Malibu & Kali's Raw Food Transition Progress Notes

This is just a thread for me to have all of my notes in one place. And for any raw newbies to check out one more story on the forum. I know I really enjoyed reading other members' journeys through their transitions so I figured I will add mine!

Malibu and Kali are 8 and 3, respectively. A male and a female. Malibu was on kibble until he was 5, when I rescued Kali. I made the switch over to grain free canned. 3 years has gone by and I have seen such a huge difference in him since taking him off the dry food. HUGE! 

I'm ready to go raw. I started the transition on 4/11/14 with Rad Cat Chicken. We have slowly but surely worked our way up to 50% raw and 50% canned. (The only reason I transitioned so slow is because I have been traveling a lot the past 2 months for work and didn't want to drive my pet sitter crazy)

My ultimate goal is for my cats to be eating:

Step 1 - 33% Commercial Raw (Rad Cat)

Step 2 - 33% Homemade Raw (Hare-Today + Alnutrin)

Step 3 - 34% Prey Model Raw WITH BONES *gasp!* 

• Do I dare try to transition and 8 and 3 year old who only know dry/canned food to raw meaty bones?
  • yes! I will try!

They say variety is key   This is where we are today:

BREAKFAST

An even rotation of:

Rad Cat

 - Chicken 

 - Turkey 

 - Lamb 

• They love all three proteins! I was very worried that they wouldn't like the lamb or that they wouldn't be able to eat that much red meat but so far, so good!
• "Step 1" accomplished, yeah!!

DINNER

They are still getting Wellness and Merrick canned foods for dinner but I am going to start the introduction to ground rabbit (meat, bones, organs) + Alnutrin (without calcium) on Sunday (4 days away!! ) 

• Moving on to "Step 2"!!

SUPPLEMENTS

 - Daily Probiotic (I was using Nexabiotic but have recently changed to the Natural Factors Acidophilus and           Bifidus 10 billion CFU. 1 pill per cat, once a day. I hope that is OK? I'm pretty much doing this to cut costs a little. They Nexabiotic is a bit more expensive) 

 - Tuesdays - 1/2 Egg Yolk for each cat

 - Wednesdays - 1 Sardine (canned in water, no salt added)

 - Thursdays - 1/2 Egg Yolk for each cat

They like their egg yolk in their breakfast meals on Tues & Thurs and they LOVE their sardines as a treat on Wed. I feel very blessed that they are enjoying and thriving on everything I have thrown at them so far. The only things left for them to try are the various proteins I have from Hare-Today (Rabbit, Beef and Cavies) and Krill Oil. I need them to like the Krill Oil.

Other than that....Vibes to the kitties that they like the Rabbit and Krill Oil!!  

Sounds like things are going well, and that you've researched raw feeding. Good for you.
In retrospect I wish I had taken longer to transition Ritz to raw; I think it would have avoided a possible stress-induced UTI.
Ritz loves any and all proteins, but her stomach doesn't. I'll have to order cavies one of these days.

Thank you for the support Ritz, I just love this site, You guys are so, so helpful! 

Just an update that we are now 100% raw. However, I did speak a little bit too soon! Malibu is like your Ritz and cannot handle a whole meal of lamb (or maybe all red meat) so this is what our meals look like currently:

Breakfast:

Kali  : Even Rotation of:                                   

Rad Cat Turkey

Rad Cat Chicken

Rad Cat Lamb

Malibu: Even Rotation of:

Rad Cat Turkey/Lamb

Rad Cat Chicken

Rad Cat Turkey/Lamb

Dinner:

Both Cats:

Hare Today Ground Whole Rabbit with Alnutrin

Supplements:

1/2 Capsule of Nexabiotic twice a day per cat

250mg Now Krill Oil once a day per cat (only 250mg per cat a day because the Rad Cat has salmon oil included so they only get Krill Oil at dinner)

1/2 Egg Yolk twice a week per cat (mixed in with their dinner)

1oz Sardine once a week per cat

Next up is to introduce the ground whole Cavies with Alnutrin on Sunday as a part of their dinner rotation. I will let you guys know how that goes over!

