Getting Started Questions

[lilmonkeykeeper]

Hi

I have 3 cats I'm wanting to transition to a RAW diet.  My cats are 7 years, 6 years and 3 months.  My 7 year old female has a history of FLUTD and everyone (except the kitten) is currently eating the Prescription U/R kibble with varied canned food.  I'm getting everyone switched over to canned only but I want to get everyone on RAW.  My 7 year old female Tora is the one that I feel will be the most challenging to switch because she is a kibble addict and I'm worried about flair ups of her FLUTD.

Some questions:

I have a found a local source that makes a ground chicken blend.  I know ground isn't preferable but I'd like to get them started on ground because I feel it's closer to the canned food they already eat.  I plan on doing whole food eventually though.  I think with my 6 year old Male, Tigger and the kitten Waffles I can start adding whole foods right away.

The Chicken blend is: 

65% chicken leg qtrs., 25% chicken hearts, 10 % chicken liver.  Leg qtrs are skinned and then some skin is added back so that there is 10% fat content in the product.

Is this complete enough to feed as a staple to start?  The list serv I'm on has a whole recipe that uses this as a base but the recipe has a lot of extra supplements and things added and I'm not sure how necessary all the supplements are.  Can I add the Wysong supplement or maybe some of the Nature's variety freeze dried food sprinkled over the top?

If this is complete enough for a staple, is it ok to try adding some whole foods (like chicken necks or turkey chunks etc) to help their teeth? 

What is the general rule for how much to feed?  The older cats are fat from all the kibble and really need to lose weight, the kitten of course is growing and needs more for growth.

What are the rules about feeding raw with canned food?  Since I'm worried my girl Tora won't be too enthused about RAW it is ok to keep offering canned food or mixing the canned with the raw food to help encourage her right?

Thanks so much for any feed back.  I'm getting ready to start making the switch because I hate the prescription food and how my cats are looking on it and I want them to be healthy!

Sara

 

[ldg]

Hi Sara! You'll get lots of help and encouragement. Ask away!!!!

First of all, you can TOTALLY mix canned food and raw food. It's great for transitioning. And yep, starting with ground raw food is often MUCH easier for our older kitties not used to the texture (or taste) of meat.

The issue with mixing raw and other types of foods is carbohydrates/grains. Carbs and grains are not digested efficiently by cats, and slow down the entire digestion. Cats are well adapted to manage some level of bacteria in their food, but kibble often has more than "some," and when mixed with raw food sitting in the gut for longer than it would normally otherwise, you run the risk of gastro-intestinal problems. So you can even feed some kibble with raw food, but it's best to be choosy about what kibble. The EVO chicken & turkey kibble is very high protein, low-carb, and grain free. Others are using Epigen90, which is carb-free and starch-free. !!!! But it's also VERY expensive. But several with kibble addicts that transitioned to raw transitioned their kitties to the EVO kibble first, then started working on introducing them to raw. And several members have transitioned kibble addicts. :nod: It takes time and patience, but it can be done! The trick is to not force it. More on that later.

As to the chicken blend.... honestly, I have no idea if that's a good mix or not. I don't know how much bone content results.

Just FYI, when making homemade food, the target (if using bones, and whether you're making ground or feeding chunks of stuff) is usually 80% meat, 5% liver, 5% "other secreting organ," and 10% bone. This is supposedly the rough composition of a prey animal.

"Other secreting organ" does not include heart or gizzard. Those are both "muscle" organs, and would count toward the meat content. :nod: Now - a lot of cats have problems with organs. Tuxie throws up most liver, Sheldon throws up liver sometimes, and kidneys other times. This is one of the advantages of raw grinds. :lol3: And many commercial foods only provide liver, heart, and sometimes gizzards or kidneys. So don't get hung up on that "other secreting organ" thing.

Because of the high liver content of that mix, you definitely cannot use the Wysong Call of the Wild supplement. This supplement is meant to balance ONLY meat. It has calcium and liver in it, so it should not be used as a supplement for feeding anything other than plain meat.

