Thinking about switching my cats to raw, Have no idea where to start.

[rogue22912]

Hiya I am sorry if this has been answered before but I want to know how to get started on feeding my cats raw food. I kind of like the idea of buying the pre made raw food from a pet store since I don't have a lot of time on my hands to try and prepare the meals my self let alone enough money to buy cuts of meat. I just wanted people option on which store brand raw food is good and how I would go about switching my 3 cats to it.

 

[LTS3]

Some popular commerical raw pet foods are Nature's Variety Instinct, Stella and Chewy's, Primal, and Rad Cat. Most chain type pet stores don't sell raw food or if they do, it's a very small limited selection. Look for raw foods at an independent pet store.

What type of raw are you consdering? Commerical raw comes as frozen, freeze dried, air dried, and dehydrated. Frozen raw obviously has to be kept in the freezer and thawed in the fridge before feeding. If you don't have a lot of freezer space for a few bags or containers of raw food then frozen is probably out of the picture. Some people have a separate chest-type freezer just for their cat's raw food. Freeze dried, air dried, and dehdyrated raw can be kept in a cabinet or pantry at room temperature.

What are your cats currently eating now? It's usually recommended to feed canned food for awhile and then slowly mix in small amounts of raw into the canned. Some cats may not go for frozen raw right away but will eat freeze dried raw.

I personally feed Nature's Variety Instinct medallions. The medallions are harder to find than the Raw Bites but my local independent pet store places an order for me if they don't have what I need in stock. I also do a bit of semi-homemade raw. I take a chub of raw meat from the pet store and add in a pre mix (either Alnutrin or Better In The Raw). it takes 15 minutes to mix up and freeze in portion sizes. Hare-Today.com is a popular place to order already ground up raw meats for pet food use

You don't necessarily need to buy meat from a supermarket or butcher shop ad grind it yourself to make pet food.

 

[rogue22912]

 
What type of raw are you consdering? Commerical raw comes as frozen, freeze dried, air dried, and dehydrated. Frozen raw obviously has to be kept in the freezer and thawed in the fridge before feeding. If you don't have a lot of freezer space for a few bags or containers of raw food then frozen is probably out of the picture. Some people have a separate chest-type freezer just for their cat's raw food. Freeze dried, air dried, and dehdyrated raw can be kept in a cabinet or pantry at room temperature.

What are your cats currently eating now? It's usually recommended to feed canned food for awhile and then slowly mix in small amounts of raw into the canned. Some cats may not go for frozen raw right away but will eat freeze dried raw.

I personally feed Nature's Variety Instinct medallions. The medallions are harder to find than the Raw Bites but my local independent pet store places an order for me if they don't have what I need in stock. I also do a bit of semi-homemade raw. I take a chub of raw meat from the pet store and add in a pre mix (either Alnutrin or Better In The Raw). it takes 15 minutes to mix up and freeze in portion sizes. Hare-Today.com is a popular place to order already ground up raw meats for pet food use

You don't necessarily need to buy meat from a supermarket or butcher shop ad grind it yourself to make pet food.

I was thinking about feeding them frozen, I have a chest freezer that I can store the food in. I tend to like the ingredients in frozen more then the freeze dried ect...

I am currently feeding them friskies wet food. I might then start to work in some freezed dried raw in with there wet food.

I was loooking at nature's variety instinct raw bites at the pet store today. I will have to look into hare-today.

Thank you for the taking the time to respond.

p.s I have an annual vet appointment for one of my cats this week I am going to also ask my vet what he thinks about switching to raw.

 

[LTS3]

For 3 cats you'll want to buy the 3.5 lb bag of Raw Bites instead of the 1.25 lb bag. The 1.25 lb bag will last maybe a few days for 3 cats. I kow that Petco definitely does not sell the 3.5 lb bag and doesn't do orders so you'll have to look for an indepdent pet store that sells the 3.5 lb bag or can order it for you. The medallions may work out better in the long run. One or two medallions is one meal for most cats. You do need to let the medallions thaw in the fridge at least overnight so they're not rock hard by the time you feed it. I take out enough medallions for about two day's worth of meals to thaw in the fridge.

I had to use freeze dried raw food to transition my rescue cat to raw. I crushed the freeze dried raw up and mixed it with her canned food for a couple of days. Then I snuck in little pieces of the NV frozen raw. I think it helpd my rescue cat seeing my Aby gobble down his raw. She got the idea that this weird blob was food and maybe she should give it a try.

Some vets are opposed to raw diets becuse of bacteria concerns and experience with clients not feeding a proper balanced diet. You don't need the vet's permission to feed your cats a raw diet. As long as you stick with a brand name of commercial raw that is a complete balanced diet, your cats aren't going to have any nutritional deficiencies or anything

 

[rogue22912]

 
For 3 cats you'll want to buy the 3.5 lb bag of Raw Bites instead of the 1.25 lb bag. The 1.25 lb bag will last maybe a few days for 3 cats. I kow that Petco definitely does not sell the 3.5 lb bag and doesn't do orders so you'll have to look for an indepdent pet store that sells the 3.5 lb bag or can order it for you. The medallions may work out better in the long run. One or two medallions is one meal for most cats. You do need to let the medallions thaw in the fridge at least overnight so they're not rock hard by the time you feed it. I take out enough medallions for about two day's worth of meals to thaw in the fridge.

I had to use freeze dried raw food to transition my rescue cat to raw. I crushed the freeze dried raw up and mixed it with her canned food for a couple of days. Then I snuck in little pieces of the NV frozen raw. I think it helpd my rescue cat seeing my Aby gobble down his raw. She got the idea that this weird blob was food and maybe she should give it a try.

Some vets are opposed to raw diets becuse of bacteria concerns and experience with clients not feeding a proper balanced diet. You don't need the vet's permission to feed your cats a raw diet. As long as you stick with a brand name of commercial raw that is a complete balanced diet, your cats aren't going to have any nutritional deficiencies or anything

So it defiantly sound like the medallions would be a better way to go. So do you feed one to two medallions twice a day or just once a day? I will shop around to different local pet store and see what each one offers what. Thank you so much for the advice. I totally understand if my vet doesn't want me to feed them raw because some of the concerns but I always believe something is worth trying at least once.