Their first raw meal!

[stealthkitty]

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We're slowly getting organized to provide our cats with a PMR diet. Here's photographic evidence of our first attempt at feeding raw. It was a hit! These two guys really gobbled it down--well, they gobbled it as fast as they could crunch up the bones.

There was even a little growling! I don't know if that's to be expected, but we took it to mean that they loved their meal so much they didn't want to share.

Guess we'll start giving them separate plates.

The photo shows the first course: chicken wing. Second course was some liver and other organs. I figured we'd start with those since they've been fed mainly muscle meat as solid food, since the weaning process began. (Well, muscle mean along with milk, potatoes, noodles and other things cats shouldn't eat regularly; but we've put an end to that!)

Speaking of organs, as I was preparing the plate I realized that I have no idea how to identify which organs are which! Is there a website with photos? For instance, as I was chopping up what I'm pretty confident was the liver (largish, smooth, lobed and dark red), there was a smaller, rounded organ attached. If it hadn't been connected to what I think is the liver, I would have thought it was the heart. Is there any help for people like me, who have always ignored organs until their cats forced them to reconsider?

 

[vball91]

That is great! I had heard that kittens take to raw really well but had not seen it.

 

[Willowy]

Look at them go! I love seeing little carnivores do their thing!

What species of organ was it? :lol3: I think the gallbladder is attached to the liver in any species, though.

 

[stealthkitty]

Oops, guess it would help if I mentioned they were chicken organs.

I did some googling just now and I think the organ in question was a spleen. I see that gallbladders are greenish (right?). This organ definitely was not green. (Can gallbladders be fed to cats? Don't they have a yucky taste?)

 

[Willowy]

Yeah, a home butchering site I found said that getting gall bladder "juice" on the livers would make them bitter and gross.

If it was lobed, maybe a kidney? The liver is just sort of a. . .slab :lol3:. And it looks like the spleen is "in contact with" the left kidney in humans. . .doesn't say if it's attached, or where it is in chickens, but that sounds plausible, at least.

 

[catnamedpanda]

I am so glad they enjoyed their first raw meal. Growling is normal, you should see the video I have of Penelope and Delilah eating raw meat for the first time. :lol3:

 

[stealthkitty]

Did a little more googling, and I'm now sure that the organs were livers with spleens attached. I saw some photos of chicken kidneys, which to me look like smooth little nuggets. What I fed them last night were much larger and flattish--yes, it could be called a slab! Now that I know the package of organs didn't contain much variety, we'll be searching out others.

There were some gizzards in the package of organs too, so I gave them some of those this morning. Boy, they sure eat with gusto! And their level of energy is way up! I'm convinced that they were malnourished (probably had worms on top of it) because they've never played like this. They were always so docile and calm, which is great for an adult cat but not for kittens!

They've been fighting epic battles in the litter box.

When we first brought them home, they were using wood chips. We switched them from those to shredded paper, then started mixing in non-clumping litter. Now they are using 100% of the clay litter, and the first day their box was full of it, it became their New Favorite Toy. For a while I thought I was watching Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black!