Beginner to raw feeding after months of illness

Hey Everybody, hope you're having a great Saturday afternoon. Go Gamecocks!

Anyway, I am new to the CatSite and I recently posted in the cat nutrition forum about my cat Carter. He is 14 months old and for the past ten months of his life we have been struggling with severe food allergies which cause him to itch constantly. The itching is so severe that his face is constantly raw and bleeding. 

Currently, Carter is taking 10 mg prednisolone every other day, chlorephramine, and is eating Royal Canin rabbit and pea food. I feed him a mixture of wet and dry.

I want to begin feeding him raw food, preferably a commercial brand. I am very scared and very skeptical of putting him through any more negative experiences - I worry about his immune system and his ability to stay healthy since he is on steroids and has open wounds constantly. Can anyone calm these fears??

Is a raw diet absolutely safe? 

Is there any risk I will feed him the raw diet and he will react negatively to it? What signs should I look for?

Most importantly, what kind of raw diet should I start him on? I am more than willing to adapt into making the food myself, I just would like to start out with a storebought brand. 

I am COMPLETELY unknowledgeable about this and very nervous about hurting my poor baby any worse than he has already suffered for most of his life.

Also, if anyone is in South Carolina/Western North Carolina and has a reputable holistic vet they trust, please let me know!

Thank you for your support

The main issue for most kitties in feeding raw food is whether or not they recognize it as food at first. The trick is to start slowly, by adding a small amount - like a teaspoon - to their wet food. Or next to it.

Until you're comfortable with feeding raw, you can start with the pathogen-free guaranteed foods. That's what I did. My Lazlo was finishing his 6 month course of chemotherapy; Chumley is FIV+ so comes with a compromised immune system, and Tuxedo fought an auto-immune disorder that caused anemia actively for... six/seven years. So I didn't want to do anything that could harm any of them either.

There are three pathogen-free guaranteed raw foods: Nature's Variety Instinct frozen raw foods, Primal, and Stella & Chewy's. NV and Primal are frozen raw. Stella & Chewy's is freeze dried. They do have a frozen raw for dogs. It is supplemented with taurine, so it can be fed to cats.

The most affordable is Nature's Variety - it is also typically the most easily accessible food locally. Because her issues are allergy-based, you may want to try the NV organic chicken (even though it is more expensive than the other NV products). While the triggers for allergies are often the processing, for cats with extreme sensitivities, part of the problem can be in the feed the protein we're feeding our pet. Carolina's Bugsy can't eat raw chicken purchased from the supermarket - unless it is vegetarian fed. So to be extra safe, best to start with the organic chicken.

In the meantime, you can help her GI system by starting her immediately on a probiotic. My holistic vet recommended I find a human acidophilus supplement with 10 billion CFU (colony forming units). I use Natural Factors double-strength acidophilus+bifidus. It's available at Amazon - I buy it at the local health food store. I sprinkle one capsule daily onto a meal. This helps repopulate and maintain healthy gut flora.

I'm sure others will be along too. But IMO, baby steps are best, and this is where I'd start. :rub:

Hi and so glad you are considering adding raw to Carter's diet. I honestly think it would be very beneficial to him on so many levels especially with the skin allergies. Laurie already mentioned the three pathogen free brands. I use all three of them in my raw rotation. Also, do start Carter on a probiotic/enzyme product. I use the one Laurie recommends and have also used Animal Essential . I certainly agree with Laurie in that the main problem for some kitties is knowing that raw is food. :lol3: I know that sounds funny and I thought in the beginning of transitioning my six that it would be a breeze!! I thought how could they NOT want raw meat!! But four of my six took quite some time convincing them. I still have that ONE who likes to give it the cold shoulder from time to time. There are also great "toppers" we all discovered along the way to entice them to take those first few bites if they are fussy. Whole Life Freeze Dried Chicken seems to be a kitty favorite. There are quite a few freeze dried products that crumble easily to top dress the raw. Usually we start by mixing their favorite food with a small percentage of raw and see how that goes. My Walden and Wendall took to the raw right from the start and were so easy to transition over to 100% raw. I do hope that Carter will be that easy. :cross:

Hi

So glad you made this decision in trying to help your baby boy :heart3: Hopefully it will help him greatly :cross: My comments below -

MamaCat437 said:

Hey Everybody, hope you're having a great Saturday afternoon. Go Gamecocks!

