New to feeding raw

[sara grogan]

My cat Paws has a senstive tummy so we have started him on nv raw bites. Paws is not liking his new diet so much. I am not going to give up but is there a way to make it easier on him. I cant mix his canned food in with it becouse it has been making him sick.

 

[maraozza]

You can sprinkle the raw bites with crushed freeze dried treats or if you have spare time and patience,
you can roll each of them in it.

A couple of days ago, I gave NV Raw Chicken medallion to my cat for the first time and he wasn't very impressed with it (He prefers to have his raw meat cut in to pieces and not ground). So after, I made small meatballs rolled in the FD chicken crumbs, he ate them all.

 

[peaches08]

You can also try parmesan cheese or crushed kibble as a topper. Both are fairly inexpensive.

 

[sara grogan]

Thankss for the tip. Paws likes it a little on the warm side. And smashed up to look like his old canned food. After this was done he loved it!

 

[sara grogan]

I have got my paws to eat nv raw, now my next question is can I keep him on store bought raw but add to it? I have tried reading up on raw feeding but there is so much and its very confusing, I dont want to make his food. I am scared to make it wrong and not get him somthing he needs. I would like to use the pre made as a base and add to it. Has anyone done this? How could I go about this? I would like to add extra meet or chicken livers, gizzerds. Can this be done?

 

[ldg]

You know, NV sells patties. They'd be much easier to mash up than those raw bites. It's the same food, just in a different format. I don't know if they make all the flavors of food they have in the "small bites" format, so it may also open up a range of other proteins you can feed him. I don't know if anyone has mentioned, but when you introduce new raw proteins, it's best to do so slowly - like 15% or 20% new food for a couple of meals, to see how he manages it (especially for a kitty with tummy trouble). Also, some kitties have an issue with red meats - they can sometimes take longer to introduce, or the raw red meats may not agree with them at all. I have a kitty that can only eat red meats if it is 50% or less of a meal.

NV targets a somewhat high bone content (at around 15%), so I actually had to mix in plain raw meat for my kitties after using NV for a couple of months, as they began to get a little constipated. When there's too much calcium, a cat will get constipated, so to lower the bone content, I fed meals of plain raw meat here and there.

It's safe to feed up to 15% of the diet unbalanced. So if you're feeding 21 meals a week, three of them can be whatever you like.

Cats do not do well with organs being a sole meal. At best, liver or something should be 50% of a meal, and that was too much for my cats (they'd get diarrhea from that much organ at one sitting). So that's something to keep in mind. As a general guideline, when feeding prey model raw, the proportions are (approximately) 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% other secreting organ (and this is typically balanced over a week). So there's that info, just for perspective.

Also, the cat goes through a lot of adjustments in a raw transition. Their entire digestive system becomes more acidic (as it should be). So just another head's up that meal timing can be important. When first feeding raw, it can sometimes take a little work to get meals timed correctly so they don't throw up bile, just because they have an empty stomach. That can happen.

So to answer your question - you can either use the NV as a base, and increase it's volume by 15% with the addition of other things. Or you can just feed 3 meals a week of other stuff.

Other good additions, as snacks, not meal replacements, are an egg yolk (if he likes it), or a sardine (and either one can be fed once or twice a week). Both are nutrition-packed goodies, and provide omega 3s which are somewhat short in the diet (well, omega 3s are short in ANY diet, actually). Sardines should be canned in water, no salt. Some cats love them, some hate them. :lol3:

 

[sara grogan]

Thank you so much for the help. Paws can not eat red meat (well canned anyway) it comes right back. I am new to this and its very worriesome but if he keeps it down its worth all the trouble.

 

[sara grogan]

Thank you so much for the help. Paws can not eat red meat (well canned anyway) it comes right back. I am new to this and its very worriesome but if he keeps it down its worth all the trouble.

 

[harleydiva]

Other good additions, as snacks, not meal replacements, are an egg yolk (if he likes it), or a sardine (and either one can be fed once or twice a week). Both are nutrition-packed goodies, and provide omega 3s which are somewhat short in the diet (well, omega 3s are short in ANY diet, actually). Sardines should be canned in water, no salt. Some cats love them, some hate them.

I have never fed egg yolks.....I am currently using a salmon oil squirt or  occasional sardine for omegas.  The bottle of salmon oil is nearing empty, so I have to decide whether to replace it or get something else.  I started to look at krill oil sources, but when I searched came up with all kinds or warnings about krill oil being bad???  Does the egg yolk provide enough omegas?  

 

[ldg]

The egg yolk itself doesn't provide enough omegas - well, certainly not as a replacement for salmon or krill oil. But if no omega 3s are being provided, the egg yolk is certainly an excellent addition. There are also "omega 3" eggs sold in many places; they're higher in omega 3s because the chickens' diet included something high in omega 3s (like flax seed). I feed egg yolks primarily for the choline, which is often a little short in raw diets without it. Basically, when feeding prey model raw, at least egg yolks and sardines are typically considered an essential part of the diet as re: balanced nutrition.

And krill oil "bad"? From what perspective? Krill oil is considered - as far as I'm aware - to be a sustainable source of omegas, and there's quite a bit of research that supports the claims that the nutrients are more bioavailable than that from fish oils. The experience of my cat Flowerbelle bears this out: on salmon oil, there was no noticeable difference in the arthritis in her hips. It took just three days of krill oil to see a noticeable difference.

