally went running for it. So he got a cat-free bathroom, but I have cats that now remember they want kibble.

It didn't affect how they ate at meals - just how they bothered me during the day.

Let's see... for breakfast they had chicken. It's what was dethawed. And at lunch, I tried to cheat. I'd taken out some rabbit and lamb patties, and a bag with 4 2 oz chicken patties (Carolina, sounds like Vital Essences patties are the same as Nature's Menu. They're in jumble in a bag, but I just repacked them in layers of four). Anyway, I was running late, and nothing was actually dethawed - and I hadn't checked or put anything in cold water to finish dethawing.

So I served them canned food like I would have... a week ago.

BILLY walked away from the food! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, you read that right. BILLY WALKED AWAY FROM FOOD.
Chumley looked at me like - you want me to eat this?

Everyone else ate... sort of. Tuxie, I think, just wondered what the heck happened to his fortiflora.

So obviously I'd gotten the most dethawed thing in cold water - more chicken. These guys don't like cold food, so I smooshed it around under running cold water, then switched to warm and kept smooshing LOL.

Then I took a spoon and just plopped dollops of raw chicken around in everyone's bowls. Everyone ate it without toppers - except Tuxedo. He ate his with... you guessed it - fortiflora.

Dinner was rabbit, because it was dethawed.

They're eating/finishing with less and less fuss.

I figured out the key to Laz, Flowerbelle and Tux. They don't like eating their meal in one sitting. When they "finish," and there's a bunch of food left, I take the bowls away. When they run to the bathroom (for what would have been kibble), I put all their respective bowls out in front of them and close the door. They still don't finish - but when they're done eating what they're going to eat at that sitting, Flowerbelle opens the door. (It's just a push handle, but they have to stand up on the toilet seat lid to reach it).

Flowerbelle stays in there, ever hopeful.... Tux and Laz retire to the living room. I put their bowls back out in front of them. In the bathroom, instead of on the floor, I put Flowerbelle and her bowl on the counter.

And thus meals are then finished.

It's much more labor intensive, and takes 20 minutes - half an hour.

And when (if) we go frankenprey.... I'm going to have to keep the bathroom floor spotless, and Ming Loy is going to have to eat in there. She likes taking a mouthful of the raw, drop it on the floor, and then pick up that bite and chew it. She did that with kibble - and I thought that was messy. (Canned she just licks at, so no mess no fuss. Such is life).

So.... I thought because they got canned and then a normal amount of raw as if they didn't get canned at lunch, we might have a few light eaters at dinner. But nope, everyone ate just fine.

Flowerbelle IS getting better at eating more and more on that first round.

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NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH

Gary figured out where to put a small freezer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the passenger side of the RV, where the dining room used to be, there are wooden shelves up against the wall - not attached, we had them made. The cat trees are in front of those, and there are window seats on top of the shelves. But the shelves do NOT run the length of that wall. Sandwiched between the wall (that is technically the bathroom wall, the back of the shower) and the bookshelves is a cat tree - a "small" one - we call it the cat castle. It is basically hollow inside. No one uses that part. Well - sometimes Spooky will sleep in there, but it's rare. They only use the top of it to sleep in that corner. It's 16" wide. All of the 2.5 cu ft and 3 cu ft compact freezers are 18-something inches to 20-something inches. I could have SWORN I saw one yesterday that's 17 inches, but I didn't bookmark it and now I can't find it again. BUT... we do have a couple of inches wiggle room with that bookshelf. It'll look a little odd, offset to the window, and that couple of inches means our coats won't hang down next to the front door, they'll bunch up on the shelves, and there's no place to put our shoes by the door.... but that can be figured out, I'm sure. If we have to, we can push the shelves a little further along the wall.



So... I'm not sure what we'll get tomorrow. The chicken and beef chubs should be in... and I'd like some turkey something, but I don't think he ordered any. I told him to make that next tuesday. (Tuesday is delivery day LOL). I may come home with the Stella & Chewy's Duck...

Day five:

Tuxedo has not gone after Ming Loy in any way. She did fall on him while passing in the skinny hallway (from the kitchen to the bedroom - bathroom on one side, wardrobe on the other), and he did hit her... but I'm not counting that in the same category as attacking her.
No one has chased Spooky.
Spooky has not even looked sideways at Chumley.

No incidents between Laz and Bill.

New:

Spooky jumped up on the bed after dinner - Ming Loy was curled up there (having passed Tuxie in the hallway to get there earlier LOL). Spooky stopped and groomed her for a while. Never seen that happen before. (Her first six months with us, all Spooky did was hiss and growl at her). (Ming Loy is another one like Billy - always wants pets from the other cats. It's quite funny watching Bill and Ming Loy together, each of them wanting to be licked, not do the licking. For the most part, until Chum, the other cats just thought they were freaks. Bill makes out like a bandit on that one - Chum will groom him all day long if he wants. I don't know why, but Ming Loy never asks for pets from Chum).

I THINK there's room in the freezer to squeeze in that giant bag. He did order the NV chicken & beef chubs for me... definitely not room for two chubs and the bag. I'm thinking I can put the chubs in the fridge. Things seem to stay frozen in our fridge - so if the patties stay frozen for so long, the chubs definitely will. I can just scrape off the outside, I guess. Or hack of chunks to dethaw. But that way I can bring all three home. You'll be the first to know if there's raw duck in the house!

The funny thing is, given we're 8 cats and 2 people in an RV, we thought they WERE getting along. Well, OK - Tuxie beating up Ming Loy didn't fit that definition, but that is a more recent addition (and now subtraction LOL) to the behavior repertoire. But part of the reason we moved into the house back in 2004 was we thought the five of them (at the time) needed more room. But the "chase Spooky" games didn't stop with more space. We just figured... she's our pariah kitty.

The jury's still out on whether the raw has impacted their behavior THAT much... but each day without a "chase Spooky" game has me more and more amazed....

Thanks for the info, Carolina. I did buy a bunch of cheap plastic baggies - they're pretty much a must.

And just a quick note re: the Vital Essentials. They have both "nuggets" and the small patties. You're right - they're smaller than the Nature's Menu. Ultimately, the same amount of pounds of raw takes up the same space though. I've been buying patties, not medallions, so they're not just a jumble in a bag. They happen to be really convenient at 8 oz (half pound) - 1 oz per cat per meal works out just perfectly.

I'm really in a quandry about what to do here. I can only fit one large bag in the freezer today - and that'll be after I take a couple of patties out of it. And obviously I'm getting low on rabbit. But they reliably love the rabbit. They had rabbit for breakfast, and everyone basically ate all of it without much fussing.

HOWEVER... the NV, at 15% bone, is a concern. It's too much bone for somebody. So I can't feed just NV at any given meal, it's going to have to be mixed with at least S&C which I know is 10% bone. And even though it's more expensive, I'm going to have to incorporate the Primal (at least turkey) - which, unfortunately has to wait until next Tuesday (unless Jim went ahead and ordered it), because it's typically 6-8% bone. So I need the S&C and Primal to reduce the amount of NV bone - but NV is the only HPP rabbit option.

I was thinking of asking Jim if we can pay for the bags and only take like half the product, leaving an open bag there... but Gary REALLY doesn't want to do that. If the RV park were open, we could borrow some of their freezer space, but it isn't. Not until April, and we'll definitely have a freezer by then.

I think I don't have a choice but to come home with some S&C, and I'll have to start mixing proteins. Since I'm probably coming home with duck, let's just hope they really like it.

Is this an anniversary of Ritz starting eating raw? Happy Anniversary!

The freezer space... I repack some of the patties into freezer baggies until the bag they came in fits - because it wouldn't save space over the ziplock bags. (And I mark the meat and the date on the freezer baggies: then when I move them to the fridge, I mark the date they went into the fridge, to make sure I'm not using something I just put in there as opposed to something that went in there the day before).

My ONLY concern with mixing regular meat into the diet would be Lazlo. I'm really not concerned about Chum at this point. I think a week or two after Lazlo's chemo is done (his last treatment is next Monday), I won't be as concerned... and he'd have been on raw for about a month at that point anyway.

I do need to call Dr. Cheng. I'm still giving Chum his Prosperous Farmer pills. These were to address his "extreme spleen Qi deficiency." Now - I doubt he's still "extremely Qi deficient." BUT - the ingredients in the pills happen to be pretty well matched to the herbal treatment for FIV as outlined in Bud's Therapy (http://www.fivtherapy.com). So it's not just that they're "rebalancing" his Qi - I think they're also functioning to slow down the progression of the FIV virus.

I think we should probably grab him and run him up to the local vet and just get the FIV snap test done again. Just to see if he does test positive or negative. On the FIV therapy, cats have actually gone from positive to negative, and Dr. Cheng says cats under her care have.

It's a good discussion for anyone new to raw who stumbles on this thread and makes it this far. I use cold to dethaw or finish dethawing, and then just smoosh around in pretty warm water to make it warm for feeding.

Of course!

...and no new food today. I posted in Lauren's thread, but Gary's making stew, which is going to need freezer space tomorrow. I'll need to work down the food for the kitties some more. So we probably won't pick up any more until Thursday. (Tomorrow afternoon is out because we have to take Flowerbelle to the vet, and it's north, nowhere near the pet shop. ).

Unique problems here. A large cookie sheet doesn't even fit in our oven! (Though one MAY fit in the fridge? ).

We have one that's... 8 x 10? Something like that.

Gary's comment today when I found the freezer I've been looking at for $50 cheaper ($179, free shipping) was, "We'll talk about it later. But 3/4 of our home is already dedicated to the cats, so why shouldn't they have their own freezer?"

Well, we're out of chicken. The NV samples are gone, and the Vital Essences chicken is gone. I didn't have any lamb in the fridge today (what is up with me? I really need to pay more attention to this LOL. Rest assured, there's lamb in there now), and I didn't want them to eat so much NV rabbit. So both lunch and dinner were chicken. They're eating it MUCH better than at first. It's so cute - now instead of standing there listening to everyone licking at canned food, I watch them all taking little bites and chewing. Of course - these are still tiny little pieces. But it's not just mush either.

Interestingly, as they have more chicken, they like it better. As they have more lamb, they like it less. Rabbit everyone likes. But those are the only three proteins they've had so far, raw. I am disappointed we couldn't get to the store today. I'm also getting nervous because we're almost out of rabbit.

I remembered there's a pet store almost across the street from this vet. I know they carry NV frozen. Don't know about anything else. Poor Flowerbelle may have to wait in the car with Gary for a few minutes while I run in there. I already told Gary we're freezing the stew in baggies rather than little containers. Gives us more flexibility for how to fit it all in there.

I am still mixing water into their food. The whole reason I even started them on wet food those many years ago was because ALL the boys had problems with crystals. (Yes, I know, the dry food). So apart from the moisture in the food, they're used to having about a tablespoon of water with each meal. Well - I also did this because at the time, they only liked gravy, so to up the quality of their canned, I turned it all into gravy. I'm slowly cutting down the amount of water I add... but it's weird to be scooping less of everything. Makes me nervous to see less pee.