Need help with Rad Cat raw food.

[goblinsmom]

Hi all!  Goblin and I are new to this site but we've been perusing threads (literally "we" -- I'm not allowed to operate my computer without him!) and everyone seems so friendly and helpful here.  

A little background: Goblin is a five year old neutered domestic shorthair gray tabby (with spots AND stripes! 

).  Although he has not been officially diagnosed via blood tests or anything of the sort, his vet told us that due to his frequent conjunctivitis and upper respiratory infections, he likely is a feline herpes kitty.  He takes an L-lysine supplement prescribed by his vet and does well with it.  He has the occasional bout of upset stomach (vomiting, which I believe is because he SCARFS his food sometimes), but I wouldn't call it a chronic problem.

For the first few years of his life, he was a kibble cat (before I knew any better) and when I was told kibble is not a good diet for cats, we switched over to canned Friskies and refrigerated Fresh Pet food.  I knew it wasn't an ideal brand, but it was what I could afford at the time and the vet told us that ANY canned food is better than even the best quality dry food.  He has been eating a mix of Friskies canned and Fresh Pet for about three years.

After doing much internet research and speaking to a very knowledgeable local pet store owner, I decided to try and switch him to a raw diet.  I don't have the means or the knowledge and understanding to prepare the food myself, so I was recommended Rad Cat and given a free sample of each flavor.  

He eats Friskies chicken, and so I started with the RadCat chicken.  I let him sniff it and see if he'd just take to it (yeah, right!) but turns out that was all wishful thinking.  He licked some off my finger, but immediately made a face and started shaking his head in displeasure.  So I tried mixing just a little bit into his food, and now he won't go near his dish.  I tried just leaving a bit of the raw food NEXT to his dish so that he could get used to the smell, and he doesn't want to go near it AT ALL.  Like he thinks I'm trying to poison him or something!

I was warned that this would likely be a long process, and that looks like the truth.  But I'm determined to make sure he's getting the best that I can offer him -- I want him to have a long, healthy life because without him I would be incomplete!

So, I guess my real questions are: is RadCat as great as everyone says it is?  Is it worth all this effort we're going to be going through?  I'm hoping for something that will cut down on his herpes flare ups and dental cleanings, and overall give him better health and longer life. What is the best way to transition him? Should I try to switch him to a high quality canned food (Weruva?) before the raw food? I've heard that using raw supplement powders like FelineFC or a probiotic like FortiFlora might make the raw food smell more palatable, does have anyone have experience with those? Or sprinkling fresh catnip (he LOVES nip)? I've also heard cooking it for just a few seconds in a skillet to bring out the smell of the meat might draw him to it, is it safe to do this? Also, after being thawed to room temperature, how long can the raw food sit out before it becomes unsafe for him to eat?

Thank you in advance for your time and opinions! I look forward to hearing what has worked for you and your kitties.

 

[betha]

Just a quick note tonight to get you started.

First, don't cook a premade raw diet.  You don't want to heat up the added supplements.  If you were ever going to heat something up, you would heat up the meat by itself.

My cats ate Rad Cat for years and they just changed how they make it.  Mine won't get near it now.  Your cat might not like this recipe (if your samples are even the new batch), or your cat just doesn't know that raw meat is food

Forti flora topper may work

I use 100% freeze dried chicken sprinkled on all their food.. kitty crack

When I first tried raw, I needed more help to get them to eat, so I smeared tuna on their meals and slowly reduced it (tuna made for cats!)  

Other people here will have better advice than me, but if I were you, I might just start out with a little raw chicken.  Get him to like raw meat before you need to worry about getting him to like the supplements.  Now, this might spoil him and make it harder to transition later, I don't know.  

If you keep him on canned, then high quality canned makes sense. If you are trying to switch him over, maybe it's not needed at this point.  ?

Good luck!!!

 

[goblinsmom]

Thank you, Beth, for the insight!  I'll look into some freeze dried chicken and... cat tuna?  I didn't even know such a thing existed!  Thanks again. 

 

[lisahe]

I second the idea of freeze-dried chicken treats: our cats will eat just about anything with Pure Bite dust on it. They also love Good Lovin' freeze-dried chicken heart treats I bought at Petco.

I also agree about the Rad Cat: maybe Goblin just doesn't like their recipe? Or maybe he doesn't like their chicken but would eat their turkey or lamb? (Our cats love the chicken and turkey but don't like the lamb...) Our cats ate Rad Cat right away so I don't have any stories about successful conversion after many tries. Cooking raw food defeats its purpose, so definitely don't do that, though I think some people will bring plastic bags of it to a slightly warmer temperature by putting the bag in tepid water. I think the Rad Cat site says to only leave the food out for a half-hour.

The thought of first switching him to some canned foods that are more natural meat sounds good. If the ultimate goal is to switch him to raw foods like Rad Cat, then I'd stick with meatier foods that are very low carb, with no fillers. That's better for cats anyway, but particularly important, I think, for getting them used to meat in a more natural form. Weruva that doesn't have potato (Cats in the Kitchen chicken foods are filled with shredded meat) is good and Tiki Cat is even better (Gourmet Carnivore and the original "luau" foods are great, with real shreds and chunks of meat). Our cats eat both those brands regularly and love them. They also eat Merrick LID pates, a few Bravo canned foods, and Nutro Natural Choice, though those are less recognizable as pieces of meat. The ones that are "minced" or "sliced" seem more preformed than actually minced or sliced pieces of meat, though I could be wrong.

