Switching Newt To Raw

goingpostal

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I recently adopted a new cat about a month ago, a year after my first kitty passed on. My dogs, ferrets and previous cat all raw fed for the past six years so I had plans to swap Newt, my new girl as well. My first cat had taken to it without any issue, I figured my luck probably wouldn't be as good this time around. I dutifully picked up a variety of canned food and a bag of Acana before bringing her home to cover my bases.

Week one-fed her just kibble/canned, was a little discouraged as she seemed to be a gravy licker who didn't want to chew or work at her food, also a little picky on flavors of canned she would touch, more than a few went to a dog. Her spay was scheduled this week so didn't want to add the hassle of diet change quite yet. I showed her the ferret meals to see if there was any interest (whole prey items)-no go.

Week two-started chopping pieces off my other carnivores meals to offer her, tried rabbit, chicken, beef. She looked disgusted at me. Mixed in the canned, no go. I remembered I had some (expired whoops) fortiflora from a failed attempt to get my previous kitty to eat while she was ailing. Wow. Good stuff to Newt. She tries the meat. I repeat, a lot over the next days. Some things are a hit, others get ignored. But, she's eating it.

Week three-figuring out likes/dislikes, finishing off the canned. By this point I've put the kibble away entirely, feeding raw and canned equally, I bought a game hen for some bone in along with pork and beef as she's eating a lot and chopping off the dogs meals isn't going to fly anymore. Not using the fortiflora anymore. I finish off the last of the canned. She is a little iffy about some bones but will eat wings and legs great.

Week 4-today, Raw fed but still working on it. Now my goal is to get her eating organ meat and more proteins. Amusingly she's in so many ways the opposite of my first cat. She loves red meat, pork and beef yes, rabbit and turkey no, but she'll eat chicken/game hen. I'm going to offer her some pork organs and see if that's a go and going to get some venison and goat to try on her soon. I did get her to eat a mouse pinky, adults/any whole prey she ignores but I'm thinking I can work her up to bigger ones if she'll eat pinks and maybe that will get her over the fur/feathers hump. Also need to figure out how much food she really needs as she would gladly eat nonstop but is tiny and I don't want her getting fat.
 

orange&white

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Sounds like she's transitioning really well!

How old is she? Cats usually eat 2-4% of their body weight per day, and kittens will eat twice as much (4-8%). My overweight senior would eat non-stop, but I have him on a 2% diet; the kitten eats 5+% of her weight.
 
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goingpostal

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She's 3 years old and 6 pounds which I think was around 3oz/day. That seems like nothing to me, used to the dogs and ferrets and with my other cat I never measured really. I should throw that on a scale so I can better judge and figure out what I've been feeding her. Seems like it's much easier to control weight than drop it later.
 

orange&white

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Ahhh, such a tiny little thing. :catrub:

Being that small a 1% difference in food is a lot ("96" is how many ounces a 6lb cat weighs):

96
2% 1.92
3% 2.88
4% 3.84

Sometimes the smaller the animal the larger % they need as a "base" for nutrients, but yeah, probably 3 ounces a day. It does seem like "not enough food" though after having dogs and bigger cats! Once you start balancing her meats/bones/organs, you can just freeze 9-10 ounce containers (by weight, not volume) and know that is 3 days of food for her. Increase if she starts looking thin; decrease if she starts looking like a pudge.
 
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