Kittens on raw food?

When should I start my kittens off on a raw diet? I was going to start them off on rabbit meat, bones and orgrans from the local pet store.Any comments or other tips on raw food diet?

When you adopted them or got them from a breeder what were they on?? how old are they ?? what are they eating now???

The place I adopted from had one one SD and the other on IAMS - yuck! I am going to wean them off to a more premium dry food DRs foster and smith or Nutro - have not decided. One is 7 months and the other is 5 months old.

I started mine on raw at eight weeks, but I had a lot of "raw" experience previously having fed it to dogs for years.

You are going to need to do quite a bit of research to get it right- it is not just a matter of giving them pieces of raw things- mineral balance is especially tricky, and some forms of raw meat (rabbit) carry more of a parasite risk than others.

This site is a good jumping off place for your research, and there are numerous other sources online. I particularly recommend the "RawCats" group on Yahoo.

There are also prepared raw foods available that take the work out of the equation- Aunt Jeni's and Feline Future come to mind.

I haven't found any issues with feeding kittens raw. There are plenty of people who transition from weening to raw and never touch dry or canned food. As a kitten though, whole raw meaty bones won't work out to well and they'll need it ground up. If you happen to have a grinder already then that's fine but I wouldn't buy one for this purpose as you'll probably want to transition them to meaty bones at a later date. Do what I did and spend a week or so researching the raw diet and the correct balances required. The calcium phosporus ratio is very important in growing kittens. The amount of organ meats such as liver and heart are important also but not to the same extent.

Google raw barf and you'll find more than enough information to make your decisions. God that search sounds terrible, but it works with great accuracy.

What the others said ///

I havent done raw with a kitten since I dont have one

Thanks for your help. I am starting at a 50/50, dry/raw food to start. I have Innova All-stages and Raw Advantage beef and turkey blend for cats.
I cannot believe they fed them Iams or SD, yuck :\\
Thank you again.

kittens transition over very easily. Mine never see dry or canned, they go from nipple to meat. They usually start eating out of moms dish at 3 weeks of age! They love it to say the least.