Best Commercial Raw/Pre-made Raw food?

[siberiancats]

*****Please read beforehand. While I would to do raw diet from scratch, that isn't really possible. Right now, I'm trying to have my parents get our two girls off a kibble, and on to a pre-made raw, and that is already really difficult. (It also took a ton of convincing t to bring our cats to get their teeth cleaned, and get them on wet food.) Hopefully, after awhile they will see the awesome benefits raw has, but for now, I am just loolking into pre-made raw diets. **** 

What is a balanced, high quality, safe pre-made raw food? We have two Siberian cats, who weigh about 10 lbs each, so we need something to come in bulk(Rad cat is awesome, but unfortunately, it's too expensive.)? Thanks everyone!

 

[paiger8]

Rad Cat was going to be my suggestion. Have you tried getting it in the largest sized tubs? It's cheaper per serving that way. I've also fed Primal and Stella & Chewy's Freeze Dried.

Are you wanting to do freeze dried or frozen?  What's your cat food budget per month?

If Rad Cat is too expensive, could you feed 1/2 Rad Cat, 1/2 Canned? That may be more economical while still getting the benefits of raw. 

 

[abby2932]

If Rad Cat is off the list, my #2 option for premade raw is Stella and Chewy's. If you can't source the frozen food, they have great free-dried raw options. Your parents might like this better as it doesn't take up any freezer space and the freeze-dried morsels look kind of like kibble! You do, of course, want to add water to each meal to make it a "canned food" consistency

 

[LTS3]

The best one is the one your cat will eat and you can afford

Rad Cat, Prima, and Stella and Chewy's have already  been suggested. I feed my cats Nature's Variety Instinct frozen medallions. NV also has frozen Raw Bites which are kibble-shaped and thaws in minutes. I personally feel that NV is a good brand. Petco sells the NV brand but the raw selection can be limited. At my local Petco they only have the 1.25 lb bag of frozen Raw Bites and usually just one variety. I prefer to buy NV at a local indepedent pet store where I can get the 3.5 lb bag of Raw Bites and the medallions. The store will also take orders if they're out of stock, something Petco and other chan stores won't do. Rad Cat, Primal, and Stella and Chewy's are sold only at independent pet stores so they may  be a bit harder to find if you live in a small town. Of course, anything can be bought online but shipping may be costly unless you meet the minimum purchase requirement for free shipping.

With frozen raw you need space in the freezer or even a second freezer to store the food. if that's not an option, consider shelf stable freeze dried raw, air dried raw, and dehydrated raw. Primal, Stella and Chewy's, and NV all have freeze dried options. The one drawback I can see is that one bag won't last one cat for more than a week or so so you'll have to buy lots of bags in bulk. Air dried raw is expensive, at least for the ZiwiPeak brand which only comes in a little bag that honestly IMO will last a few days tops. Dehdyrated raw is basically powder that you rehydrate in water for a few minutes before serving. These foods tend to be too high in carbs and fruits and veggies. The Honest Kitchen is one brand.

You can feed a mix of the different types of commerical raw if you wish to balance out budget and storage space in the kitchen. You can also freed a mix of canned and raw food.

 

[lisahe]

 
Rad Cat was going to be my suggestion. Have you tried getting it in the largest sized tubs? It's cheaper per serving that way. I've also fed Primal and Stella & Chewy's Freeze Dried.

Are you wanting to do freeze dried or frozen?  What's your cat food budget per month?

If Rad Cat is too expensive, could you feed 1/2 Rad Cat, 1/2 Canned? That may be more economical while still getting the benefits of raw. 

I'd recommend the same brands as well as the approach of half Rad Cat (or half raw) and half canned. We feed our cats that way for lots of reasons and it works out well for them and us. We feed mostly Primal freeze-dried (which is very convenient) with one small meal of Rad Cat a day.

Also, it's worth checking around at your local stores to see who might carry Rad Cat at what price: the stores where I live have a big range of prices. Also, a lot of cats don't need as many ounces of Rad Cat to get filled up as they would need ounces of good quality canned food. A small afternoon snack of Rad Cat keeps our cats happy for hours.

