considering going raw

I lost three cats in the past year and a half - 16, 14, 15 years of age.  Only one had kidney issues, but developed a lesion on his pancreas.  one had stomach cancer, the 15 year old developed lung cancer.  All this cancer leads me to think that the food they consumed did not nuture them as well as it should.  So I am considering raw diet.  My vet ageed if I cleared it all with her. She referred me to two webistes, but they charge you for recipes.  This new undertaking will require me to purchase a meat grinder, and supplements, so I don't want to have to pay for recipes.  I would like to know:  How does one transition cats to this diet -, three ages 1-1/2 and one age nine.  What supplements are the best? Felines Pride? Hare Today?  Also, I am away approximately 12 hours a day. I hear you should not leave the raw food out - but some say you can. What is it?  I used to leave out dry food for them during the day, but think I have to stop that completely, yes?  Please, any advice would be helpful.  My vet and I plan to make a final decision around January 17th at my next vet visit.  Thanks!

This website has homemade raw food instruction and information on how to transition. 

http://www.catinfo.org/

I think many people transition to all canned food first, then transition to raw. I heard that feeding raw with dry is not so good. If you feed canned and raw, you can put canned food in a timed feeder with ice pack during the day, or freeze canned food and leave it out in the morning so that it'll thaw by the time your cats become hungry. 

Commercial raw food is great place to start and also convenient to have in case you don't have time to cook. 

My cats love Rad Cat, but one of them has problem with psyllium in it.  I heard that Feline Pride is good too, but I don't have retailer near me. I haven't tried Hare Today, but heard good things about it. 

I've also tried Primal Frozen (nuggets), Stella & Chewy, Nature's Variety Instinct (my cats didn't like it), and plain ground meat/bone/organ chubs from Primal, Smallbatch and Halshan. If you can get those chubs from your local pet store and add supplements yourself, it's probably the easiest and cost effective. But since you have a grinder, it's not necessary to buy ground meat from these companies. Good things about Primal is that they use high pressure to kill bacteria in their poultry meats, so it's probably a safer place to start. But some people say the processing kill enzymes too. I think in the end, it's good to have varieties (canned, raw, freeze dried raw, homemade, etc. but not dry) just like our own diet. 

We feed our cats a lot of Primal (freeze-dried) and Rad Cat (frozen), and our cats love both. They also get occasional Stella & Chewy's, generally freeze-dried. Raw is about 2/3 of their diet. The rest is grain-free, low-carb, no-pea-or-potato, carrageenan-free canned food. Even though we both work at home, I'm not quite ready to give up canned, both for convenience and because I travel a few times a year.

We started feeding healthier foods after our previous cat died last year: she was elderly and had a lot of health problems so was never fully diagnosed, but she most likely died of lymphoma, preceded by IBD. I can't recommend the catinfo.org site enough for information on the basics of feline nutrition!

P.S. Welcome to the site @therapistcatmom! And also, I agree with @ankitty about transition. I found that Rad Cat was a great food to get our cats started on raw food... then again, our cats loved it from the first time they tried it.

I should clarify... By variety I meant to rotate different meats, companies, textures etc. If you can go all raw that's great, but I think it's safer to rotate different raw food recipes so that if one recipe is lacking something it may be covered by another. 

I would suggest feeding prey model raw instead of grinding and supplementing. There are many sites that have more info and I'm happy to help if you want to pm me. You can leave raw food out it'll only get dry and the cats don't seen to mind. 12 hours is not a problem you can just feed 2 meals and not worry.

therapistcatmom said:

 
 This new undertaking will require me to purchase a meat grinder, and supplements, so I don't want to have to pay for recipes. 

What supplements are the best? Felines Pride? Hare Today?  Also, I am away approximately 12 hours a day. I hear you should not leave the raw food out - but some say you can. What is it?  I used to leave out dry food for them during the day, but think I have to stop that completely, yes?

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A raw food diet doesn't  mean that you have to grind meat, use supplements, etc. There are several different ways to feed raw. Commerical raw pet food is one option. There are good brands out there: Nature's Variety Instinct, Feline's Pride, Stella and Chewy's, Primal Pet. You can feed either the frozen raw or the freeze dried raw. Another option is prey model which is feeding 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 5% organs like gizzard, and 5% secreting organs (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Using a recipie is certainly an option. The recipies at Catinfo.org and Catnutrition.org are good.

I feed a sort of "semi homemade" raw diet: I buy raw meat from the pet store (Hare Today and Oma's Pride) and add in a premix supplement (Better In The Raw). I used to feed Nature's Variety Instinct frozen raw but switched when Nature's Variety changed the frozen raw medallion formulas to dogs only.

