I heard a vet say feeding raw is either the best or worst diet for your cat depending on whether the

I just learned about the raw feeding diet a few days ago after reading an article written by a vet. She was listing the cat diets from best to worst. #1 was feeding your cat a raw species appropriate balanced diet (either made at home or purchased). The problem is, dead last was a raw diet that wasn't balanced. She gave the example of throwing down a piece of chicken and some vegetables and thinking all of your cats needs were met was a bad and dangerous idea. She also went onto say that only a few adjustments were needed to go from worst to best... however, she didn't expand on what the daily needs of cats are, what a balanced diet looks like or how to make sure all of my cats' nutritional needs are being met. ACK!!!  Please help if you can! 

I want to transition over to a raw diet, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about it. I've been looking on this forum, but with my knowledge being near zero, I'm not sure to begin sorting through all of the pages and pages of posts. Is there a cookbook out there with dietary needs of my cats outlined? 

Thank you! :0) 

I'm just going to add in, supplementation is HUGE when feeding raw to your cat(s). They do need a balanced diet (which I'm sure, more experienced posters will be around to elaborate on).

Here is a great thread with lots of resources and information for you to read: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread

After reading through many raw posts and then starting raw myself, it seems most everyone starts out on commercial raw, which is balanced, before moving into homemade raw. If you are looking to do ground and have a grinder, Dr. Pierson has a great recipe outlined here: http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

Dr Karen Becker!! I love her!

And she's right, if all you do is throw down some raw chicken and never give any any bone or calcium or organs, it could lead to disaster down the road.

HOWEVER. If you give a small piece of meat to supplement your cat's other *balanced* food, (dry, wet, commercial raw, etc), they will not be harmed. It's when plain meat is more than 15% of a cats diet and is sustained and not supplemented that problems can arise.


I'm close to the same boat as you, I'm wanting to start raw (My cat just had his first piece yesterday! ) but I'm really nervous about it. I don't even cook for myself, how am I supposed to figure out all the ratios and calcium/phosphorus and then my cat has allergies whichisawholeotherstory?

There are quite a few people who have switched to raw very recently and have gone through all the trials and tribulations so you have plenty of good teachers here.

Welcome!~

Hi "Joy" and welcome to TCS!

ALL of us feeding raw were standing in your shoes when we first found out about or started thinking about feeding raw food to our cats. :lol3: There is SO much information out there, and it feels completely overwhelming to sort through it all. :nod:

...and that's why it's GREAT that there are so many commercial raw foods to choose from now! I think many of us (most of us at this point?) started with commercial raw, because you don't have to worry about whether or not it's balanced. This gives you time to help your kitty figure out she's really a carnivore (some need a lot of help :lol3: , some know it and transition without a problem :lol3: ), it gets us comfortable with feeding raw - you get to see the benefits, and then you have the time to learn about your options for homemade raw while kitty is eating raw.

There is also a supplement you can add to just raw meat that makes it complete and balanced - so it makes it REALLY easy to make homemade raw food, if your cat likes pieces of meat. It's also an easy way to start while you decide how - or if - you want to move forward. It's discussed in the last link I provide here.

Here are some posts and threads I think you may find to be helpful.

Here is a discussion of commercial raw food: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/248410/lanie-is-wasting-away#post_3246089 . FYI, Rad Cat is almost universally loved by kitties, and usually makes a great transition food. :nod: I - and many others - used Nature's Variety, because that's what was locally available. Apparently the Darwin's being used by Laniecat and Ivycats is a hit too.

Here is a "Raw Food for Dummies" thread where the discussion is more about cat nutrition and the cost of feeding raw (it's not about how to feed raw): http://www.thecatsite.com/t/246777/raw-food-for-dummies-aka-me#post_3230286

THIS thread is about HOW to feed raw food: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245722/novice-wanting-to-start-raw-feeding

...and we can certainly answer ANY questions.



And Joy? Minka? To help you figure out how to provide the proper amount of bone or calcium supplement to balance the phosphorus in the meat, all you need to do is ask. We can help you figure out how much food to feed (cats on raw typically need LESS than the commercial food they've been eating, because the bioavailability is so much higher).

We can also help with transition tips and ideas... you'll find you'll get a LOT of support here and ANY questions answered.

