Transitioning two picky cats to raw

mlle librarian · Aug 29, 2014

Hi everyone

I am going to be transitioning my two cats (Godric and Rowena) to homemade raw. Currently they eat a big rotation of canned food.

They used to eat meals of whatever we put in front of them, but Rowena ate faster than Godric and started stealing his food -- so we started using toppers in the hope of getting him to eat faster -- and the situation completely devolved from there. Basically, we have created 2 incredibly picky cats that don't like to eat what we give them and DEFINITELY don't eat quickly. They can take the whole day to finish a meal, which isn't going to work if the food is raw.

My first plan is to reinstate mealtime. It hurts a bit to throw away food, but I'm going to leave the food out for 30 minutes and then pull it. If they don't eat, they will wait until next time.

After that I want to slowly start mixing in homemade raw food with their canned. I was able to partially transition them to raw once before, but then they just refused to eat it at all after a couple weeks, and I gave up. After reading this forum it seems like that's actually a pretty common occurrence, so if that happens, I'll just ease off on the raw for a bit and then work them back up.

I'm planning to do ground raw following Dr. Pierson's recipe on catinfo.org.

Any tips etc welcome; I'm hoping to use this thread to document progress. This morning, they failed to eat their food (FF classics canned) in a timely manner, so I took it away... ha. :\

vball91 · Aug 29, 2014

Hi and welcome to TCS. Can't wait to hear of your progress during the transition.

peaches08 · Aug 29, 2014

Ya know, I wonder how much of the food pickyness might be recipe changes from the food manufacturer. A bunch of us encountered this years ago (2009 I think?) when Fancy Feast changed something about their classics line. They of course refused to tell us what the change was, but cats all across the country stopped eating it. Whatev's, that's just a thought.

I'm not worried about bacterial concerns like I used to be when I first started raw, but I certainly appreciate wanting cats to eat at meal time in case of ever being questioned "how much does he eat?" "Um, I don't know" isn't much of an answer. Heaven forbid you have to answer that question but it does happen when a cat is having a bowel obstruction, etc. Again Heaven forbid but it's still good to know how much your cat eats. Cats don't need to graze anyway.

For most cats you go REALLY slow, maybe a half teaspoon at a time to transition raw. I've been incredibly lucky, my first 3 cats transitioned by just eating raw starting at one meal then never had canned again. This rescue I got ate free fed kibble reliably, and I started adding a little raw at each meal and soon he wanted the raw over kibble. He's my picky guy though, if I give him 4 meals of chicken in a row, the 4th meal he may not eat as much. I use Dr. P's recipe too, I do the chicken thighs, pork, and beef so far. Oh, and Cornish hens. I hope to add some grinds form Hare Today very soon. Trying to get bills paid down and all, and the rescue has more bills to come (eye specialist).

Whatever questions come up, ask! There are no dumb questions. Just dumb stuff we should have asked about first.

mlle librarian · Aug 29, 2014

peaches08 said:
Ya know, I wonder how much of the food pickyness might be recipe changes from the food manufacturer. A bunch of us encountered this years ago (2009 I think?) when Fancy Feast changed something about their classics line. They of course refused to tell us what the change was, but cats all across the country stopped eating it. Whatev's, that's just a thought.

I'm not worried about bacterial concerns like I used to be when I first started raw, but I certainly appreciate wanting cats to eat at meal time in case of ever being questioned "how much does he eat?" "Um, I don't know" isn't much of an answer. Heaven forbid you have to answer that question but it does happen when a cat is having a bowel obstruction, etc. Again Heaven forbid but it's still good to know how much your cat eats. Cats don't need to graze anyway.

For most cats you go REALLY slow, maybe a half teaspoon at a time to transition raw. I've been incredibly lucky, my first 3 cats transitioned by just eating raw starting at one meal then never had canned again. This rescue I got ate free fed kibble reliably, and I started adding a little raw at each meal and soon he wanted the raw over kibble. He's my picky guy though, if I give him 4 meals of chicken in a row, the 4th meal he may not eat as much. I use Dr. P's recipe too, I do the chicken thighs, pork, and beef so far. Oh, and Cornish hens. I hope to add some grinds form Hare Today very soon. Trying to get bills paid down and all, and the rescue has more bills to come (eye specialist).

Whatever questions come up, ask! There are no dumb questions. Just dumb stuff we should have asked about first.

Thanks for your thoughts, peaches.

I just started feeding them FF a few weeks ago, actually, so I don't think it's that. For a long time I fed them only the premium good stuff -- EVO, Dick Van Patten's NB, etc. -- and then Whole Foods came out with a grain-free line of cat food, so I was like, great! I started feeding that and they NEVER ate the premium stuff again. Ever. Turned up their little noses at it. Every time they try something they like better, they stop eating everything else, but then eventually tire of the "favorite."

Part of my concern is that the boy cat has had crystals before, so I really do want to make sure he is eating enough every day. His diet is 100% wet though, so I am trying not to worry about it too much. If he's hungry, he'll eat; if he's not hungry, he's probably not thirsty either..?

I honestly wonder if part of this pickiness is just that I am offering them too many calories per day. They are both small cats -- about 8 lbs each -- but I put down 5.5 - 6 oz for each of them, every day. That should be somewhere around 180-200 calories per cat. Their vet says that since they are indoor, they should be eating 20 calories per lb of body weight, which is only 160 cals for each of them.

I am most likely going to do it tsp by tsp.

Transitioning two picky cats to raw

mlle librarian

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vball91

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peaches08

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mlle librarian

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