Anyway, I am new to the CatSite and I recently posted in the cat nutrition forum about my cat Carter. He is 14 months old and for the past ten months of his life we have been struggling with severe food allergies which cause him to itch constantly. The itching is so severe that his face is constantly raw and bleeding. 

Currently, Carter is taking 10 mg prednisolone every other day, chlorephramine, and is eating Royal Canin rabbit and pea food. I feed him a mixture of wet and dry.

I want to begin feeding him raw food, preferably a commercial brand. I am very scared and very skeptical of putting him through any more negative experiences - I worry about his immune system and his ability to stay healthy since he is on steroids and has open wounds constantly. Can anyone calm these fears??

Is a raw diet absolutely safe? Many of us feeding raw me included started with immune-compromised kitties, and shared these same fears For quite a while I fought raw with tooth and nail, as I was petrified of what it could do to my Bugsy. I thought with his immune-system he would certainly succumb to pathogens.... But I had no choice - when nothing else worked, it was either this or a big surgery, which would not only be painful but risky too. Raw worked fast and he did amazingly well - he is healthier than he has ever been, and I am no longer afraid. In fact, if any of them are sick and you tell me to choose, I feel much safer feeding raw meat than kibbles - ANY DAY.
Is a raw diet absolutely safe? Well, can you say this about any diet? Is a kibble diet absolutely safe? Nope - look at all the recalls we had just this year for salmonella on Kibbles. Is a canned diet absolutely safe? nope. A raw diet to be safe needs to be well balanced and you need to keep in mind safety handling precautions - washing your hands before and after serving, washing their dishes right after they eat, leaving the food out for only 20-30 minutes, defrosting properly, keeping the feeding and preparing areas clean, etc. If you do that, IMHO it is the safest diet as it is the one that gives you the most control and the least amount of inflammatory ingredients in the diet.
A commercial diet, no matter what it was, was making my Bugsy sick - so for him, there is no better, no safer diet than raw.
Is there any risk I will feed him the raw diet and he will react negatively to it? What signs should I look for? Sure there is.... But IMHO chances are this is your best bet. Since your problem is scratching, I would look for more scratching. Now, keep in mind, he can be sensitive to a certain protein as well, which is easily fixable - it is not the case that "RAW" on itself will be bad for him, but it can be the case that chicken, for example, can be bad for him. I would start the diet with novel proteins - probably rabbit, pork, Turkey.... I wouldn't start with chicken right off the bat.

Most importantly, what kind of raw diet should I start him on? I am more than willing to adapt into making the food myself, I just would like to start out with a storebought brand. 

I am COMPLETELY unknowledgeable about this and very nervous about hurting my poor baby any worse than he has already suffered for most of his life.

Also, if anyone is in South Carolina/Western North Carolina and has a reputable holistic vet they trust, please let me know!


Thank you for your support IMHO the 100% pathogen free diets are not necessary at all - they are just necessary for us humans, to give us time to get used to the idea of raw, and to increase our comfort level. I speak with experience on this one - if one cat could be harmed by bacteria, and would have a hard time dealing with it, it would be Bugsy. This is a cat I used to call "My Lemon Kitty". I did start him on Nature's Variety pathogen free meats, because I WAS AFRAID. But very quickly I moved on to Rad Cat, which IMHO is the best commercial raw out there.
If you chose Nature's Variety, my recommendation is to start with the rabbit. Do NOT buy the beef, lamb or bison - they are nasty - at least for the kitties, who are the parties involved :lol3: If you have access to Rad Cat, use it. I wouldn't use the chicken, just because it is a known allergen - I would start with the Turkey, then add the lamb.
I LOVE the meats from Hare-today You want to buy the fine ground meat/organ/bones, and then buy this supplement as well: Alnutrin for meat/organs/bones. Their prices are great, their quality is great, and shipping is very affordable. They have a great selection that gives you tons of choices, and I like that they don't mix proteins, very important when dealing with allergies and sensitivities. Their rabbit is great, but all their meats are really good :nod:
Today I feed all of mine home made, balanced chunks of meat, they do fantastic.

