Cats on Raw

In a later post I will discuss why I feed "prey model raw" but for this one I want to talk about transitioning cats onto a raw diet. With dogs, they typically take to it very well or if they don't it isn't difficult to find something they will eat or some way of preparing it to make it more palatable. When push comes to shove a dog will not starve itself so by offering raw and only raw the dog will eventually eat it because they are hungry. Tough love!

Cats on the other hand should never be starved into eating raw and I cannot state that strongly enough. They can get hepatic lipidosis which is a form of liver disease in which fat builds up on the liver. Hepatic lipidosis can be fatal. Therefore it's not advised that a cat goes without food for more than a day. Do not use tough love with cats, especially with cats that are overweight.

Zebulon is overweight. Raw will help him get down to a healthy weight.

Some cats will take to raw no problem but most will need some help to get there.  If you put out a chicken wing and your cat starts chomping on it, you're very lucky. If not, you might be in for a long transition period. The first step is to stop free feeding- that is, don't leave the food out 24/7. When you feed raw you can't leave a piece of meat out all day. Your cat needs to learn to eat when the food is available. This in itself can be a big transition for a cat. What I do is to get the food out first thing in the morning. After 15-20 minutes, I take it away. After 4-5 hours I put the food down, again for 15-20 minutes.  Repeat throughout the day. If you ever put the food down and your cat doesn't eat any, try again in an hour. Offer food right before bed. Don't leave it out all night, pick it up after 15-20 minutes.

If you feed kibble then the next step is to feed canned food. The idea is to get your cat to eat soft food. First, offer pure canned food. If your cat will gladly eat it then you don't need to worry about transitioning to it. If your cat won't eat the canned, fear not. Mix in canned food with their kibble. Start with adding just a spoonful or so of canned. Mix it very well so there are no chunks of canned food. Increase the amount of canned food each day as you decrease the amount of kibble. When you're feeding at least 50% canned, it may help to mix it up then place it in the refrigerator overnight. The kibble will absorb the moisture and soften. A good transition step. You may need to try different kinds of canned food. Be patient. I personally skipped this whole step of canned food and went right to feeding ground raw meat with canned mixed in.

The next step is to start adding raw! Ground chicken or turkey is a good place to start, personally I had ground beef so I started with that. I mixed in one can of water-based tuna (do NOT use tuna in oil) including the tuna 'juice' with the ground beef. Tuna is not ideal but it's what I had. If your cat eats canned food, use that to start. My cats go nuts for tuna so I knew that for them it would be a good starting place. Know your cat! Zebulon and Everest gobbled up the ground meat and tuna mix happily.

From this point, slowly decrease the amount of canned food you are mixing in and start to very slowly increase the chunk size of the raw meat. I find that a food processor is a great method. You can control how chopped up the meat gets. You puree meat into mush if needed to start with.

I only had one package of ground beef so the next time we went to the grocery store I planned to get ground chicken or turkey. It was ridiculously expensive. Instead, I got 3 packages of chicken hearts & gizzards. Each package is nearly 1 pound, and the cost is $1/lb. Cheap! Once home, I chopped it all up in the food processor. A little messy, really gross, but a good method. I mixed one can of tuna in with those 3 packages. The cats are so in love with it that they start to meow whenever I walk toward the fridge now.

Chicken hearts & gizzards mixed with tuna.

As you can see, I place a good amount of the mix down on a tarp. At first I used a plate but with offering it 3-5 times per day I was running out of plates. The tarp works fine. Once they walk away, I scoop the remainder back into the tupperware.

I now feed raw during the day and will put a small amount of kibble down at night. Feeding pureed hearts & gizzards with tuna is far from being a balanced diet so until they are eating a variety of meats and organs I will need to continue to offer the kibble. You may want to continue to feed canned instead of kibble if that was a rough transition. Mine do fine going between the kibble and the raw, so again it's trial and error as well as knowing your cat.

I need to slowly phase out the tuna. The next time I go grocery shopping, I'll get 5 packages of the hearts & gizzards to mix with 1 can of tuna and I will leave it in slightly bigger chunks. After that I will get 7 packages, and it will be in bigger chunks as well. After that I will hopefully be able to stop adding the tuna. Once they will eat a whole chicken heart or a whole gizzard I'll be really happy! At the same time I made the mush of the hearts & gizzards I also made mush of turkey. I'll mix tuna with that as well to see how it goes.

I package the mix up in tupperware containers and keep it in the freezer, except for the one I currently feed from which is in the fridge. When I'm running low I grab a tupperware from the freezer and put it in the fridge to slowly defrost.

On a final note, you MUST go at your cat's pace. As previously mentioned you cannot use tough love to force your cat to eat the raw food. Cats can be extremely picky so this process may take you several months or even longer. Go as slow and gradual as you need to and make sure your cat is getting proper nutrition as you transition.