First time pet owner, need specific help please!

[somayeh]

Hi guys,

I've never had a pet before and I have spent the past few weeks doing a lot of online reading about raw diets for cats and have browsed through the first few pages of this thread. I am kindly looking for, however, a more specific and personalised schedule from experienced raw feeders!

I'm based in London UK & I'll be getting a Russian Blue at around 10 weeks of age on 3rd of Feb.

Because I have to work at least 4 times a week out of home, I will either have to get an automatic feeder or think of another option to implement a routine?

I know the following feeding guidelines:

10-12 weeks- 4/5 meals a day

3-6months- 3 meals a day

6 months+- twice a day

But I'm really not sure about the portion sizes, especially at each stage?

So I really would like to know how much to feed per meal when feeding:

4/5 times a day

3 times a day

twice a day

I don't have a meat grinder and I've read you don't really need one. I know the 80-10-10 rule and I know I have to do variety of meat sources....so, how would be the best effective way to make weekly/fortnight batches?

Could I please have quantity per weekly/fortnight batch and per portion please (in grams would be amazing!)

I'm also confused how to rotate the meat variety per week in the batches that I make?

Moreover, I'm confused about bone/using premixes. I really would like to keep this simple and time efficient so I'd rather not have to mix various supplements etc so if I use a pre-mix such as this  which advices not to use bone, how often should I give him bone and not use this pre-mix per week?

I know bones are good for his dental health so I don't want to just relay on pre-mixes.

SO....if I could please get your help to make a schedule which outlines weekly ingredients, quantities, and bone/raw egg portions it would greatly help be less overwhelmed!

I am thinking of ordering meat from here and also bits that I can afford from my local organic butchers. 

Also it would be good to know based on your experiences how much it costs per month in the UK roughly? I would like to keep this as cost effective as possible whilst providing the best I can to prevent future illnesses!

Many thanks in advance!

 

[nuieng]

What kind of food does the breeder feed the kitten? I suggest you to continue feeding the same food to new kitten until he/she settles down in the new home and gradually transition him/her to new food over time. If you change the food too fast, a kitten can have diarrhea.

Please read transition guides in this page: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/263955/helpful-resources-raw-home-cooked-cat-food-forum

I usually feed a kitten as much as he will eat. If he eats dry/wet food, I will leave dry food out all day and feed wet food twice per day.

For raw diet, I feed him three times per day: before I go to work, after work, and before I go to bed. I don't use automatic feeder.

Kittens require a lot of energy and they will eat a lot more than adult cats so it is impossible to portion their food. I feed more if they empty their plates and they will stop when they are full. You may need to make their food more often until they start eating less. Magnum started eating less when he was almost 1 year old.

Will you put a kitten on frankenprey/Pray Model Raw? I am not sure if he/she can chew bones at that age. My 4-month old kitten, Whopper, can't eat meat chunk and bones yet so I put him on ground raw diet right now. I switched Magnum from ground raw to meat chunk and bone-in meat when he was 7-8 months old after he got adult teeth.

 

[LTS3]

@Columbine lives in the UK and can help you with local raw resources and approximate cost to feed raw in the UK.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/304370/recommendations-for-a-pre-prepared-raw-food-available-in-europe

 

[Columbine]

Hi somayeh , and welcome to TCS

This is a list of some raw pet food suppliers. If you want to feed bone, I'd suggest that you buy bone-in ground meat and use a premix designed for that style of food. That way you're not going to risk unbalancing the diet when you add in a bone or two to chew on

http://www.purrform.co.uk
http://www.nutriment.co/cat-food/
http://www.naturalinstinct.com/
https://www.kiezebrink.co.uk/
http://www.naturesmenu.co.uk
http://www.rawtogo.co.uk
http://www.nurturingbynature.co.uk
http://www.rawpetsupplies.co.uk
http://www.berriewoodwholesale.co.uk

Also, Pets at Home stores stock Nature's Menu products.

Personally, I would choose pet specific raw meats over butcher's meats - the DEFRA regulations regarding meat sold for raw feeding are much stricter than those governing 'human' meats (where the assumption is they'll be cooked before eating), so the meat is actually 'cleaner'. Hope that makes sense

FYI, the Nature's Menu Country Hunter freeze dried raw treats are actually a complete food - I've confirmed this with the company (my fussy girl will only consider freeze dried raw ). They're expensive, but worth knowing about - especially for days when you have to be out of the house.

