Making the leap for raw for the coming year

[lucentstreak]

Pardon if I ramble since this has been 7 weeks in the making.

I have posted twice on the other board about how Hugo has gotten picky with his food and his recent visit to the vet came to no conclusion except for "stress". I dug around a bit - fretting like most and buying all varieties of grain free wet food. I found that he refused to eat his usual merricks and wellness but would eat something that is like applaws (grainfree, just meat and taurine - no other stuff). The conclusion of this episode, I guess, would be Hugo is sensitive to certain ingredients and not the meat.   At that point of time, the pet store owner passed me some primal freeze dried nuggets to test and he took it with gusto.

Now - one week after the samples and sitting down to work out the sums, I realized that I have overspent my monthly budget in trying to source for something nutritious that Hugo would eat (not to mention the stress, wastage  and time that I spent) . Hence, I am picked up 2 patties of Dr B's BARF (Rabbit and Kangaroo) for him to try. Good news is that he consumed 3/8 of a Rabbit patty straight out of the packet this morning and I am tempted to get the entire box for him and slowly work him through the week together with Primal freeze dried. 

The questions here are:

1) Hugo tends to get distracted from his food and eats the patty rather slowly - will you have any advice to that or is that normal? Is 30 mins the longest that these patties can be out?

2) I tend to work irregular hours (I'm actually off this week thus the whole trying to revamp the food situation) and I'm wondering if I switch him to raw, would there be an issue?

3) In the same vein as the question above, would there be an issue if I mix feed Hugo the raw patties with freeze dried Primal just to tide him through the days that I work late?

4) How long do patties hold in the freezer?

Caveats:

i) I live in Hong Kong thus the only raw brands that I have managed to find are Dr B's and Primal's freeze dried complete, grind and mix.

ii) It's not quite possible to make my own cat food due to lack of space.

Thank you!

 

[ritz]

Welcome to the dark side
I fed prey model raw but I think the principles are the same regarding your questions. Other readers/posters: please chime in!
1. Have you tried putting down the food (regardless of the type) and after 30 minutes removing it and then not feeding Hugo again until the appropriate time. That may train him to eat within the 30 minutes or go hungry.
Regarding your specific question about how long can raw food be left out, I would say up to an hour. Cats have a higher tolerance to bacteria than humans; otherwise a lot more of the the feral cats who dumpster dive for food would die of food poison. I also think length of time is a personal preference, tolerance level. I (alas) don't have that problem: Ritz eats right away and always seems to want more. (She would eat the meat frozen.)
2. I think the issue is more how long between feedings versus irregularity, at least in my case. Cats will adjust. You can try leaving out food that is frozen (but, see above) if the length of time between feedings is excessive, by excessive I mean what your cat will tolerate. The ideal is about every five to six hours. But I am gone during the week 11 to 12 hours at a time (long commute to/from work). Ritz will sometimes throw up if she eats too fast; it is because of the acid build up in her stomach. It's something to keep in mind and see if Hugo is sensitive to that.
3. I don't see a problem with that. One suggestion I've read/considered in Ritz' case is to leave out freeze dried food or use an automatic food dispenser. The latter must be able to keep food cool; there are some technical problems with automatic food dispensers (reviews of them haven't been that great). For perhaps obvious reasons, I wouldn't consider leaving out dry food for Ritz to munch on.
4. Patties should hold a long time in the freezer, if properly packaged. The fuller the container, the better (or squeeze out excess air).
Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[lucentstreak]