 

[sara grogan]

Feeding paws both store bought and a little extra meet is extra addtives needing? Like fish oil?

 

[ldg]

The critical component of krill, salmon or "fish" oil in a prey model raw diet is the vitamin D. There is none in meat or organs. But it's a good addition to any diet, IMO. The meat we feed our animals, pretty much unless they're in your yard grazing and you're feeding them a high quality diet, is universally low in omega 3s. Grass-fed/grass finished red meats have a better omega 6: omega 3 profile, but it still doesn't approach the natural O6:O3 ratio of a cat's natural diet (where the ratio is 2:1).

With the factory farmed meats we eat, the addition of omega 3s to the diet holds true for people too.

Most commercial raw diets for cats (and dogs) are pretty high in fat, so yes, it's usually a good idea to include an omega 3 supplement, IMO. Cats are incapable of converting the omega 3, ALA, into the needed components EPA and DHA, so any plant-based omega 3 supplement doesn't help. That's why fish oil of some kind is used. And the reason salmon or krill is recommended, is because they are usually higher quality. The guidelines for selecting a fish oil usually start with "using a named fish" for the oil. :lol3:

Canned cat foods usually have an O6:O3 ratio of something on the order of 20:1.

I feed a supplemented prey model raw diet, with some ground whole animal mixes I buy from Hare-Today. A diet analysis indicated the O6:O3 ratio, prior to the addition of sardines or salmon oil was 17:1, I think it was. When I added weekly sardines, the ratio became 12:1. With the addition of 500mg of salmon (or krill) oil daily, that ratio came down to 4:1 (but I feed a relatively low fat diet. FYI, cats in general can do very well on a lot of fat, their bodies are designed to use it - though kitties with IBD may have issues with a high fat diet).

My smallest cat is 7 pounds; my largest is 13.5 pounds. They all get 500mg of either salmon or krill oil daily. I would give them all krill oil, I just can't afford to feed 8 cats krill oil every day.

This is the salmon oil I use (it's 1,000mg capsules though):
It's a very high quality oil.

This is the krill oil I use:
I just puncture the capsules and squeeze it on their food. When introducing it, just like everything else, it's best to start small, and work up to the daily dose.

There are some commercial raw foods that include salmon oil, but I don't think NV is one of them.

 

[harleydiva]

Is there any reason not to use the salmon oil in the pump bottle?  I have been told to buy smaller bottles and keep it in the refrigerator so it doesn't go bad, but otherwise it is a lot easier than squeezing 6 capsules every day (3 dogs, 3 cats).

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Mercola makes Krill Oil in a pump too.  I've been thinking about that, since I seem to never get all the oil out of those capsules, and usually end up with it all over myself too

 

[sara grogan]

We started raw Sat afternoon he keepnhis trial bites down, dinner on Sat and both meals Sunday. With his tummy I was so happy. But today's am meal only stayed down for like 15 mins. ill try again tonight, I hope it was just an off am.

 

[peaches08]

Just a thought, could it be hairballs?

 

[sara grogan]

When he gets sick there is no hair in it and he gets sick anywhere from as he eats to 2hours later.

 

[ldg]

Is there any reason not to use the salmon oil in the pump bottle?  I have been told to buy smaller bottles and keep it in the refrigerator so it doesn't go bad, but otherwise it is a lot easier than squeezing 6 capsules every day (3 dogs, 3 cats).

Depends on the brand and the type of pump bottle. The issue with pump bottles is oxidation.

Mercola makes Krill Oil in a pump too.  I've been thinking about that, since I seem to never get all the oil out of those capsules, and usually end up with it all over myself too :anon:

Mercola uses a high quality oil with a pump bottle that prevents oxidation. :nod:

 

[ldg]

We started raw Sat afternoon he keepnhis trial bites down, dinner on Sat and both meals Sunday. With his tummy I was so happy. But today's am meal only stayed down for like 15 mins. ill try again tonight, I hope it was just an off am.

Is he eating 100% raw? You switched quickly? You might need to back up a bit, and mix it with whatever canned he was eating, and go more slowly. This does happen sometimes, even for kitties on 100% raw for weeks, or even a month or more. We've been puzzling over it, but it seems that just starting over and going more slowly does the trick.

...if it's not hairballs, which even though there wasn't hair, doesn't mean it wasn't a hairball. Raw is digested differently, and some cats also seem to go through an adjustment period, where for a while they'll "collect" hair differently than they did on canned. For others, raw solves hairball issues. It just depends on the cat, really. Was the food digested? Partially digested? Or undigested? If undigested, then it could be a hairball. When a hairball forms and just sits on the bottom of the stomach, it blocks the food from moving through, so the food comes back up - but the hairball doesn't necessarily come up too. But the clue here is that the food, for the most part, remains undigested, but comes back up hours after the meal.

 

[sara grogan]

Paws has tummy problems that may be along the lines of Ibd. The vet cant find anything wrong with him. Over the past few weeks he has stoped keeoing his wet canned food down. He keeos dry kibble down just fine. He is 18lbs and I dont want to feed him just kibble knowing how its not good for him. I put him on raw to replace wet. We cant really use can to help him eat raw. He keep his dinner last night down and this morings meal down. Its always a wait and see kinda thing. I just want to find something he will keep down all the time.