8 month old kitten plus raw food

[redvelvetone]

So I started feeding my 8 month old kitten raw food (not his entire diet, but as treats). He gets all wet, grain-free food otherwise, but I wanted to give him a little raw as treats / bonus nutrition.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I started him with some giblets and he loved them. However I just gave him the organ meet and not the chicken neck with the bone. I also gave him some raw turkey meat yesterday and he loved that as well, and I started also feeding him some sardines (one can a week). The sardines are in water with no salt added. Loves them!

However, last night, I decided to see how he would do with a chicken neck. He tried eating around it but he was unable to actually eat it (because he could not tear it up into chunks) and kept crying at me. I was going to try him on chicken wings to see if that is easier for him. 

So my question is, when you guys feed stuff with bone in it, do you somehow chunk it up for them first? Will that splinter the bone and make it easy for him to choke? Sorry if these are dumb questions.

 

[ldg]

My understanding from Auntie Crazy is that unless someone is feeding more than 15% of the diet as raw whole meat chunks, you shouln't be feeding bone-in meals. Chicken necks are something a cat needs to work up to - they have to develop the strength and "expertise" to eat that kind of bone.

If you make the move to feeding raw as more than a treat, and you're ready to start bone-in chunks, AC recommends starting with smaller things, like cornish hen bones, quail bones and chicken ribs as starter bones.

Hope that helps!

 

[redvelvetone]

Ok thanks. I was getting conflicting info - some said to give them a little bone to help clean their teeth, and I know Auntie said not to have any bone. So I thought maybe something with bone once a week might be a good compromise.

 

[ldg]

Well, they get all the nutrition they need from raw... if properly balanced between proteins, organs, muscle meat, bone, etc. But that means the switch to raw as their food.

You can substitute up to 15% of their food without compromising their nutrition with "unbalanced" stuff...

Some people do feed just chicken wings for dental health and otherwise feed canned. I'm not sure that actually helps just a couple of times a week though. :dk:

 

[redvelvetone]

Ok then I'll just stick to the raw food (boneless) for now.

BTW, I put out some raw chicken strips  out for Magnus a little while ago for dinner (basically it is thin chicken slices for use in stir fry) and he was flinging the strips around out of the bowl onto the floor and attacking it. Then flinging it up in the air again and pouncing on it. Too funny. Except now, of course, I've got meat bacteria all over the floor Well, I need to mop anyway.... But it was too cute.

 

[ldg]

Yeah, AC wrote a blog post on that: http://catcentric.org/2012/01/14/q-help/ It's titled, "My cats keep running off with the food: help!" :lol3:

 

[redvelvetone]

lol. thanks for the article link.

 

[melesine]

Yes, we cut up bone in chicken into chunks for the cats. Ours are only about 2 months older than yours and have been eating meat chunks for months.