Do your kitties have hairball issues?  I ask because my Gadget would vomit red meat, as did one of LDG's kitties.  Well, @LDG mentioned that since starting Vet's Best Hairball Relief tabs the kitty could eat more red meat without issue.  There's a little bit of digestive enzymes in the Vet's Best...maybe that's what's helping?  I don't know.  I just started mine on Vet's Best a short time ago, and I have a piece of beef thawing in the fridge to try again for cat food.  I'll update you on the results!

Ohhh please do update me! If it helps, I may just buy it and give it to him. I looked it up and they are pretty cheap!

Actually, Malibu used to cough up hairballs about 2 or 3 times a WEEK back when he was on dry food (Science Diet Hairball Control Formula to be exact  ). Once I switched him over to an all canned, grain free diet about 3 years ago I could count the number of hairballs he's had on one hand since then. It is completely amazing. And Kali has never had a hairball, ever. She is 3 and only had dry food the first week that I had her when she was a baby.

I'm not sure if it is the red meat or the amount of fat that is in the RC Lamb but I know that almost every time I fed him the Lamb he threw it up about 5-10 minutes after eating. At first I thought it was because he scarfs it up so fast (he is a food junkie) but then started noticing that he doesn't throw up after eating the Chicken, Turkey or now the Rabbit, so I started giving him only 50% lamb and 50% turkey and he hasn't thrown up since.

Will do.  And hopefully LDG will post her thoughts on that as well.  I don't know if it's the digestive enzymes or something else...since she uses both, maybe she has some thoughts on this.

First of all, how exciting! And LOVE the planned rotation! I don't use Rad Cat, but I do feed a mix of modified prey model raw ("modified," because I use eggshell to balance rather than bone), ground (from Hare-Today), and bone-in meals. I don't use Alnutrin, but a homemade supplement - one in Dr. Karen Becker's book, but modified to meet AAFCO based off the analysis of the foods and "stuff" I feed the cats (her recipes only include liver as an organ).

Anyway... a couple of things.

You can absolutely use Natural Factors rather than Nexabiotic. Just be aware - the NF doesn't contain any S boulardii. I used the Natural Factors only for quite a while - until Carolina's cats got the clostridium infection, actually. Once I learned about all the benefits of S boulardii, I did want to include it. There is something about the mix of strains in the Nexabiotic (which does contain S boulardii) that a lot of IBD kitties just seem to do really well on :dk: , but none of my cats have IBD. To cut costs, I know a number of people (with IBD kitties) alternating between NF and Nexabiotic. Because the lactobaccillus and bifidobacterium do colonize the gut, and because S boulardii takes 36 hours to leave the system, I actually alternate between the Natural Factors and Nutricology S boulardii, and I've reduced the amount I use. I give 1/4 pills now 2x a day. I figure I've been using the stuff for over 2 years, and feeding raw for over 2 years - I figure their guts have a healthy balance going on in there at this point, and I'm just helping maintain it.

As to the red meat thing, I figure it isn't the fat, because Shel handles untrimmed turkey leg, the fatty cuts of pork, and the salmon oil all just fine. The canned foods I fed them were REALLY fatty (NV, EVO... Ziwipeak? These were all around 45% fat on a dry matter basis. ) - so there's something about red meat. And it is with a lot of kitties, many of whom were on the fatty canned foods. Yet Sheldon can handle red meats COOKED, as he did fine with canned beef, and he can eat beef baby food. So ... ????? But yeah, it took me ... what - the better part of 8 months? Maybe longer? to work up to meals that were 50% red meat / 50% white meat (red meats for us being venison, beef, and lamb).

Oh! :doh3: Venison is one of the least fatty meats. So it definitely isn't the fat content, because he couldn't keep that down either.