I don't leave raw food out during the day. My cats eat their fill (a mere 1 oz) at breakfast and are fine until they get dinner approximately 12 hours later. You can leave canned food or freeze dried raw food out if you want your cats to have a snack.

LTS3 said:

 
I feed a sort of "semi homemade" raw diet: I buy raw meat from the pet store (Hare Today and Oma's Pride) and add in a premix supplement (Better In The Raw). I used to feed Nature's Variety Instinct frozen raw but switched when Nature's Variety changed the frozen raw medallion formulas to dogs only.

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Seeing this mention of Oma's Pride reminded me that I've started feeding our cats Oma's Pride complete food, too, Purr. They like it pretty well, though not quite as much as Rad Cat! It seems to be very decent food and it's pretty reasonably priced, about $5 for 12 ounces.

thanks a lot everyone!  I am going to look into these possibilities you suggested and let you know how it turns out.

Just a few things to add to the good advice you've received.
Some of this is just experimenting to see what works best with your cat. Ritz sometimes will throw up if she goes too long without food (acid buildup). Also many raw feeders give probiotics daily. If feeding prey model raw you need to feed certain organs like liver and kidney and bone.
Gizzards are protein as are hearts. Gizzards are useful for getting a cat use to chewing food.
Good luck and keep us updated on your efforts.
(sorry about the typos, Kindle has a mind of its own)

I just switched to commercial raw because I wanted to switch to raw asap and it was the easiest, but not the most cost efficient. It works for us and we may switch to prey model once I learn more about it. It's a learning curve, but do-able! I'm the laziest person ever, lol. 

But there are definitely FREE resources out there (such as this forum) where you can get ideas on where/how to start including recipes and ideas so definitely don't pay for recipes unless you want to. The only thing you really have to buy is the actual meats/organs/bones (and grinder and supplements, if not prey model). Items such as freezer and storage containers/baggies. 

You need a lot of time to sit there and read up on how you'd like to approach things and what meats you should try and how to balance out the ratio and etc. You may have to go driving around to local markets to see what's available. Peruse the websites like Hare Today and others to see what they offer and what prices are including shipping. 

Other than that... easy peasy lol. 

Yes, I started Ritz off with commercial raw and then did some more research. Based on my lifestyle, prey model raw just worked better than commercial raw. But it's all about the cat... and what works best for him/her and you.

What exactly is prey model?  I think I'm afraid of the answer

Prey model raw was/is also known as Frankenprey, because (at least for me and Ritz), I can feed bone from quail, liver from a pig, kidney from a cow and protein from a lamb: parts of different animals. I get the parts from my local grocery stores.
It is not to be confused with feeding whole prey raw, which is feeding (defrosted) tiny mice or quail or rabbits.

Originally Posted by LTS3  

 Another option is prey model which is feeding 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 5% organs like gizzard, and 5% secreting organs (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

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Close.... 

• 80% muscle:  gizzards and hearts are muscles.  Also, skin, sinews, and fats get tossed in this portion
• 10% bone:  tricky, but for those who are more meticulous there are charts somewhere around here that give bone percentages by the type.  I tend to go by the generalization that chickens are about 25% bone over all, and I feed the necks, wings, backs, and ribs every other day.  I measure half the meal with bony pieces, then add meat to finish off the "80%".
• 5% LIVER:  any liver will do; chicken, beef, pork... whatever you can get your mitts on, go for it.
• 5% other secreting organ:  kidneys, melt (spleen), and brains (usually pork) are all that I can find in my area.  Green tripe would also fit in this category.  Some folks have better luck finding other organs such as thymus or pancreas, which is pretty awesome in my book.

Make no mistake, "Frankeprey" style requires a bit of math to start off with, but once you have that done, it's pretty smooth sailing.  Variety is key.  Toss in a few sardines and/or egg yolk and you are off to a good start.

LisaHE said:

 
Seeing this mention of Oma's Pride reminded me that I've started feeding our cats Oma's Pride complete food, too, Purr. They like it pretty well, though not quite as much as Rad Cat! It seems to be very decent food and it's pretty reasonably priced, about $5 for 12 ounces.

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LisaHE:

Quick q: have you used Oma's Pride very long? I recently bought some of their FD turkey hearts. The cats love Bravo's FD turkey hearts but I thought I would try OP. They ate a few treats the first few days, but thereafter, both cats refused the treats, would sniff them and back off. I  called the company, gave them the best buy date but there weren't any problems with that batch. Have you had any issues with OP? Now I have to throw out 3/4 of the bag, and that stuff is expensive, cost me $14. Made sure I sealed the bag tightly after opening, no air ... also, just curious: which grain-free canned, no peas or potato foods do you have as a backup -- without chicken? (Because my cats are allergic to chicken.) Thanks LisaHE!!

