questions about mixed wet & raw diet

[roguethecat]

ETA: And what's the thing with taking the food out of the bowl? Amelie is taking it out and eating it right next to the bowl, but Harley likes to eat on the carpet, it seems

Is it a hunter's thing, I guess? I see that the bigger the piece, the further away they take it...

it's sometimes called the runaway diner... two reasons: 1) either it's easier to eat when out of the bowl or 2) they don't want anyone else to take it.

What you can do:

more bowls/feeding mats, spread apart a bit. Flat bowls or even plates.

I gave mine a small rug they can use (the Rogue

insists on that) and that I wash frequently. 

This of course doesn't work when they think they have to kill a dead critter (the first time I gave Grisou 

 a whole day-old chick, he took half an hour to drag and throw it over my whole living room to heroically take it down, complete with wild growling)

 

[peaches08]

 
it's sometimes called the runaway diner...

So true! 

  Mine thankfully plop theirs next to the bowl on the linoleum. 

 

[irinasak]

This of course doesn't work when they think they have to kill a dead critter (the first time I gave Grisou 

 a whole day-old chick, he took half an hour to drag and throw it over my whole living room to heroically take it down, complete with wild growling)

Oh, I can image that!

 

[irinasak]

I have a stupid question and a weird question:

The stupid question is: I can not source water packed salt free canned sardines, but I can get them fresh or frozen. Can I give my cats fresh or frozen sardines?

The weird question: since increasing the raw, the color of the stools has changed: they were dark brown, now they are light brown. Should I worry about it?

Thanks.

 

[stephanie42]

re: litter box, generally stools from raw-fed cats are much lighter and drier than cats fed wet/dry commercial food.  because you're transitioning their diet to more raw than other stuff, their stools will change.  dr. pierson has a very good photo illustration of this on her site:  http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood#Constipation, you may need to scroll down a tiny bit.

 

[roguethecat]

 
I have a stupid question and a weird question:

The stupid question is: I can not source water packed salt free canned sardines, but I can get them fresh or frozen. Can I give my cats fresh or frozen sardines?

hey, there are virtually no stupid questions

 and don't we all just love the weird ones?

frozen sardines: if they will eat them, sure. 

fresh sardines: if coming from a trustworthy source

, yes - you're worried about worms and other nasties here - if you want to be careful, freeze for a couple of weeks to make sure you're feeding sardines only without other living things in.

 

[irinasak]

I haven't updated in a while. We are still at 30% raw and 70% wet and I am quite happy with this because I got into this routine that serves me well. However, I think that I will go soon to 50% raw with Harley and Amelie, who love meat and bones and organs from all animals, even pork and beef, because they think that cats, given the opportunity, hunt pork and cows. Amelie doesn't eat liver every time it is served, but she eats freeze dried liver, so no problem.

Sophie has made huge progress. I think that I was not patient enough with her at first. She eats her meat with no toppers, she has gained some weight and she is not borderline anorexic anymore, but she has made me remember mathematics because she doesn't eat bones or organs. I alternate between MCHA from Now and eggshells every two weeks, and I think we are ok with the amount of calcium in her diet. But I couldn't find cod oil, so I give her Vit A and Vit D from time to time and worry about overdosing her.

Vit A is 10 000 iu, which I calculated to be the amount needed to balance 24 days of 1 meal/day of raw food (taking into account that 70% of her diet is balanced wet).

Vit D is 400 iu, that would be one pill every 8 days.

So because I was never a good math student and until I can find cod oil or Vit A and Vit D with the proper dosage, I am reluctant in giving her more raw.

By the way, we took all three of them to the vet recently and the vet kept asking me how often I bathe them because their fur is so soft. He did not believe me that we NEVER bathed them. And this with only 30% raw.

 

[ldg]

I have a recipe with the amount of A and D needed. We can back into it.

http://www.blakkatz.com/recipes.pdf

It is

2.5 pounds of meat and bone
0.5 pound heart
0.25 pound liver

So a total of roughly 3 pounds of meat and heart. The tolerance for toxicity of A and D is not nearly enough to fret about how much the bone weighs - the only know reported vitamin A toxicity in a cat occurred with kitty eating a diet of ONLY liver. As to D - cats have a very low need for D.

3 x 16 ounces per pound is 48 ounces of raw food.

The instructions are "If you absolutely cannot source liver substitute vitamin A/D capsules. You will want approximately 20,000 IU vitamin A and whatever amount of vitamin D comes in the capsule for each recipe. Vitamin A/D capsules usually come in amounts of 10,000 IU vitamin A and 400 IU vitamin D per capsule."

So 20,000 iu of A (with however much D comes with that) per 48 ounces of raw food. That works out to 416 IU of A per ounce. I think if you're going to balance daily, you can round to 400 IU or 450 IU without worry. Or just figure out how many days it takes her to eat 24 ounces of the raw food, and give her a 10,000 IU capsule. Both are fat soluble vitamins.

So ... you can use that to double-check your math, and see if it works out to how much raw she's eating!


And YES! Even *some* raw provides benefit!