And YES! On the Vet's Best hairball relief, he can eat red meat! I don't know if he can with just the Prozyme - which I use on all the cat's food now (other than Spooky, it makes her throw up - but the Vet's Best does NOT). Vet's Best is slippery elm, marshmallow, L. acidophilus, enzymes - and psyllium. I personally do NOT like how it bulks up the cat's stools, and I want them off it as soon as they can go without tossing hairballs. But six of mine were free-feeding dry c/d until late 2010, and four of them obviously have lasting damage from this. Flowerbelle and Ming Loy seem to be better off - of course, Ming is 2 years younger, so wasn't on it as long. And Flowebelle is not a big eater and always preferred canned food. But Shel, Tux, Lazlo and Spooky have hairball problems, and for whatever reason, this year it is bad. When we first switched to raw, egg yolks and the egg yolk lecithin resolved it really well. But not this year. :dk:

So I actually don't know if the Prozyme works to manage Shel's issues with red meat. If it doesn't, I'm going to look for different digestive enzymes, because the Vet's Best stuff does. Though maybe it's the combination of things in it? I really don't know. I just never TRIED with only prozyme, because prior to that, any time I tried to take it over 50/50, he'd toss it almost immediately. I only found out by accident. I never made Lazlo conform to eating schedule because of his cancer. So he'll often just walk away from his dish, and sometimes someone will eat his food before I notice it. ( I do try so hard to avoid this! ). So Lazlo walked away from a full meal of beef, I knew that, but there was something else going on I HAD to attend to, and couldn't grab the dish. By the time I got back (less than a minute later!), Shel was polishing it off. I grabbed paper towels, following him around so I could "catch" his regurgitation - and he never did!

I did slowly increase his meals to 100%, just in case. So ... I honestly don't know if it's a coincidence, or the Vet's Best. But member Carolina found the same thing with her cat, Lucky who always seemed to be in digestive discomfort after a meal, especially if it had red meat in it, and she doesn't hunch up any longer after adding the Vet's Best Hairball Relief.

....so I'm really not sure what to do. Maybe 1/8 or 1/4 of a tablet would provide the digestive benefit without the stool bulk when they don't need it to prevent hairballs. :dk: Or maybe I can try to find a digestive enzyme that works as well... :dk: Though.... I do like getting the slippery elm into them. I just wish I could get the same supplement without the psyllium. :lol3:

Oh as to the krill oil. I can't afford to feed it to all 9 cats. So I only give it to the two that really need it, Flowerbelle and Pawley. Pawley wasn't in love with it at first, but when he was very hesitant to eat a meal with the capsule squished on his food, I started with a just a little bit, increased it to the full capsule over about a week, and he's fine with it on his food.

Flowerbelle, on the other hand, HATES the stuff. But she hated salmon oil, and she hates sardines, and will lap up tuna water, but does not go nuts for it like all the other cats. In fact, she hates it so much, when she got a little on her face, she refused to clean it. :lol3:


The capsules are small enough, I just pill her with it. :nod: I save some of the "juice" from the bag of thawed meat. THAT she loves. So she finishes her meal, I pill her with it (once she's left her eating spot), and I immediately put down the meat juice with some water added so she laps that up (so the pill doesn't go down "dry." ).

Wow thank you so much for all of the detail. This information is so helpful!

I'm actually thinking that Malibu *may* have IBD (or something else?) but I'm not really sure. It kind of happened all of a sudden in April, he started having "cow patty" poop. I brought him to the vet who gave me Clavamox to treat it and it went away for about 2 days then came back. The vet gave me Fortiflora and said the second round of "cow patty" poop was due to the fact that the Clavamox killed all the good bacteria in his gut along with the bad, which was probably true. However, when we finished the week of Fortiflora, he started to get the loose stools again. 

By this time, I was already ready to go raw and had some of the Nexabiotic in house so I started giving the 2 cats 1/2 a pill, twice a day. His poop went back to normal. Now, even on an all raw diet, if he doesn't get the Nexabiotic, he has runny stool! Even on the Natural Factors (I tried that one out for a few days and stopped the Nexabiotic) he has diarrhea. So I have no idea what is going on but I can't stop the Nexabiotic now because there is something about it that is keeping his stool healthy and solid.