I can't help you on cost, as I don't currently make my own raw, but the sites above should give you some idea.

Good luck

 

[somayeh]

Hello and thanks for the response guys! 

I was actually aware of some of the pre-made raw/high quality food options available in the UK but I feel it will add up to quite a lot of £££ considering they eat 2/3 pouches a day if I was to rely on them solely. But thank you for the links @Columbine  as now I see there are quite a lot more options too!

I really would appreciate specific help with coming up with a plan/schedule as I haven't had a pet before and I really don't know what to do!

So I think he's been on Whiskers wet and Royal Canine dry food....how long should I continue this when he arrives? 

@nuieng, you mentioned for raw you feed a kitten three times a day, but at what portions do I do so? 

I guess until he's 6 months I can put high quality dry food out when I'm out during the day and then transition him into wet raw 2/3 times a day?

I just don't know how much these portions should be and how to rotate the meat so it's balanced? For example the prices for the following seem reasonable but I wouldn't know how much to buy/how much to feed per portion: http://www.purrform.co.uk/product-category/meat-on-the-bone/

If I could kindly get some advice on people who have already embarked on the same journey as I am about to with a details of their routine/methods/ingredients/amounts I would really appreciate it!

Many thanks and apologies for being a little demanding, I just want to make sure I get it right and get into a good routine early on! (I'm a bit of a planner if you hadn't guessed

) 

 

[nuieng]

The amount to feed depends on your cat's weight and his life stage. You will have to weigh him at least once a week. General guidelines is 2-4% of body weight for adult and 4-8% of body weight for kitten. For young kitten I would say 8%. You can download excel calculator in catcentric.org website.

You can also find most your answers in that website, including example of menu choices and example of weekly menu in this page:

catcentric.org/nutrition-and-food/raw-feeding/a-prey-model-raw-pmr-feeding-primer/

I transitioned Whopper from dry/wet to raw after a week after I got him. But I put him on ground raw diet so I don't know about transition a kitten to PMR.

One important thing about PMR is that you have to make sure that your cat eats everything as you plan in order to have balanced diet. If your cat is a picky eater, you should reconsider feeding ground raw diet.

 

[Columbine]

It's not ideal to mix kibble and raw - they're so different that some cats have a hard time coping with the mix. You'd be far better off leaving unhydrated freeze dried raw out, or even high meat/low carb wet food. I've left wet food out when going out for the day and my cats have been absolutely fine with it.

You might find these articles helpful [article="31138"][/article][article="31714"][/article]

 

[missmimz]

I feed kibble and raw (and wet) to my cats without issue. Yes, this is unpopular but there isn't any actual evidence that suggests you can't feed them, just that you should be aware they are processed a lot differently and digest differently. To be clear, I don't fee raw and kibble at the same time, they are spaced out by several hours. Kibble is a noon snack (I have growing kittens) and a night time snack. I also feed high quality kibble, I would never do this with low quality kibble that has more fillers. 

 

[Columbine]

I feed kibble and raw (and wet) to my cats without issue. Yes, this is unpopular but there isn't any actual evidence that suggests you can't feed them, just that you should be aware they are processed a lot differently and digest differently. To be clear, I don't fee raw and kibble at the same time, they are spaced out by several hours. Kibble is a noon snack (I have growing kittens) and a night time snack. I also feed high quality kibble, I would never do this with low quality kibble that has more fillers. 

Good point. If kibble were part of timed meals then it could well work - I'm just uneasy about essentially free feeding kibble (even for only part of the day) in conjunction with raw. I could be wrong though - I never did claim to be a feline nutritionist

 

[missmimz]

Good point. If kibble were part of timed meals then it could well work - I'm just uneasy about essentially free feeding kibble (even for only part of the day) in conjunction with raw. I could be wrong though - I never did claim to be a feline nutritionist

I'm with you on that, i would not free-feed kibble with raw. I think if you do kibble and raw you must space them out by a few hours and the kibble should be a snack only not part of the meal. I just wanted to add that it's something I do in case other were interested. It may not be a good idea for the OP specifically. 

 

[ginny]

 
I feed kibble and raw (and wet) to my cats without issue. Yes, this is unpopular but there isn't any actual evidence that suggests you can't feed them, just that you should be aware they are processed a lot differently and digest differently. To be clear, I don't fee raw and kibble at the same time, they are spaced out by several hours. Kibble is a noon snack (I have growing kittens) and a night time snack. I also feed high quality kibble, I would never do this with low quality kibble that has more fillers. 

