Transitioning to frozen raw

[mrsgreenjeens]

I'm not really making any progress

Asha will eat a meal that has a couple of pea sized bits of raw mixed in (as I feed little and often, this works out at one mini meal of frozen raw over the day). She still won't touch the raw on its own, and she rejects any meal with a larger amount of frozen raw mixed in.

She still loves her FD though. I just can't afford to feed much of that because of the stupid way it's sold (see above

). Interestingly, she won't touch the frozen raw if combined with FD. I think that's because she likes her FD chunky, so there's very little camouflage. She won't touch the FD when dry, btw, so I don't think coating raw with FD powder will work.

Am I doing this right? How fast should o be trying to increase the raw percentage in the raw/canned mix?

I did not use freeze dried RAW to powder up as a topper for my little raw meatballs. WholeLife is actually freeze dried COOKED 100% pure meat, and it powders up into a fine powder, almost like flour, so it's perfect for the job of completely coating raw meat.  It's made in the U.S.A., so may not be available to you across the pond.  BUT, you may have something similar over there. 

Gosh, from what I've read, you should be able to increase from 2 pea sized bits to 3 pea sized bits into her food by now

, but some cats can take up to a year to transition or so I've heard.  BUT, maybe it's the particular protein you are serving up.  I found that my cats might really like the flavor of the freeze dried, but wouldn't touch it in the true raw

.   Do you have another protein you could try?  Everything I read said ALL cats love rabbit, and NONE of mine would ever touch ANY brand of frozen rabbit.  They will, however, eat freeze dried rabbit.  All the frozen stuff I got I ended up giving away to my dog loving friends. 

 

[Columbine]

I had a bit of a breakthrough this afternoon - I caught Asha trying to steal Shadow's kibble (Royal Canin urinary s/o...he barely eats it now, but Asha tries to steal it whenever she gets the chance ). She's not actually 'allowed' kibble (I want to do things right with her, and make use of the knowledge I've gained) but I thought this was worth a try: I pounded up some kibble and coated 3 chunks of raw in it - they were each about the size of a small blueberry. She ate them with almost no hesitation - after the first one she chose them over her canned/raw mix :jaw:

I'm really torn now. I want to get her onto the frozen raw, but I don't like giving her kibble. I know it's a means to an end, but still... :confuse3: I'm going to try the same trick with crumbled FD later...might do a full meal of raw, with some in kibble and some in FD and see what happens.

At least I never have to chuck the food out - both dogs go crazy for any kind of raw (especially the fussy-as-hell greyhound). Ok, it's not technically dog food, but it's better in their tummies than in the bin! :nod:

 

[Columbine]

Ok, I'm in shock. I just gave Asha a meal sized portion of raw. I broke it into chunks and coated it with a mix of roughly 1/4 ground kibble and 3/4 FD. She cleared the plate! :jaw:
I think I'm onto something. I'll try and gradually reduce the amount of kibble until I'm just using a mix of FD and frozen. :cross: that this plan works. To be honest, I don't mind if I always need FD as a topper - its just a bit pricey to use on its own.

 

[Columbine]

I apologise in advance if I'm spamming. Just really excited - Asha's eaten a second frozen raw coated in FD (this time only topped with the kibble, and about half the amount I used before). I'm definitely on to something. One of the raw chunks was relatively big...about the size of a garbanzo bean, or maybe a little bigger.

 

[artyjill]

Hi

This thread is really interesting and am thinking of changing Daisys food but not yet as l am just getting her to trust me. So will leave it till she lets me pick her up.Thats my next job.

By the way l was using royal Canon bsh kibble but its going sky high in price so tried the new Lilly's Kitchen one, its the only kibble that smells like real food and Daisy always wants more. She has wet food twice a day and a bowl full of the kibble.

If you saw her you would wonder were she puts it as she is really slim, would love to see more weight on her.