LisaMarie12 said:

 
LisaHE:

Quick q: have you used Oma's Pride very long? I recently bought some of their FD turkey hearts. The cats love Bravo's FD turkey hearts but I thought I would try OP. They ate a few treats the first few days, but thereafter, both cats refused the treats, would sniff them and back off. I  called the company, gave them the best buy date but there weren't any problems with that batch. Have you had any issues with OP? Now I have to throw out 3/4 of the bag, and that stuff is expensive, cost me $14. Made sure I sealed the bag tightly after opening, no air ... also, just curious: which grain-free canned, no peas or potato foods do you have as a backup -- without chicken? (Because my cats are allergic to chicken.) Thanks LisaHE!!

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I haven't fed much Oma's Pride: the store gave me a free pack of the Purr complete food to try, the cats liked it, so I bought another. They still like it. The only thing is that it actually cost $8 rather than the quoted $5, which makes it more expensive than Rad Cat! I need to ask about that next time I go in. At $8 I'd only buy it as an occasional variety meal. The local store where I got Oma's Pride sells, literally, tons and tons of OP foods. They swear by them but Purr is the only thing I've bought.

As for canned foods without chicken, grains, peas, or potatoes. Well, if you don't want carrageenan, either, there are a few choices: Wild Calling (many meats), Hound & Gatos (many meats), turkey flavors from Nutro Natural Choice, and certain of the new flavors from Tiki's Gourmet Carnivore line. Alas, our cats will not touch Wild Calling and they don't H&G much, either, though they will eat the lamb; I'm hoping they might like H&G more when we get the new foods without gums. They love Nutro. I bought a variety pack of Gourmet Carnivore, and they seem to like those. I'm not sure how best to buy these foods, though: the variety pack is convenient but it has three fish flavors and I don't like to feed fish. OTOH, the shelter likes fish foods to get sick cats to eat so maybe that could be our food donation.   A couple others: Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen Lamb Burgini has some tuna and menadione but none of the other ingredients I won't feed. Our previous cat loved it but the new cats hate it. Weruva's Glam 'n Punk has lamb, tuna, and duck... I have a can of that to try; tuna and menadione are the only banned substances. (I'll feed an occasional can that has tuna but not as the main ingredient. And I prefer to avoid menadione, too.) 

If you're willing to feed carrageenan, that opens up some other foods, like Wellness Core's turkey and duck. I'm not sure what else with carrageenan is without chicken, though... I've been avoiding carrageenan for a long time! You could also try Nature's Variety Instinct and pick out the peas. Our cats don't like those foods much, though, so I've cut them because they're too expensive for the cats not to finish. (Cats! ) Just ask if you have questions. I went through a ton of foods when our previous cat was sick!

And good luck!

LisaHE:

Thanks for the info.  Actually, I'm familiar with all those grained free canned foods and have tried a few of those actually, WC, TC, Weruva, H&G. No carrageenan now for about a year, or any gums.  I'll stick with what I'm doing now - Primal and NV. Thanks though for your time, really appreciate it!

You're welcome! After I wrote that, someone posted a recall notice for the Oma's Pride Purr... oops!

And yes, sometimes, just sticking with what you have is the best strategy. I'm curious: what did you and your cats think of Gourmet Carnivore? Our cats, particularly the canned food specialist, seem to like them...

LisaHE:

Oh - a recall re: OP?!  I'll have to Google that, thanks for the info!  I noticed my local retailer started carrying Bravo's turkey hearts again, he was out for awhile b/c Bravo said they were changing their packaging -- they did, now instead of the turkey hearts for "dogs and cats" it's just for "dogs" but it's only turkey hearts, nothing else. I'll try those again. I was concerned with Bravo b/c they too had recalls in 2013 and 2014.

We tried TC's gourmet beef (because the others are chicken based), the cats licked the gravy and ate a few bites of beef but otherwise they didn't care for it, I've noticed they don't really like beef foods when I've fed in the past.  I also tried Wild Calling's rabbit - big miss, they wouldn't touch it and I'm not crazy about the yeast in the food anyway.  Thanks for the info LisaHE!

Yes about Oma's Pride, though I think it's just Purr. Here's the thread with the link to the notice.

Our cats are big chicken eaters, too, so I'm wondering how they'll do with the non-chicken Gourmet Carnivore foods. They did like Weruva's Steak Frites (now banned due to potato!), though, so here's hoping. I have my concerns about the cats eating so much chicken...