Welcome to the dark side

I fed prey model raw but I think the principles are the same regarding your questions. Other readers/posters: please chime in!
1. Have you tried putting down the food (regardless of the type) and after 30 minutes removing it and then not feeding Hugo again until the appropriate time. That may train him to eat within the 30 minutes or go hungry.
Regarding your specific question about how long can raw food be left out, I would say up to an hour. Cats have a higher tolerance to bacteria than humans; otherwise a lot more of the the feral cats who dumpster dive for food would die of food poison. I also think length of time is a personal preference, tolerance level. I (alas) don't have that problem: Ritz eats right away and always seems to want more. (She would eat the meat frozen.)
2. I think the issue is more how long between feedings versus irregularity, at least in my case. Cats will adjust. You can try leaving out food that is frozen (but, see above) if the length of time between feedings is excessive, by excessive I mean what your cat will tolerate. The ideal is about every five to six hours. But I am gone during the week 11 to 12 hours at a time (long commute to/from work). Ritz will sometimes throw up if she eats too fast; it is because of the acid build up in her stomach. It's something to keep in mind and see if Hugo is sensitive to that.
3. I don't see a problem with that. One suggestion I've read/considered in Ritz' case is to leave out freeze dried food or use an automatic food dispenser. The latter must be able to keep food cool; there are some technical problems with automatic food dispensers (reviews of them haven't been that great). For perhaps obvious reasons, I wouldn't consider leaving out dry food for Ritz to munch on.
4. Patties should hold a long time in the freezer, if properly packaged. The fuller the container, the better (or squeeze out excess air).
Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Hi and thank you for replying.

I'm glad to say that we're up to about 1/2 patty all in this morning (yesterday was a 1/4 and approx 7/8 for the whole day with some wastage). Hugo fancies Primal freeze dried -a lot- and I'm trying to fashion a feeding plan that would work. He managed to finish 1/2 patty all in 40 mins or so which is fine although I had to top his patty with bonito flakes and 1/2 a nugget of primal.

Regarding the length of time in between feeding, I can take out a nugget or two of primal and leave it for him as dry.

My question would now be, how do I calculate the calories and food intake? Hugo used to take in about 5.5 oz wet (around 150~ kcal) and about 40 - 50 g of Orijen (100  kcal?).  Right now, given by how long he takes to consume patties and how I may need to run out in the morning for work, I'm thinking of just giving him 1 patty a day (the prescribed is about 1.75 ~ 2 patties a day for a cat his size and each patty is about 3.95 ounces) and using freeze dried for the rest (1 Primal nugget is about 40-50K cal). I'm having issue trying to figure out how many nuggets leave out in between?

Also, Hugo seems to get hungry really fast after his morning meal but I can try to figure things out if I get an idea of how much for measurement.

Would there be a measurement guide when it comes to raw meat?

 

[lucentstreak]

Also, he hasn't pooped yet but I have given him some plain yogurt to lick (not much). I have also noticed that he is starting to smell different (I can only describe as sour) - is this part of the detoxing process?

 

[ritz]

I'm pretty much at the level of my knowledge in general, only know about Ritz, specifically.
Are you giving your cat probiotics, that may help with any digestive issues. There isn't a lot of probiotics in yogurt, and cats are lactose intolerant. Any human grade probiotic is fine, don't need to spend extra money on one formulated for cats/dogs. Should have at least 10 billion active cells. This is one of many threads that discusses probiotics.
A number of commercial raw websites have calculators that help you figure out the amount of food to give your cat, and the better ones give you options, that is, how much to feed if your cat needs to gain weight, how much to maintain, how much to lose weight.
Dr. B's has one and I would use that company's since you're feeding their food.
A lot of this whole raw feeding is trial and error, experimental to some degree. Leave out one or two nuggets and (1) see if he eats it and (2) watch his weight. And determine whether it is hunger or he just really really like what you just fed him and wants some more (appetite). With Ritz, it's all about the appetite.

 

[lucentstreak]

I see.. thank you!

We got marbled poop today (I ended up mixing some wet in because I screwed up on warming the patty this morning).

The thing is, I think he likes his freeze dried (reconstituted or otherwise) much more than the raw patties. Sigh. I thought I could get him back on Wellness for a treat last night and he just simply refused to look at the turkey formula.

This is so vexing.