On to the Krill Oil, I was pretty worried that they wouldn't like it, especially when I received the bottle and smelled it. Yuck. But they absolutely love it! Before I started adding it to their food, I squirted a little bit on my finger to see if they would like it and they were biting my finger and going crazy for it, I was so excited!

I am laughing so hard at little Flowerbelle's face! I can just tell by her expression that she does NOT like that krill on her at all! 

Are they getting mainly eggshell powder or bone for the calcium?  My cats showed symptoms of IBS-D while on canned.  Diarrhea so bad that I picked litter boxes 4 times a day and Febreezed so much that my asthma was really suffering from it.  It as a nightmare.  I tried multiple medications, Panacur, fecals showed absolutely nothing, sent fecals off and still nothing...I finally said to heck with it, I was going to try raw.  I went out and bought some chicken thighs and deboned a few.  As I was deboning them, the cats were driving me nuts so I through the thigh bone on the floor (I needed to mop anyway).  Literally one of them went lick lick chomp and burst through the thigh bone!  I reached, he ran.  I chased him, but he was faster than me and the others were tearing off across my house with raw chicken thighs.  I said forget it, if he can bust through it, just please remember to chew and don't choke.  And he didn't. That was Gadget, my worst diarrhea offender who had I think one more "plop" and then solid stools.  I let the others have a thigh bone.  Their stools were instantly better on the raw meat, but the bone really seemed to do the trick for Gadget.  Because I suck at pet ownership, I kept letting them have the bones and ordered a grinder.  It was on back order so I ordered premix and stopped the bone once premix came in.  There still wasn't any diarrhea, but I also think their little guts healed somewhat too...despite my bone feeding.  I wonder if giving chicken wing flats would help your guy out?

You may be totally right, I didn't think of the fact that he may not be getting quite enough bone. Thank you for that! I absolutely do plan on giving some bone-in meals in the near future. We're working our way there. I'm doing a slow transition to 1/3 Commercial, 1/3 Homemade ground with Alnutrin and 1/3 PMR with bones (chicken wings and chicken neck is the plan). They may not really need this slow of a transition but I'm playing it safe.

Right now, 50% of their food is Rad Cat. That is a commercial raw that uses eggshell powder for calcium. The other 50% is fine ground rabbit (whole, with bone, no fur) with Alnutrin supplement. So to answer your question: half their calcium is eggshell and the other half is the bone from the whole (uncut) ground rabbit. I don't think he has a calcium deficiency, because the RC should be balanced and I thought the Rabbit was supposed to be slightly bone heavy. But once we work up to PMR and he's chomping on some actual bone, I will be interested to see if that seems to help out.

That's wonderful that your cats took to the chicken thigh bone right away! I REALLY want to do what you did and just plop a wing down and see what happens but I don't want to feel disappointment if they just stare at it!   I can't wait for that day though! I'm so excited about the raw feeding, it is so much fun

The difference with the cow patty poop is the S boulardii. No doubt about it. The clavamox wiped out his good gut flora but didn't kill whatever-it-is. We see this over and over and over again, especially in IBD kitties. IMO, clavamox should be banned for use in cats, and my vets know I will never approve its use for anything. Amoxicillin, clindamycin, doxy, even Baytril. But not clavamox.

Oh I don't think you're looking at a calcium deficiency either, I was just mentioning the source of calcium since some constipation-prone kitties have to stay away from bone as their source, and it was the perfect answer for mine's loose bowels.  You know, another factor is Gadget was a year and my other 2 were almost a year old.  Maybe their youth helped them out.

@LDG and the Vet's Best making larger stools...I just picked the litter box and the stools are normal.  Hmm.  When I first started it, I was giving more of it so they had shiny psyllium poops but since decreasing the dosage to 1/2 tab once a day, the poops have gone back to normal.  And STILL NO HAIRBALLS!!! 