One other thing: we feed our cats a combination of raw and canned foods, probably about 60% raw, 40% canned. Most of the raw food we feed is Primal freeze-dried. It's decent food but not as good as Rad Cat, which I don't want to feed too much of because our cats get bored with their food so easily!

Good luck!

 

[missmimz]

None of my cats really love the RC chicken. Mine LOVE the RC venison and beef, tho. The turkey and lamb are hit and miss. 

 

[goblinsmom]

Thank you for the input! So far, we've tried Rad Cat chicken, turkey, and venison. He'd take a little chicken off my finger and then looked at me like I was trying to kill him. He actively ran away from the turkey. But last night, he ate about 2oz of his Friskies with about a teaspoon of venison mixed in! Yay, progress! (I hope.). He threw a fit about it at first but after realizing that was dinner and he wasn't going to get anything else, he finally gave in and just ate it.

The hardest part for me right now is trying to find a feeding balance. He usually gets two meals a day, half a can of Friskies and a tablespoon or two of Fresh Pet. But his meals stay down all day and he grazes on them as he pleases. Obviously I can't leave the raw out for him to do that and I've read that he should be on a feeding schedule anyway instead of grazing throughout the day. But if he refuses to eat within a set time, I don't want to pick up the food and let him go without eating. He's not overweight (at least, I don't think so?), but I still don't want to risk hepatic lipidosis or something else that'll make him sick from him going too long without eating. But also I feel like if he won't eat the Rad Cat within half an hour and I end up just giving him his Friskies, he'll learn that he can out stubborn me and I'll give him what he wants if he just waits long enough. Ugh, frustrated!

 

[lisahe]

Thank you for the input! So far, we've tried Rad Cat chicken, turkey, and venison. He'd take a little chicken off my finger and then looked at me like I was trying to kill him. He actively ran away from the turkey. But last night, he ate about 2oz of his Friskies with about a teaspoon of venison mixed in! Yay, progress! (I hope.). He threw a fit about it at first but after realizing that was dinner and he wasn't going to get anything else, he finally gave in and just ate it.

The hardest part for me right now is trying to find a feeding balance. He usually gets two meals a day, half a can of Friskies and a tablespoon or two of Fresh Pet. But his meals stay down all day and he grazes on them as he pleases. Obviously I can't leave the raw out for him to do that and I've read that he should be on a feeding schedule anyway instead of grazing throughout the day. But if he refuses to eat within a set time, I don't want to pick up the food and let him go without eating. He's not overweight (at least, I don't think so?), but I still don't want to risk hepatic lipidosis or something else that'll make him sick from him going too long without eating. But also I feel like if he won't eat the Rad Cat within half an hour and I end up just giving him his Friskies, he'll learn that he can out stubborn me and I'll give him what he wants if he just waits long enough. Ugh, frustrated!

Let's take the venison progress first: that's a good thing! I'd probably work with that, trying to first feed him the mix for a while and see how it goes. Then maybe you could increase the amount of venison. And even (!!) try another Rad Cat flavor again. It seems like some cats just don't initially recognize raw food as food but then start to like it. (I think we've been lucky with it, with three cats, past and present!) I'd work on raw food acceptance and appreciation more before trying to institute a schedule. It can take time and I remember some other Cat Site members feeling like they and their cats were stressed out about food: don't feel like you've lost if you have to step back a little. That seems to happen a lot.

As for feeding schedules, there are lots of ways to do this. We do a modified sort of thing and feed about six meals a day. We have one cat (a vulture with a sensitive stomach) that needs to be fed frequently and another cat who's a slow eater, a grazer. And we feed three raw meals a day and three canned meals a day. (I know that sounds crazy but it works really well for these two and is a lot easier than it sounds.) Since the meals aren't very large (two, one of which is Rad Cat, are really just snacks) even the grazer has gotten so she eats most everything at once, so they're essentially timed meals. I suspect lots of small meals work well for cats like her and Goblin.

Anyway, good luck and good for you for getting as far as you have!

 

[goblinsmom]

Thanks, Lisa, I think the idea of several small meals is a great idea for him. If nothing else, maybe I won't have to throw away so much food after the little brat turns his nose up at it. Lol.

I still have beef and lamb in the freezer so I'm hoping he'll be open to trying one of those after a few more tries with the venison. But the Friskies beef makes him vomit, so I'm a little hesitant to try the RC.

This is Goblin's reaction to a bit of the chicken mixed into his dinner. [emoji]128514[/emoji]

image.jpeg

• goblinsmom
• Mar 16, 2016

 

[lisahe]

That's a great picture! I can say that because the disdainful look is so familiar.

Ireland, our grazer, does that, too.

You know, I just remembered something we did when we were switching our cats from dry food (they loved it when we first adopted them: they were seriously underweight and hungry) to wet: I tapered back on their dry food during the day and started feeding it to them only at night. In the beginning, they didn't eat the wet food very eagerly during the day because they were waiting for the dry food but then they started to get used to to the wet stuff. Maybe some version of that--feeding smaller portions of wet food during a certain time to encourage raw food--might help you, too.