Good luck!

 

[gdzeey]

Greetings!! I've been successful using Darwin's (https://www.darwinspet.com/product/natural-selections-cat-food/).  The initial price is $15.  That price can't be beat.  My cat was able to try the Chicken, Turkey and Duck.  He seemed to enjoy the Chicken the most.  He did not like the duck so much so I just order mostly chicken.  They are on an auto resend program which is automatically sent every 10 weeks.  They have been pretty good at making any changes I needed.  

Good luck in trying out the new diet!  Keep us posted which has been working for you.

 

[ftmba]

 
*****Please read beforehand. While I would to do raw diet from scratch, that isn't really possible. Right now, I'm trying to have my parents get our two girls off a kibble, and on to a pre-made raw, and that is already really difficult. (It also took a ton of convincing t to bring our cats to get their teeth cleaned, and get them on wet food.) Hopefully, after awhile they will see the awesome benefits raw has, but for now, I am just loolking into pre-made raw diets. **** 

What is a balanced, high quality, safe pre-made raw food? We have two Siberian cats, who weigh about 10 lbs each, so we need something to come in bulk(Rad cat is awesome, but unfortunately, it's too expensive.)? Thanks everyone!

Awesome! We have 2 Siberians about the same size (10.2 and 10.8 lbs). We feed 3/16 cup dry X 2 a day (NVI ultimate protein via a petnet auto feeder), and 3 oz Raw x 2 a day. Comes out to around 430 ish calories a day? For raw, NVI raw bites (duck, chicken/tuna, chicken/turkey) makes up the bulk of their diet with Primal Pronto Pork, Turkey, and S&C Chicken, Duck rotated in for variety.

Everything mentioned here: Primal, S&C, NVI, Darwins, Radcat, etc is balanced commercial raw. There are some other brands as well, but I'm not familiar with them.

Where we're at, Primal nuggets (3lb bags) are the best bang for your buck, followed by S&C, followed by Primal Pronto and NVI Raw Bites. We went with "quick thaw" raw for the sake of fridge space.

Figuring out what your cats like will require some trial and error, figuring out what's most cost effective... I divide the price by the ounces of the bag to get a price per ounce, then I consider the calorie content. Primal pork for instance is 37 calories an ounce, where as Primal beef is something like 53? calories an ounce? Makes a big difference if your cats aren't picky and you're on a budget.

 

[sophie1]

These must be young Siberians you all have!  Or maybe females.  My two males zipped past 10 lbs before they were a year old.  They're somewhere in the 13-15 lb range now, and I swear one of them is still growing at age 3.

Due to high prices and uncertainties in the supply, commercial raw is best used only as an interim step towards homemade, or supplemental feeding long-term.  I've had the rather frustrating experience, many times, of my cats refusing to eat because the food was freezer burned.  I also wasn't too sure of safety when I found bags of food that had obviously been defrosted and then refrozen.  You'll need to check on local supplies to see if this is true for you as well - maybe it's just a local issue.

Nature Variety sells their chicken and beef food as chubs or rolls (5 and 2 lbs, respectively).  You still need a local store that handles them correctly, but I've found them to be the only reliably fresh and reasonably priced commercial raw option.  Plus it'll get you used to the idea of making your own cats' food!  I defrost these just enough to cut into chunks, then refreeze in quart size bags.  They're a bit short of taurine but that's an easy fix:  add 500 mg taurine per pound, sprinkled on the food.  Or 1000 mg taurine if you want to be super conservative and assume the taurine content is zero.

Keep in mind also that the commercial raw market is largely geared towards dogs.  You might recall some time back that three of the five major commercial raw companies stopped making raw cat food at about the same time:  NV, Bravo, and Stella and Chewys.  This left only Primal and Rad Cat as nationally available brands.  There was a period of several months when people were paying outrageous prices for the remaining supplies and scrambling for alternatives.  If you intend to stick with commercial raw long-term, I strongly suggest that you feed several varieties, including Primal and Rad Cat, and include products meant for dogs, with appropriate supplementation.