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LDG said:

The main issue for most kitties in feeding raw food is whether or not they recognize it as food at first. The trick is to start slowly, by adding a small amount - like a teaspoon - to their wet food. Or next to it. Yep - this is how you should introduce it anyways - SLOWLY. Start with one teaspoon per meal on the first day, on all meals. Watch for reactions - if the reactions increase, you might have to either take a step back, or change the protein. The next day, you will add 2 TSP to each meal. 3rd day, 3 TSP to each meal, remove one of wet. 4th day 4 TSP of raw meat in each meal, remove 2 of wet.... Do this until all he is eating is raw - increasing teaspoon by teaspoon.
Is he already eating on a schedule? This will be very important - cutting the kibbles immediately, and feeding all wet so you can introduce the raw with it.
Until you're comfortable with feeding raw, you can start with the pathogen-free guaranteed foods. That's what I did. My Lazlo was finishing his 6 month course of chemotherapy; Chumley is FIV+ so comes with a compromised immune system, and Tuxedo fought an auto-immune disorder that caused anemia actively for... six/seven years. So I didn't want to do anything that could harm any of them either.
There are three pathogen-free guaranteed raw foods: Nature's Variety Instinct frozen raw foods, Primal, and Stella & Chewy's. NV and Primal are frozen raw. Stella & Chewy's is freeze dried. They do have a frozen raw for dogs. It is supplemented with taurine, so it can be fed to cats.
The most affordable is Nature's Variety - it is also typically the most easily accessible food locally. Because her issues are allergy-based, you may want to try the NV organic chicken (even though it is more expensive than the other NV products). While the triggers for allergies are often the processing, for cats with extreme sensitivities, part of the problem can be in the feed the protein we're feeding our pet. Carolina's Bugsy can't eat raw chicken purchased from the supermarket - unless it is vegetarian fed. So to be extra safe, best to start with the organic chicken.
In the meantime, you can help her GI system by starting her immediately on a probiotic. My holistic vet recommended I find a human acidophilus supplement with 10 billion CFU (colony forming units). I use Natural Factors double-strength acidophilus+bifidus. It's available at Amazon - I buy it at the local health food store. I sprinkle one capsule daily onto a meal. This helps repopulate and maintain healthy gut flora. I use the same probiotics - here is the link: Natural Factors Probiotic
I'm sure others will be along too. But IMO, baby steps are best, and this is where I'd start. :rub:

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Good points by Carolina. :nod: Given chicken is often a trigger for cats with allergies, even though this is raw, you may want to start with a novel protein at first.

AND... absolutely, the guaranteed pathogen free thing is for OUR peace of mind. The cats do just fine on any of the raw food if it's handled properly. :lol3:

So if you want to start with a novel protein, like turkey or rabbit - then you can't use the Nature's Variety. They don't have turkey, and rabbit includes pork (though that's probably fine). The Primal turkey is

You can compare the ingredients in commercial raw foods here: http://catcentric.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Commercial-Raw-Product-Overview-Initial.pdf

It indicates whether or not the proteins are single-source.

OH! The NV lamb is all lamb (I was just looking at the spreadsheet LOL). And the Primal foods are all single-protein (unless the other protein is in the title of the food).

