Chat about Feline Nutrition here ...

[onyx]

hiya!


They've had raw bits on and off for years, so is suppose it isnt like going completely cold turkey (heehee) on them.


they used to get kibble in the morning, left down all day, and at night wet food.   often times there would still be food over the next morning.

i originally i kept the kibble down, and then at night mix half of raw food with half of the wet food. after about a week i gave them wet food in the morning, and then wet food/raw food mix at night. (with it being wet, i had to think a bit more about how much they needed as they wouldnt eat wet food if it sat out).

eventually they were getting the wet/raw mix twice a day, and i just kept gradually reducing the wet mix to just the raw mix. I also was giving them the wet food they liked the least... and make sure you give them the raw flavours they like the most! (rabbit and the chicken/lamb mix was a big hit)

it has actually been alright to transition them, and i am now in the process of actually measuring how much they should get a day, and giving them more 'set' meal times as opposed to food being down all day. chloe was a bit resistant, but i just kept plonking her infront of the food.   (i think it also helped that i never gave them the same brand/flavour two packs in a row. They always had something new every few days).

for the offal, i started off with smaller chunks, and then gradually just made them bigger. maybe 20p sized? I can now give chloe bigger ones (maybe 3 inches long?) but i wouldnt want to go much bigger in case fonzie steals it.   (i do have to be a bit careful about them. even though he isn't picky, he only has canines so although he tries to gum food, he ends up usually swallowing pieces whole.... and then puking them back up because they are stuck.....)

it did take chloe a while to understand that offal (heart, liver and kidneys) are edible, but having a cat and a dog stare at you helps the process along....  heart is her favourite, and the most important.

I'm still trying to get her to 'chew' meat and bones, but she's starting to get it. I can get her to take a couple of crunches on some soft raw chicken ribs (from a chicken carcass) or get her to chew a piece of diced chicken or turkey, but she gets a bit bored and wanders off. (Fonzie will strip a chicken wing using the neck/gum/claw method).

I have had some success with small pieces of bone (such as lamb breast) and me actually holding it, but i think 50p sizes are about as much effort as chloe wants to put in. (i've had much greater success with the dog!)  to ensure they are getting the bone, I make sure they have some of the mvm meat with bone in it.


I'm currently feeding them a mixture of manifold valley meat (they come in 1lb sausages), the yellow sticker line at all good supermarkets and offal. so far i think it is working out okay.   It gets delivered once a month, and i split the delivery charges with 7 other people. (£10 delivery for as much as you want. my cost is about £1.20). http://www.manifoldvalleymeats.co.uk/barf-diet-products/ 

picked up a sea bass and some diced turkey tonight! (Ill freeze them for a week to get rid of any bacteria and then they can be spoit at some time in the future.)

i use the 80% meat (including heart), 10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% offal (kidney, spleen, pancreas etc) method.

If you want to to deal with the %, and JUST feed meat, you can get felieni complete from zooplus which supposedly turns just meat into all the nutrients they need. (No bone or liver required).


if they liked cooked food, just try cooking it less and less each time, or, even just flash frying it. just to get the smell?7

hope that helps!  : )

[Tan]

How are your cats doing swapping to raw?

Thanks for the info on the meat co they'd sound very good.

I have two very different eaters with marl loving cooked  chicken breast and eating any mice he captures but he's not used to eating raw meat but hopefully eaiser to change to raw.

Garf is a dry food and gravy licker so much harder to convert. We have already noticed a change in him since stopping all dreamies and stopping leaving dry out.  I give him a small handful of dry after his wet food while slowly increasing wet food and decreasing dry.  His coat has got better in last few days

Thanks for the info to the grain free wet I am gonna try some of these with garf while getting him off the dry
X

[onyx]

i'm in the process of swapping mine to full raw.


the list tan posted is a bit old, but quite good. However, due to the constantly changing recipes it was a bit too much for the original author of the list to keep it up to date.


i think in a perfect world id be able to love to be able to give them whole prey, or giant chunks of meat, but that the moment they are on pre-made mince (Manifold Valley Meats) and chunks of offal, and a bit of lamb breast and chicken wings.     The minces have the benefit of ground in bone which helps my toothless cat, as he has a tenancy to swallow chicken bones whole.....


in general, i was under the impression that the best, non raw, and none dry foods which you can easily get are : bozita, grau, animonda carny and smilia. Applaws is OK as a treat, but is not a complete food.

: )

[Tan]

Thanks hunies , I will have look for a more complete list 

[Dawn F]

Also in the a to z felix etc are listed as 4% meat but I was under the impression (perhaps wrong) that the 4% was the named variety only and that other meat was included?  I'm pretty sure it has been mentioned a few times on here but don't remember the figures

[Jiji]

Firstly let me say I have not read all the threads in this section, but have browsed the A-Z of wet food and have to say, in my opinion, it is too simple and therefore misleading. It has been done by brand alone some of the brands have different ranges, some of which are complete foods others are not, there has been no distinction between the brands listed which are complete and complimentary foods e.g. applaws wet is a complimentary food so cannot be expected to have the same nutritional values as a complete food and should not be being fed as a complete food and just to add more complication into this already complicated area, nutritional values and ratios can vary within a brand range by variety - the values/ratios for a chicken meal may be significantly different to that in say a beef meal. Of course there are other important things to take into consideration as well, taurine, phosphorus, sugars, grains......


I do applaud you trying to tackle this minefield though, you are a braver woman than me!

[Tan]

Feline nutrition is so important. Getting it right for your meat eating feline will help to have a healthy cat and help to prevent illness.

So many supermarket brands are not good for your cat esp dry food, many use the crap of crap and include the dirty scrapings off the factory floor!.
Any foods that contain grains and high carbs are the ones to avoid. A cats body as a meat eater  is not made to digest these at all! You will be surprised that the vet recommend brands are some of the worst that contain grains! If there is a problem like diabetes, they then make another brand geared to the illness that is just as bad!

Just take a look on the internet about the problems with Hills brand which are highly recommended by vets! So Why do the vets recommend it? cause it's Hills that train all the vets on Feline nutrition!!!

Please read the other topics in this section.