Just curious, which kibble do you feed your cats?

 

[missmimz]

 
Just curious, which kibble do you feed your cats?

I feed Orijen cat & kitten mixed with Ziwipeak air dried (different flavors but usually the beef or venison and fish). 

 

[ginny]

 
I feed Orijen cat & kitten mixed with Ziwipeak air dried (different flavors but usually the beef or venison and fish). 

Thanks!

 

[somayeh]

Hi guys,

So here is Kola:

 

image.jpeg

• somayeh
• Jan 30, 2016

It's his third day at home and he's doing really well. I started to put a little raw into his food (almo natural/lilies kitchen) since yesterday and he took to it right away!

I made the raw mix using Felini complete, chicken thighs, and turkey heart which I have mixed into Almo natural chicken and Lilie's kitchen dinner for kittens. 

I've included raw in every meal but I've noticed he won't eat much of the commercial and will pick out the raw bits!

This is great news obviously but I'm a little worried as I've read they can get diarrhoea if they eat too much too soon?

Any advice on this please?

Also his first vet visit is tomorrow so once I know his weight I can get a better idea of how much to feed him per meal, for now I'm putting down an amount  by eye and he has;t fully finished a whole meal yet as some always remain (which he might re-visit again if I leave the pate out).

 

[Columbine]

It is important to go slow with the transition to raw, but common sense applies too. So long as everything seems ok in the litterbox I can't see any harm in going a little faster.

You might want to try some different brands of wet food too. Thrive Complete is kitty crack for my guys, and is suitable for all life stages. Nature's Menu kitten pouches went down very well too. Both are pure meat, so may be a little more appealing than the Lily's Kitchen (which I think has a small amount of veggies in it - not a bad thing, but some cats just prefer the all meat foods).

Kittens should be fed to appetite, so there's no need to get too hung up on portion sizes at this stage. This guide from Nature's Menu might help though (only just remembered it :doh3: ).

Kola is gorgeous :love: :heart3: :heart2: :heart3: :love:

 

[miraculousbeads]

I keep Stormy's diet simple.  One can of Fancy Feast in the morning and there is always at least one cup of Meow Dry Cat Food with the soft middles.  Stormy's water gets changed twice a day.

Stormy enjoys eating some of my fish and chicken which I often cook for dinner.  She even loves to eat pasta and meatballs and licks the bowl full of tomato sauce and grated cheese.

 

[somayeh]

Thanks guys!

My only concern with portions is that I will be going back to work from Wednesday and I will need to know how much of a batch to make for when the automatic feeder arrives. 

The  feeder is airtight and can hold wet food so it should be ok with raw for 8 hours (I can put them in half frozen so that by the time he gets to it, it will still hopefully be fresh).

Just one more thing please, would this be a balanced schedule to do:

Morning: feed only a protein meat (with premix)

Afternoon: just organs 

Evening: a meaty bone/carcass 

The only issue would be that I wouldn't know how much meaty/bone ratio to give each night?

 

[Columbine]

To be absolutely honest, I'd be VERY wary of combining ground raw with prey model raw in this way - especially for a kitten. If it were me, I'd stick to ground raw for the bulk of the diet, and maybe add a raw meaty bone (such as a chicken wingtip) a couple of times a week as a treat.

If you really want to go for prey model raw, wait until he's old enough to have two feeds a day. In my opinion, it's virtually impossible to balance the two different diets together. Ground raw is absolutely fine, and is a great choice for Kola

Just a thought: the Felini is designed for boneless raw, so do make certain that any ground meat you buy is boneless - a lot of the pre ground meats have bone included If you want to use ground meat with bone, check out the [thread="272287"]​[/thread]. Most recipies there use individual supplements rather than a premix.

Lastly, be aware that too much bone can cause constipation - its vital to fin that balance.

 

[somayeh]

Thank you @Columbine, my bad, I didn't mean ground meat, I should've clarified I meat chunks.

I don't have a grinder (& won't be getting one) so I just cut up the meat and organ into chunks and add the premix with an egg yolk

 

[Columbine]

That's fine It's simply that most people doing homemade raw use pet specific pre ground meat (which pretty much every supplier I listed sells) - never hurts to be clear where nutrition's concerned

Btw - my understanding is that simply chewing chunks of raw meat is pretty great for cleaning teeth too. I really don't think you've got anything to worry about on that score