That is AWESOME! I tried to cut back from a whole tablet. That is working for Ming Loy (1/4 tab), but not Lazlo, Spooky, Tuxedo, or Sheldon. Interestingly, those are the "original" four, siblings,.and on dry food the longest - 8.5 years, 7 of which were c/d. They did get wet, but didn't eat much. They ate canned only for about a year before we transitioned to raw. Poor babies. :heart2:

Tiny update:

I defrosted some ground beef with tripe from Hare today, mixed it with Alnutrin and popped it in a few ice cube trays to refreeze. I was going to defrost the cavies but I've decided to save those for last.

Anyway, I gave Malibu and Kali a little cat bite size piece of the finished beef, just to see if they are interested at all. I have been nervous that they won't like it because I've read some things about some cats not being interested in tripe and the HT grind has 7% tripe, I believe. Well, they love it! 

I knew Malibu would eat it because he eats EVERYTHING and he just inhaled the little piece and was begging for more but I told him he has to wait until tomorrow because I have to introduce it slowly. I don't think he understood. Kali took a few licks and I wasn't sure if she was going to go for it but she did end up eating it, licking all the juices off the plate and looking at me for more as well. So I think that's pretty good!

I'm sure Malibu won't be able to eat a whole meal of it (because he can't eat a whole meal of lamb [well he certainly CAN eat a whole meal of lamb but he throws it up soon after]) but I will just give him 1/2 rabbit, 1/2 beef for dinner and Kali with get rabbit one dinner and beef the next. Of course, this will be AFTER the one week of introducing the beef slowly into their rabbit dinner.

Soooo....They are being such good kitties! They transitioned from canned to raw with no boycotting and they are eating all proteins I have thrown at them: Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Rabbit and now Beef. 

That is GREAT! :lol3: It makes you feel good when they look at you like - YUM, CAN I HAVE SOME MORE PLEASE?

LDG said:

That is GREAT!

It makes you feel good when they look at you like - YUM, CAN I HAVE SOME MORE PLEASE?

Click to expand...

Little bit of exciting news (for me at least!  )

The cats have been getting half Hare Today Rabbit and half Hare Today Beef (both with Alnutrin) for dinner every night for the past 9 or 10 days. I have been scared to give Malibu a whole meal of beef because he has had problems with a whole meal of Rad Cat Lamb so I've been doing the 50/50. Well today I forgot to defrost the rabbit and all I had was beef. I decided to go for it and they both kept it down! I don't know if it is just the Lamb that he has problems with or if I just got lucky today but I am going to give them Rabbit for dinner tomorrow and Beef for dinner on Thursday and I'll see how they do then.

Sounds good. Yeah, some days Ritz can handle beef at night, other days, she throws it up. And Ritz too loves Tripe .... and goat, and rabbit, and pork, and chicken head. Didn't know what to do with a chicken foot, though. LOL

That must be so exciting for you that Ritz is such a good eater, even if she's a little sensitive to certain meats! I want to believe so badly that I will be able to get my cats to eat a whole quail (head and all!) and some adult mice that I plan on ordering in my next Hare Today order (chopped up by me at first, of course).

I just don't know if they will! I am super excited and a little scared at the same time  . I won't need to place an order until mid August though so I have a little time to think this through. They are pretty adventurous about eating various types of ground "pate" style food and haven't turned their nose up at anything yet but I don't know how they will react to having to chew something. 

I am going to the beach for the weekend with my cousins and will be counting on my pet sitter to come by Saturday AM & PM and Sunday AM to feed them Rad Cat Chicken. It should be easy enough for her. I made instructions (with pictures) for her to follow but it truly is as simple as feeding them canned food. Even more simple because they are eating the whole meal of raw but before, you had to follow Kali around the house for 15 minutes to beg her to eat the rest of her half of the can. It was a pain. I just hope my cat sitter reads my directions carefully and remembers to defrost more food, accordingly. 

On Monday, next up on the menu will be to try the cavies that I have defrosting right now to prepare and package up into meal size portions before I go.