My cat wont eat his raw food diet anymore

I changed my 10 month old Himalayan over to raw food diet 2 weeks ago due to the fact that  he vomits any other food i have tried. I never took him to a vet I just researched the raw food diet and decided this sounded like the answer. Bought a meat grinder and followed the recipe to the tee of a vet. He has been loving it, gobbling down 3-4 ounces  twice daily. 3 days ago he barely touched his food am meal, then did not touch his pm meal at all, yesterday he wouldnt touch either meal, only sniffed and walked away. This morning same thing, sniffed and walked away I checked his litter box and see he has been using it (urine, but now bowel movement) Other than the not eating he seems normal and himself. I remembered i had a little dry cat food still in the cupboard so i put a small amount on a plate and he went right to it and ate, so he is hungry, just not for the raw food diet. I really want him on the raw food diet as i know it is much better for him and by giving him this dry food i am sure i made a big mistake and he will probably vomit it up here eventually Now i feel worse than i did knowing oi shouldnt have done this but i was wanting to see if it was the food or maybe he was ill and not eatui g for that reason. Now I see it is the raw food diet. I really need some help/advise/suggestions here.... much appreciated 

Welcome to The Cat Site, Laurie!

Have you been feeding your cat only this one kind of food that you make yourself? If so, it's very possibly he's simply bored with being and wants more variety in his menu. Our cats are like that so we have to rotate their foods for them. They eat five meals a day, with commercial raw, homemade cooked, and canned foods. They get a lot of variety.

What recipe did you use, BTW? Is it something that has variations for using other meats? (Since you said it's a vet's, I wonder if it's Dr. Lisa Pierson's recipe, which is very good but, if I remember correctly, only for chicken thighs.) You could also try using a premixed supplement, which is what I do for homemade cooked food: EZcomplete works with any boneless meat, cooked or raw, so it's easy to combine different meats. I love using it and the cats love eating it.

Make sure you're feeding a protein rotation as well as using toppers to help entice your cat to eat. Cats, like humans, get bored, so if you're trying to feed him the exact same raw food every day he's probably bored. Using freeze dried treats as toppers helps give variety. as does feeding different proteins. 

It could indeed be that your cat wants some variety, but I wonder if it's something to do with the chicken or other meat ingredients you used in this batch.  Could it have been injected with a salt solution?  This can be hard to spot, as your only clue may be the sodium content on the label.   Or maybe the meat was starting to go bad?  Your cats are more sensitive to that than you are.  Or, what containers are you using?  Did the food get freezer burned?  I use canning/freeze jars exclusively to store homemade food.

Try making another batch?  Or if that fails, try another protein?  Dr. Pierson's recipe works for turkey as well, and she provides alternative recipes incorporating whole animal grinds (rabbit specifically, which is 15% bone) and whole birds.   Alternatively, instead of taking out the bones from some of the thighs, use boneless meat of a different protein variety.   My cats' favorite proteins are pork and rabbit, which I think is pretty typical.

Yes that is the diet .. I thank you for your response and i believe he is bored. Makes perfect sense i would not want to eat the exact same thing every day...lol

Thank you Sophie ..some real helpful stuff there..awesome

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but my cat Pogo now won't eat raw without Fortiflora on top. And he only eats the parts directly touching the probiotics. If it doesn't touch the probiotics, he won't eat it.

He, so far, has rejected chicken, turkey, rabbit and duck after being perfectly happy eating those proteins for months. He previously was fed only canned food, but I fed only chicken and turkey so I don't really think he's bored of those flavors. (I don't want to feed beef, venison, pork or lamb. I'm ok with a different type of poultry but it has to be cost-efficient.)

Any ideas? He's also 12 so I don't really want to make an old man unhappy with meal times when he should be excited. He used to LOVE raw. I don't really want to go back to canned as the litter box is so much nicer smelling.

Is he just being a finicky cat? 

pogo16 said:

 
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but my cat Pogo now won't eat raw without Fortiflora on top. And he only eats the parts directly touching the probiotics. If it doesn't touch the probiotics, he won't eat it.

He, so far, has rejected chicken, turkey, rabbit and duck after being perfectly happy eating those proteins for months. He previously was fed only canned food, but I fed only chicken and turkey so I don't really think he's bored of those flavors. (I don't want to feed beef, venison, pork or lamb. I'm ok with a different type of poultry but it has to be cost-efficient.)

Any ideas? He's also 12 so I don't really want to make an old man unhappy with meal times when he should be excited. He used to LOVE raw. I don't really want to go back to canned as the litter box is so much nicer smelling.

Is he just being a finicky cat? 

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Try some other toppers. There are tons and tons of freeze dried treats you can try that are way more enticing than forti flora. What's your issue with trying pork? It's pretty cheap and well tolerated by most cats. Venison and lamb are more pricey, of course. I think unless a cat has an issue with red meat it's an important part of their diet rotation, some cats will get bored with only poultry options. 

Wow. I didn't think cats could be sick of all types of poultry??!!!

I was hoping to avoid using all types of toppers and that Pogo was just going through a phase. Err...cats go through phases, right?

I'm avoiding pork because it doesn't seem realistic that a cat would tackle and eat a pig in the wild. I"m trying to approximate, as close as possible, what a cat might eat in the wild because I also realize they probably won't tackle and kill a turkey either. 

(And no, I don't want to order feeder mice because that would seriously freak me out.) 

Do you use toppers as a long-term solution?

@pogo16  I use toppers every other meal for one of my cats. She's iffy on beef lately, but she goes through food hate phases on all proteins. I just crunch up some Purebites or Sojos freeze dried treats, and she'll eat the whole meal. 

pogo16 said:

 
Wow. I didn't think cats could be sick of all types of poultry??!!!

I was hoping to avoid using all types of toppers and that Pogo was just going through a phase. Err...cats go through phases, right?

I'm avoiding pork because it doesn't seem realistic that a cat would tackle and eat a pig in the wild. I"m trying to approximate, as close as possible, what a cat might eat in the wild because I also realize they probably won't tackle and kill a turkey either. 

(And no, I don't want to order feeder mice because that would seriously freak me out.) 

Do you use toppers as a long-term solution?

Click to expand...

Toppers aren't bad, as long as you buy freeze dried only meat treats its just freeze dried meat! It helps give variety. I use toppers in every feeding. I think they're an essential part of raw feeding. I mostly use freeze dried meat treats from Fresh is Best, but I've also used whole life and sometimes Orijen. 

There are lots of meats that we feed cats that aren't necessarily something they'd eat in the wild. Realistically they wouldn't eat chicken or duck either. Chickens are big, most average sized cats really can't get a chicken on their own. You could order ground mouse from Hare Today. My cats weren't crazy about it, but it's good quality. 

Venison, for example, isn't something cats would catch in the wild, but it's a really good meat for cats as it's low in fat in high in protein. 

Right now, he's eating every other meal because I only put the probiotics on every other meal!

I guess I'm trying to wean him off the toppers because its just one more thing to buy. But apparently, he's more stubborn than me!