I don't know if Dr. Becker recommends veggies in her recipes for cat food. But you can google "Dr. Becker raw food for cat," and you'll find a number of videos. I also love Dr. Becker - but cats don't need veggies in their food. Whether providing ground, whole prey model raw (frankenprey) (also called B.A.R.F. when discussed in terms of dog food - Bones and Raw Food), or the "TCS" adaptation of frankenprey - Carolina and I call it "Boneless Frankenprey", there are easy ways to feed cats what they need without the veggies they don't need.

LOL, don't tell my cat he needs less food, he'll kill ya! :lol3:

:lol3: You know, I remember the first time I fed a whole meal of raw food. It looked like such a pitiful amount of food. BUT... that very first night was the first night I slept all the way through without ANY of them waking me up to bother me for food - not even our "Grim" - (Billy). :lol3: The raw food is so much more satisfying for them!

It really isn't rocket science, you need mostly meat, some bones and organs.  Nobody's out there balancing and supplementing wild carnivores diet but the pet food industry likes to make people believe once those animals come into our homes suddenly they have super hard feeding requirements to meet and they will fall apart otherwise.  Feed a variety of proteins, feed a variety of parts of the animal, feed all of it if you can.  Cats don't need veggies, I know some people feed them in small amounts for fiber though. 
 

GoingPostal said:

It really isn't rocket science, you need mostly meat, some bones and organs.  Nobody's out there balancing and supplementing wild carnivores diet but the pet food industry likes to make people believe once those animals come into our homes suddenly they have super hard feeding requirements to meet and they will fall apart otherwise.  Feed a variety of proteins, feed a variety of parts of the animal, feed all of it if you can.  Cats don't need veggies, I know some people feed them in small amounts for fiber though. 

 

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But it is this casual attitude that leads to malnutrition. You don't just need "some" meat bones and organs. They need to be balanced. Wild carnivores eat whole prey, prey that is designed by nature to supply what the predator needs. It's not the same thing at all.

LDG said:

:lol3: You know, I remember the first time I fed a whole meal of raw food. It looked like such a pitiful amount of food. BUT... that very first night was the first night I slept all the way through without ANY of them waking me up to bother me for food - not even our "Grim" - (Billy). :lol3: The raw food is so much more satisfying for them!

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I agree! With my kitties on commercial raw, I no longer have them waking me up for food and they don't beg for treats as often as before! Also, their coats are much much shinier and their poops are more solid and less smelly (TMI, I know :lol3.

kittylover23 said:

I agree! With my kitties on commercial raw, I no longer have them waking me up for food and they don't beg for treats as often as before! Also, their coats are much much shinier and their poops are more solid and less smelly (TMI, I know :lol3.

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Talk about cat poop is never too much information, at least not in forums devoted to cats. :lol3: A cat's poop is often an important indicator of the cat's health status.

Not all carnivores eat whole prey, many are scavengers and not all are going to eat the whole thing even if they are killing it.  Same animals will eat hugely different prey depending on where they live, they make do.  Look how many cats are living just fine on a diet of Alley Cat, clearly it's going to take a lot to do it wrong. 
 

GoingPostal said:

Not all carnivores eat whole prey, many are scavengers and not all are going to eat the whole thing even if they are killing it.  Same animals will eat hugely different prey depending on where they live, they make do.  Look how many cats are living just fine on a diet of Alley Cat, clearly it's going to take a lot to do it wrong. 

 

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This does not mean they are healthy. In fact, most feral cats are not all that healthy. Cats are not scavengers, they are predators, they hunt live prey.

And a cat living on something like Alley Cat is subsisting, not thriving. "Just fine" on cheap kibble is a fallacy.

Read some of the threads in the raw forum, to help you understand why the correct ratio between meat, organ and bone is important.

or access these links:

www.catinfo.org
http://feline-nutrition.org/index.php

GoingPostal said:

Not all carnivores eat whole prey, many are scavengers and not all are going to eat the whole thing even if they are killing it.  Same animals will eat hugely different prey depending on where they live, they make do.  Look how many cats are living just fine on a diet of Alley Cat, clearly it's going to take a lot to do it wrong. 

 

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Incorrect. A lot of cats on Alley Cat slowly slowly over time develop malnutrition, diabetes or kidney disease. If you don't know that something is wrong, then everybody is "doing just fine".

otto said:

Cats are not scavengers, they are predators, they hunt live prey.