That said.... both NV and Primal have a long list of ingredients. Those "other things" only make up 5% of the food - but with the unknowns of the allergies, you may really want to consider foods with really simple ingredient lists. :nod:

Rad Cat is a very good choice. It's more expensive than the others, but it's a very high quality food. If it's not available locally, and the cost with shipping is prohibitive, you may want to consider ordering some of the one pound packages of whole ground animal from Hare Today. They are single proteins, whole animals, and very, very fresh meats upon dethawing. What I do when using their grinds, is I order the Alnutrin Supplement, meant to be added to mixes with meat/bones/organs. (It's available on the Hare Today site in the supplement section). There is a wide variety of proteins to choose from. I'd probably start with turkey, rabbit, and llama. My cats like the llama (and they don't really like ground food) and you can't get more novel than that! :lol3: I mostly dethaw the ground package in a large bowl of cold water, add the Alnutrin (one little scoop per pound), the suggested amount of water (1/4 cup per pound), mix it up well, and then portion the mix into meal-sized amounts in baggies, label and date them, and then re-freeze them.

Wow, thanks everybody for all the responses! I am so grateful for all the help, I needed the reassurance from more experienced cat owners to make this transition. 

I have so far purchased the krill oil and evening primrose oil for Carter. It is really difficult for him to swallow the krill oil gel caps, so I put it on his food and he LOVES it! I guess he's just a salmon snob 

I have been looking into where I can get these commercial raw brands in my town, and I have found a place just a few miles up the road that has Rad Cat!!!!!!!   I think I will start him on the lamb formula. 

That being said, I was wanting to clarify...can I feed him Rad Cat without adding any supplements? I was reading and saw that it is exceeds AAFCO guidelines for all stages but I want to make sure he is getting everything he needs. ---Also, I will purchase a probiotic ( probably the one that both Carolina and LDG recommend, great minds think alike!!) and continue to give him the primrose oil and krill oil.

This may sound silly, but what exactly does the probiotic do for him? I read healthy gut flora...is this to help with his digestion of the upcoming raw diet or will it help him with his allergies in general? 

also, is there a maximum amount of krill oil I can give Carter? he is about 13 pounds. 

Again, I am so incredibly thankful for all the input! I really thought for so many months there was no hope for my little boy. I hope this is a game changer for him!!

Rad Cat has everything he needs!

As you learn more about raw, you'll find that actually meat, bones, and organs in the right proportion has everything they need. Cats in the wild eat mice, rabbits, baby chicks, ducks, etc. without any supplements. When we add supplements, it's to adjust for the potential (slight) loss of nutrients from the processing, transport, and storage of the meat we feed them (and the fact that the profile of a farm-fed chicken or a cow isn't the same as a small mammal).

For the krill, he should have 500mg a day.

And just on the Rad Cat! That's GREAT! The lamb is so often a favorite (because of the higher fat content) - that's just great!

Oh - the probiotic. The probiotic is for both digestion and immune system function. It may help with the allergies, I don't know. :dk: That's not why it's suggested. But his immune system has gone haywire, and the GI system is the frontline of the immune system. :nod: But ANYONE - person, animal - on a highly processed diet will have a gut flora that is out-of-whack, so the probiotics are to address that.

We hope this is a game-changer for him too! :cross:

Hey everybody, great news!! My sweet Carter LOVES the rad cat lamb!   I am so happy for him. 

I also purchased some pet essences pain relief, and some enzymes for his belly (in the mail ) 

I will keep yall updated with his progress 

That is GREAT! Yes - Rad Cat is usually a real hit. Oh I so so so so so so hope that all of this - the raw, the krill, the evening primrose oil - help him be an itch-and-pain-free cat! :cross: !!!!!!

LDG said:

That is GREAT! Yes - Rad Cat is usually a real hit. Oh I so so so so so so hope that all of this - the raw, the krill, the evening primrose oil - help him be an itch-and-pain-free cat! :cross: !!!!!!

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Awesome!! Rad Cat is GREAT food! :bigthumb:
After he is fully introduced to lamb you can start him on turkey, slowly, of course :nod:
Hopefully you will notice a difference soon :cross: