Making the leap to raw

[abacat]

After years of dealing with Abby's weight (she would lose a few pounds on a new food then gain it back), and all the recalls cat food has had I finally decided to make the switch. I bought a bag of the Primal chicken and salmon formula and a bag of the Stella and Chewys freeze dried awhile ago. I admit I didn't try very hard to switch them. I gave them each a little taste but never completely changed them over. Well last weekend I went to the pet food store to get them a bag of their Nature's Variety dry and they had sample bags of Primal all I had to pay was tax. I started them out on Sunday and I'm trying a different variety every day. So far quail seems to be the biggest hit. My goal is to get them on a homemade diet this year after we move and get settled.

I do have a couple of questions though. Buddy, one of my males doesn't have a lot of teeth. A couple of years ago he had to have nine pulled including all his fangs. It doesn't slow him down as far as eating and bullying the other cats (I have five). Is he always going to have to eat the commercial raw? I can't feed him bones can I?

Once I get them switched to raw how in the world am I going to get them off kitty crack a.k.a dry food? Even though they get a good brand I would really like to stop giving them any dry. My baby (nine months) already has the beginnings of gingivitis. :-( They get the dry portioned out in the morning and fed to them a little at a time all day. Is it going to be possible to wean them off it and not drive us nuts begging for food between meals?

 

[peaches08]

I feed homemade raw, and I started by grinding all of it. Later on I started chunking some of the meat.

I'm not much help with the teeth issue, hopefully others will chime in with their experiences.

 

[harleydiva]

I feed ground....started with the fine ground, and now adding in  coarser ground stuff that is chunkier.  Mine wouldn't do the coarse ground in the beginning, but are fine with it now.  They also eat whole chicken hearts and gizzards, as well as coarse ground green tripe.  In my house, the cats eat on their tree, because the dogs would have their food in a second if it were available.  (Dogs eat theirs in seconds).  I tried chicken wing tips, but they want to drag them off the tree and then the dogs snatch it.  Unfortunately, I have no place to separate everyone (small trailer), so frankenprey is probably not an option here.

 

[txcatmom]

Hi.  I also feed raw and have a kitty who has no teeth behind her canines.  Mine are eating ground raw now but I would love to move towards more bone in stuff some day for dental benefit.  That leaves me wondering the same thing as you....what about the kitty with no back teeth?  From the bit of research I've done she would not get bone in meat.  (Even the hard core bone in website says that kitties without teeth need ground.)  However, Lucy (my nearly toothless cat) does get chunks of liver and whatever other innards they sell inside a whole chicken and she does just fine with those.  (I don't offer her the gizzards though since they are so tough.)  So, if we ever move to chunkier things I think she would be fine with some chunks of meat, but not bone-in.