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and translating that to feeding raw, means feeding them fresh raw meat, the fresher the better (yeah, we understand it has been frozen before ), and since cats hunt small prey, balancing it out trying to simulate the nutritious values of the preys they eat :nod:

otto said:

GoingPostal said:

Not all carnivores eat whole prey, many are scavengers and not all are going to eat the whole thing even if they are killing it.  Same animals will eat hugely different prey depending on where they live, they make do.  Look how many cats are living just fine on a diet of Alley Cat, clearly it's going to take a lot to do it wrong. 

 

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This does not mean they are healthy. In fact, most feral cats are not all that healthy. Cats are not scavengers, they are predators, they hunt live prey.

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Just technically, while cats are obligate carnivores, and predators, they are first and foremost opportunistic feeders. They will scavenge before hunting, unless that mouse or rabbit darts in front of them. It's one of the many problems of feral cat diet analysis and translating it into cat predation: did they kill the bird found in the scat or eat a dead bird?

But the point remains the same. Cats in the wild choose what they hunt, what parts of it they eat, what they eat when scavenging. When they are confined to our homes, they are confined to what we provide them. They cannot choose. So it IS important to provide them a balanced diet, because they depend on us to provide them with the nutrition they need.

LDG said:

Just technically, while cats are obligate carnivores, and predators, they are first and foremost opportunistic feeders. They will scavenge before hunting, unless that mouse or rabbit darts in front of them. It's one of the many problems of feral cat diet analysis and translating it into cat predation: did they kill the bird found in the scat or eat a dead bird?
.

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Goodness, I never knew that! Knowing how strong the hunting instinct is in cats, I never would have thought that. But wait. Even cats born wild? I can see how a former domestic cat, having always relied on a human for food, would turn to food already there, as opposed to hunting, but...true wild, also? I'm asking sincerely. I know your experience and back round with feral cats.

But the point remains the same. Cats in the wild choose what they hunt, what parts of it they eat, what they eat when scavenging. When they are confined to our homes, they are confined to what we provide them. They cannot choose. So it IS important to provide them a balanced diet, because they depend on us to provide them with the nutrition they need

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Yes. Nature has given animals the instinct to know what they need to eat.

It's interesting. The hunting instinct in cats is actually not governed by hunger. (Adamec 1976). This is why our pet kitties are so playful. They're the only known predator where the "prey" / "hunt" instinct is not motivated by hunger, and is separate from the "food-getting" instinctual response.

Feral cats often have no choice but to hunt because that's what's available. Where I live, there's plenty to hunt and eat, and other than in the RV park where garbage is accessible via dumpsters, there's not much available to eat other than what they hunt (unless they find us. ). But really - it's this function of being opportunistic feeders that makes TNR successful. The cats come for the food. A study in Australia ... well, here. From my letter to the NJ Dept of Fish & Wildlife (when they were considering the reclassification of cats to exotic animals):
.

In fact, supplemental feeding of cats has been shown to reduce the predation rate of cats. A study conducted in a suburb of Sydney, Australia found that natural prey represented 8-17% of the diet of cats by volume, and that most of the diet was derived from human-provided sources of food. (Dickman, 2009). According to Barratt (1994), domestic cats as predators can be described as “sedentary generalists.” Berkeley (2001) and Winograd (2003) categorize cats as opportunistic feeders, indicating that cats will utilize whatever food source is most prevalent, including supplemental feeding by humans, garbage and carrion. This is supported by the work of van Heezik (2010). Of the cats that rely on hunting, according to Berkeley (2001) and Fitzgerald (1988) the majority of their diet consists of mammals [not birds], and frequently the flying birds consumed are injured or already dead (Berkeley, 2001).

