I'm just curious what the TCS population thinks of the raw diet option for our cats. Please see the poll for choices.
Ah but the meat is cooked, therefore eliminating any possible LIVE bacteria. And the meat you buy at most grocery stores has hormones and antibiotics. It's just like people who claim to have cows that only eat grass and aren't on hormones or anything. If one of the cows gets sick, it's treated with antibiotics and tagged [[so they know who has been treated with them.]] The problem is that when the cows poop, they poop out the antibiotics, and the rest of the herd eats the grass that now has antibiotics on it.On the other hand, where do you think the animal material in dry food comes from? It's the lousiest meat available, not fit for human consumption, packed with hormones, antibiotics and disease.
I think it would kill live bacteria. I've been told freezing things kills bacteria as well. Alot of people's animals have actually done really well on RAW food. The biggest thing is you have to be dedicated. You can do more bad than good if you aren't supplementing enough, heart failure and renal failure being apart of the "bad" aspect of feeding RAW. You really need to know your stuff. I myself would like to kind of get into it, to give my cat something more natural to eat. However, my cat isn't wild. He's a domestic cat, he's been inbred and overbred to be domestic, and his stomach doesn't have the acids his wild ancestors had. So I don't know that going RAW is technically "better" than a pre-made food. We have several clients at our clinic whose cats live to be 18 and 19 years old, HEALTHY eating Whiskas and Science Diet and so on.does any one feed these? how would you find out if they were safe, ie free from bacteria? would the freeze drying kill any bacteria?
Originally Posted by Mimosa
There are even vets who feed their pets raw food but advise kibble because they are worried people will try to feed raw without knowing enough. I don't know about The States, but here in the Netherlands vets only learn about medicine, the only stuff they learn about nutrition they get taught by guestspeakers from Hills.
I have to disagree with your thought on why Vets don't promote the raw diet.Originally Posted by Plebayo
Most vets don't promote it because they are worried about the owner not doing enough research, and because they don't want the animal getting sick. It's simply alot easier to just buy a bag of premade food. If your vet is too uptight to help you find out more information, they shouldn't be in business.
Vets aren't cat food experts, they have absolutely no training in that area. They learn about this stuff just by personal interest or commercial channels. I agree with the reason for reccomending dry too. In addition, vets get lots of perks from the pet food industry, they may also have vested interests in advocating commercial foods. Think about the unhealthy relationship between doctors and drug companies as an other example
Oh yes, they get soooo many perks. 10% of sales. I've actually talked to 3 vets in the area. Two whome I work with, the other from another clinic. One of the graduated from Cornell a while ago, one from OSU like 8 years ago, and another guy whose been doing this for like 40 years. All of them had the general census that prepackaged food was just easier maintain. Alot of people don't want to do things the correct way. And you can cause alot of problems in your pet if you aren't feeding RAW correctly. Granted, the older guy, he is very against RAW. I mean... he was just way against feeding it. For no better reason than the fact he thinks it's a phase. But the two guys I work with don't have a problem feeding raw. The biggest worry to them is the health of the animal, and there's alot of bad things that come with feeding raw just as there are good. But veterinarians don't make a huge profit off of the food. Not to mention Petco around here carries Science Diet, so it's not like you can ONLY get it from your veterinarian.I have to disagree with your thought on why Vets don't promote the raw diet.
The Vets get perks whether you personally get to find out about them or not, they get the perks. And, they also get lots of pressure from the big companies to promote the foods. Why do so many vet clinics and animal hospitals promote and sell the big companies foods? Science Diet, IAMS and Eukanuba. I wouldn't feed any of my animals one bite of those brands.Originally Posted by Plebayo
Oh yes, they get soooo many perks. 10% of sales. I've actually talked to 3 vets in the area. Two whome I work with, the other from another clinic. One of the graduated from Cornell a while ago, one from OSU like 8 years ago, and another guy whose been doing this for like 40 years. All of them had the general census that prepackaged food was just easier maintain. Alot of people don't want to do things the correct way. And you can cause alot of problems in your pet if you aren't feeding RAW correctly. Granted, the older guy, he is very against RAW. I mean... he was just way against feeding it. For no better reason than the fact he thinks it's a phase. But the two guys I work with don't have a problem feeding raw. The biggest worry to them is the health of the animal, and there's alot of bad things that come with feeding raw just as there are good. But veterinarians don't make a huge profit off of the food. Not to mention Petco around here carries Science Diet, so it's not like you can ONLY get it from your veterinarian.