As to using that ground mix as a staple, it's potentially missing some things. Cats cannot synthesize several amino acids from their components - they MUST get them from meat. One of those is Taurine. Taurine can be depleted by oxidation. Grinding increases the amount of surface area, and thus ground food should be supplement with taurine to ensure there is enough in the diet (over the long term. Short term, it shouldn't be an issue). The good news is that taurine is water soluble, so unless you work really hard at it, you can't overdo it. :lol3: If you get a 500mg capsule of taurine and just sprinkle it on the food daily - and just split it between the three cats - you're probably adding more than enough. :nod:

There is another option. When I was using ground mixes, I ordered them from here: http://www.hare-today.com (They do ship to Dallas, and shipping costs, compared to a lot of raw food places, are VERY reasonable. Still costs me less to order from there than feed the canned I was. :nod: ) They have a HUGE variety, they're not overly expensive, and they are whole animals, ground. To make the meals complete, I used this supplement: https://www.hare-today.com/product_...d=289&osCsid=b5f0712eeca3228397df19a6faf1afc8 It's designed to make a meat/bone/organ mix nutritionally complete. Just dethaw your ground mix, add the Alnutrin supplement, the water as per instructions, and mix. Then bag up into whatever portions you'll want to use, and refreeze. VERY easy!!!!

Almost all recipes for home-made food you find on the Net have added fish oil of some type. I've been doing a lot of work on the omega issue, and I understand why they all recommend it. The meat we feed our cats - chicken, turkey, lamb, whatever - are not mice and rabbits. :lol3: Mice eat grains, rabbits eat vegetables, leafy greens, and grasses. Stuff we buy at the supermarket was fed... feed. Corn, soy, whatever. Not leafy greens. So our supermarket meat is very high in Omega 6s. Now - these are essential fatty acids, and we need them, and our cats need them. But they're not properly balanced with Omega 3s - for us or our cats. So a high quality fish oil helps address that. I use this supplement: . I puncture the capsule and add it by dropping drops onto their food at each meal. I split it between 8 cats, adding 3-4 drops to the small cats' food and 5-6 drops to the bigger cats' food. I don't know how much food your cats will be eating. My 7-8 pound cats eat 1 ounce at each of 3 meals (total, 3 ounces a day), and my bigger cats (12 - 14 pounds) eat 1.5 ounces of food at each meal, three times a day (4.5 ounces a day). So depending on how much your cats will be eating, I'd drop 3-6 drops on each meal before serving it. If I were still feeding my kitties the Hare-Today ground mixes with the Alnutrin supplement, I would still add the salmon oil drops to the meals. :nod: OH! I also feed a raw egg yolk to them twice a week (chock full of all kinds of nutrients, including omega 3s), and I feed them each a sardine once a week (canned, in water, no salt added). These I feed as "treats," not meals.

As to long term feeding... it's pretty important to have a good rotation of proteins. You don't have to go crazy, but feeding some light meats (chicken, turkey, rabbit, pork, for example) and red meats (lamb, goat, beef, whatever) is a REALLY good idea. You don't have to feed all of those, and one of my cats has trouble keeping down red meats, and can't tolerate beef at all. And when transitioning, it's definitely best to get them used to one thing, and slowly introduce new proteins. :nod: It takes a kitties' digestive system a little while to adjust to the new diet - well, older kitties, anyway. Your little one probably won't have any issues.

BTW, a number of us give our cats probiotics. This is something I'd do at this point whether or not they were eating raw. In the wild, cats eat the stomach and intestines of their prey. This means they naturally get a "probiotic." (Good bacteria in the GI system). So I just use an acidophilus supplement I buy at the health food store. Many here use Proviable-DC that they buy on Amazon.

You WILL need a kitchen scale. I'll find a link to the thread discussing those. The guide for how much to feed them is... the kitten, as much as she wants to eat. For adult cats, the rule of thumb is between 2% and 4% of their body weight daily. So if you have an 8 pound cat, that would be ... well, it's just easier to make a table. Here you go. No need to be EXACT.