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From my piece "17 Reasons the Economic Impact of the Domestic Cat as a Non-Native Species in the U.S. Does Not Cost $17 Billion" (rebutting a University of Nebraska-Lincoln paper making the claim):

Reason #6

5.1.1 Cats are Opportunistic Feeders

Cats are opportunistic feeders (Coman and Brunner 1972, Paton 1991, Barratt 1994, Fitzgerald and Turner 2000, Berkeley 2001, van Heezik 2010). Cats are scavengers; they eat carrion and garbage (Tabor 1983, Fitzgerald and Turner 2000, Hutchings 2003). Given that cats are flexible in their dietary habits, extrapolations of the diet of the cat from one habitat to another are unreasonable given variable prey availability. Variable abundances of birds, mammals, other species (and garbage) between rural and urban areas – even across urban gradients (Mitchell and Beck 1992, Blair 1996, Chace and Walsh 2004, van Heezik 2008) – mean that cats in different habitats will have different hunting or scavenging profiles (van Heezik 2010).

Some of studies indicate that urban cats depredate birds at a higher rate than other habitats (Paton 1991, van Heezick 2010). Yet as Roger Tabor (1995) points out, suburban and urban areas support unnaturally high concentrations of birds. Thus an observation of higher bird depredation rates in urban areas is consistent with cats being opportunistic hunters.

It is enticing to extrapolate data from one study site in one habitat to produce state-wide or nation-wide figures, but it is inappropriate. Of course it is done all the time. But it is scientifically and ecologically meaningless.

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But even in the wild with no access to human provided food, whether as food or garbage, feral cats will optimize energy expenditure in hunting. Also from the 17 Reasons paper:

In Liberg’s detailed study of cat hunting behavior in southern Sweden, he found that feral cats optimized their hunting strategy given prey availability when compared to house cats. The diet of feral cats was primarily rabbits. He observed that rabbits caught weighed on average ten times more than the average rodent, but each rabbit took only about five times as long to catch as a rodent; therefore rabbit hunting provided double the rewards of rodent hunting. Table 2 illustrates the lack of bird hunting by the feral cats in Liberg’s study, with bird remains in feral cat scats in just four of ten measured periods over a five-year period (1974 – 1979).

Hutchings (2003), studying the predation habits of feral cats around a garbage tip (landfill) in Victoria (Australia) for two years, found that cats selected mainly meat and chicken scraps from the garbage and vertebrates were “hunted opportunistically.” Garbage occurred significantly more in the cat scats (81.6%) than any other dietary categories; mammal remains, vegetation, and insects also occurred regularly in the scats, but birds did not. (Flocks of pied currawongs and ravens fed from the garbage, and a “variety” of birds surrounded the landfill).[34]

Feral cats must hunt and scavenge to fulfill their energy requirements: when ready alternatives are available, feral cats appear to optimize their hunting/scavenging given available sources of food. Bird hunting (usually) does not optimize energy for the effort expended. (Tabor 1983, Liberg 1984, Fitzgerald and Turner 2000).

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The links to the published pieces are in the cat predation of my website (http://www.straypetadvocacy.org).

otto said:

Yes. Nature has given animals the instinct to know what they need to eat.

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It really has. :nod: A Waltham study published last year actually proves this. They used various combinations of carbohydrates, fat, and protein - and found that the cats consistently targeted a certain amount of protein, fat, and carbs (when given the opportunity). http://www.petfoodindustry.com/News...refer_food_similar_to_their_natural_prey.html

The research, carried out over a two-year period at the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition, demonstrated that cats have an intake target that equates to approximately 52% of their daily calorie intake from protein, 36% from fat and 12% from carbohydrate.

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The full study is actually available online: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/6/1039.full#R22
.

Subsequently, Plantinga et al. published their analysis of 27 feral cat diets from around the world (only the abstract is available online. If you'd like the full study, just PM me). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22005434

Fifty-five studies reported feeding strategy data of cats in the wild. After specific exclusion criteria, twenty-seven studies were used to derive thirty individual dietary nutrient profiles. The results show that feral cats are obligatory carnivores, with their daily energy intake from crude protein being 52%, from crude fat 46% and from N-free extract only 2%. Minerals and trace elements are consumed in relatively high concentrations compared with recommended allowances determined using empirical methods. The calculated nutrient profile may be considered the nutrient intake to which the cat's metabolic system has adapted.

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("N-free extract" is carbs/starches).


FYI, on a dry matter basis (as opposed to energy intake basis), the protein/fat/carbs (the Plantinga study) is 62·7% CP, 22·8% EE, 11·8% ash and 2·8% NFE.

CP= Crude Protein
EE = Ethereal Energy (fat)
Ash = minerals
NFE = N-free extract (carbohydrates)