Do you get the raw meat locally, have to ask as l am a vegie

     Jilly

 

[Columbine]

I'm a veggie too I buy commercial raw cat food from a local feed shop (along with my dog food and horse food). The brand I use is Nature's Menu. I like it because it comes in smallish cubes, so I don't have to thaw and portion it when I get it home. You can also get it online at http://www.naturesmenu.co.uk. They make the freeze dried (FD) raw I use too, as well as pouches of cooked wet food.

If you're not quite ready to go raw, there are lots of high quality, high meat wet foods to try too. PM me if you want more info

 

[artyjill]

The website looks good and l; want to change to raw but till l get Daisy further on l think its best to keep her on what she eats well. I seem to be always teaching her different things.

She thinks now she is letting me stroke her she can nibble my hand and go for my fingers like she does with her feather wand. I just tell her no not to nibble and she does stop. She is like

excitable three ear old lol

Jilly

 

[Columbine]

Asha is now eating frozen raw coated with FD raw. Both come in cubes - about 1 inch square by 1/2 inch deep. I'm using 2 FD cubes, crushed to powder, to coat 2-3 frozen cubes - each frozen cube is broken into rough thirds and rolled well in the FD. I've been able to dispense with the kibble already

I have one major concern - the fact that the FD is so dry. Am I likely to run into hydration issues because it's not rehydrated? I'm using maybe 6 cubes of FD a day like this - to put it in perspective, if I was feeding just raw, the ration for Asha would be approx 30 cubes a day (I'm actually sticking with a mix of raw and canned - it makes it easier if someone else is feeding, and Asha's also a great 'dustbin' for Shadow's rejects ). I'm probably just paranoid, but it's worrying me.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

My guys will ONLY eat their freeze dried raw in dehydrated form, which worried me also, so to make up for that, I really water down their canned food, which they get 3 meals of per day.  When I was feeding ALL raw, I added water to the commercial frozen raw, once we got past the "coated meatball" stage

  To me, all the frozen stuff always seemed too dry also.  Not at all like fresh meat. 

Have you tried just sprinkling the FD on top of a couple pieces of the frozen to see if she'll eat them without quite so much of the FD yet?  She might surprise you. 

 

[Columbine]

I'm going to try that tomorrow. This evening we progressed to only breaking some of the cubes in half...something she rejected earlier in the day. She's also happy with a very finely shredded parmesan coating, so I might exploit that tomorrow too. I'm hoping to progress to toppers only by the end of the week :cross:

This raw seems pretty moist to me. I guess it depends on the brand. Maybe the fact it's in small chunks to start with keeps it wetter :dk:

 

[artyjill]

As Daisy doesn't drink a lot so l add water to her food and as the bowl is always empty and dry l know she has a good lot of water as l feed her twice a day so two lots of water and the amount she has out of her water  bowl So could you add water to there meals, you would feel better if they were getting more water.

  Jilly

 

[Columbine]

Thanks A artyjill I already do that to certain canned foods.

Update:-

I'm still breaking up the frozen raw a bit, but am now just tossing it in one cube of FD

She's absolutely inhaling the raw now - I think it's now her favourite food!

I've stopped feeding the FD now except with the frozen. She's such a good girl :heart3: We're up to 3 meals out of 6-7 being the raw/FD combo now. I'll give her another day with once cube of FD and then try halving again :cross:

I've just realised I forgot to say thank you @LTS3 I was so sure Asha wouldn't touch the FD that way that I hesitated to try. You were right so

Thanks to everyone here for their support too - I'd have given up without you all (given that my family are still pretty anti raw, and would love me to abandon the idea). to you all too

 

[bellaluna777]

We were successful using convincing our fussy cats to eat thawed frozen raw by making  little bite sized balls of meat with Florastore sprinkled on top. 

 

[Columbine]

Thanks for the tip 

 Asha's doing great with her frozen and freeze dried mixture, so I'll stick with that for now. If I run into problems down the line I'll look into Florastore.