My cats were eating a LOT less than the manufacturer recommended RDA. So I started at about 2.25%, at the low-end. and adjusted as necessary.



BTW, as to your FLUTD girl, we have one. We also have three boys that had issues with crystals, and the whole house was on prescription Hill's Pet c/d food (both dry and wet) for ... six years? I transitioned to all canned, grain-free, mostly low-carb food over a year before I decided to feed them raw, but we've had NO issues with anyone's bladders (knock wood). Raw naturally provides the right pH balance. :nod: And the moisture content keeps their urine nice and dilute.

I'm sure Sally (mrsgreenjeens) or Carolina will chime in with suggestions on how to transition your kibble addicted kitty. In fact, you may want to read through their transition threads. It took Carolina's Lucky 35 days to even TASTE the raw food. :lol3: But basically Sally and Carolina just kept putting out a VERY VERY small amount of raw food coated in something yummy along with the meal, and eventually the kitties tasted it... and then made licking the stuff off of it part of eating their meal... then started eating that little bit of raw... then started eating raw.

But to summarize.... I think the basics are:

Introduce raw at your cats' pace(s).
Use stuff they like as enticements to get them to eat it.
Initially introduce new proteins slowly, until you know how they handle them.
Long term, providing a variety of proteins is important.
Don't be surprised at some vomiting and/or diarrhea or constipation along the way as you figure out how their bodies manage what. (The good news is that it's usually a one-time thing and then over with. :nod: ).
Make sure they're getting enough taurine, however you do it.
Salmon oil and a probiotic are optional, but both are indicated as providing many benefits to long term health.

Don't put pressure on yourself to get them transitioned. Just think of it as a long term goal for their overall health, and have fun experimenting with what and how you feed.

 

[ldg]

Oh - here is the thread discussing kitchen scales. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/241948/kitchen-scale

 

[lilmonkeykeeper]

Thank you so much! That was very informative!

I could add the Hare today supplement to the chicken base I posted earlier yes?  The local group list serv I'm reading has a cat food recipe that that base was made for.  Their recipe is basically that chicken base, water, egg yolks, fish oil, husk or psyllium, ground dulse, ground kelp, freeze dried glands, vitamin b complex, and vitamin E.  So I'm guessing that the Hare Today supplement is doing the same thing.  I still plan to add some fish oil and some vitamin E and should I still add Taurine? 

I definitely plan to add variety and I have a local source for rabbit and will add some other proteins in.  My first goal is to get everyone switched though.  I think I'll break it down and see if I can get everyone at least eating partially raw with a good grain free canned food and then transition to totally raw.

I'm going to order that supplement, I have a kitchen scale and just have to get the meat and I think we're ready to go!

I'm really hoping my FLUTD girl will be much healthier on this diet.  I feel so bad feeding her the nasty prescription food but I thought it was the only thing I could feed and had always been afraid to try raw.  my cats look terrible on it though, they got fat, their hair is falling out, their breath smells bad, their litter box smells bad, they have no energy and they are re-gurging more than they ever have.  I hate it.

Thank you again!

Sara
 

 

[ldg]

Yes, there are a lot of recipes out there. I'm not familiar with the use of some of those ingredients, so I really don't have thoughts on that. I'd question the use of freeze dried organs with a liver content of 10%. :dk:

But you can absolutely use the Alnutrin supplement for meat/bones/organs with any ground mix that has only meat, bones and organs in it. :nod:

For what it's worth, my take on supplements and raw feeding is pretty simple. I'm not a meat/bones/organs "purist," but "prey model" isn't actually the model of a prey animal. I think cats don't need more than meat, bones and organs, and analysis of feral cat diets indicate this is true. They are designed to get all they need from eating only animals - but we do need to compensate for the differences in the animals we feed them vs. their prey, for the way the animals we feed them are fed and raised vs. what their prey animals eat (affecting the nutrition content of that meat and those bones and organs), and we need to compensate for the parts of the animals we don't feed them.

 

[claudeone]

LDG, that was a wonderful post on making your own raw cat food and transitioning from commercial to raw.  Loved it, embraced most of what I post on my website.