Transitioning my kitten to raw....

[mazzaglia]

First off, I must say how amazed I am at all of the information contained in this site. I'm nearly cross-eyed from reading various threads. 

Second, this is my first experience being involved in a forum of any kind.....please be gentle.

  A little about me: I just received my newest siamese baby, Ramsay (he's 6 months old now) about two months ago but my first was Nala and she was like my child before I had my own babies. Through all of my years with her she was fed exclusively on dry kibble, started with Science Diet (recommended by breeder) and then Eukanuba. I believed I was doing what was best for her because my vet had said that if she wasn't on wet food then not to start her on it because a dry food diet was best. Now, all these years later, I feel like an idiot! 

  I somehow ran across an article about raw food diets for cats (about 2 weeks ago) and have been reading a ton since. I went out an purchased some Primal Chicken and Duck nuggets for Ramsay and have since gotten him off of dry and canned food completely and it wasn't difficult either! I was shocked. So now I find myself feeling that he can't just eat the ground stuff because he needs to work his jaw and teeth (am I correct?). So this is what I did tonight-gave him half of a chicken wingette and a couple extra small chunks of chicken. I wanted to see how he would react to a bone. It was quite comical to watch him kind of pouncing and stepping back to figure it out. To be honest I thought it was cool seeing him work it out and then go for it! He ate the small chunks and stripped the bone of meat and skin then walked away. He kept coming back and chewing on the bone and I think as his teeth get stronger that he will be good to go. 

  I guess what I am looking for from all of you is, am I doing this alright? If I transition him to bone-in meats and organs rather than ground do I need to use any supplements? I want to use prey model but without the hair, heads and feet. Sorry but it grosses me out. Anything you can add would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[mazzaglia]

Oh and I forgot to mention that along with the half of a wingette he also ate 2 of the Primal chicken and salmon nuggets.

 

[ldg]

Welcome to both TCS and raw feeding!

You've got yourself a kitty that knows he's a carnivore - that's great! :lol3:

For transitioning to prey model raw, it all depends on what you consider supplements. An important part of a prey model raw diet are raw eggs - especially raw egg yolks (I feed a raw egg yolk twice a week), and some type of omega 3 supplement. The egg yolks have the choline (and some omega 3s and vitamin D and HEAPS of other nutrients) they need, and the omega 3 supplement can be either tinned sardines (water, no salt), once or twice a week, or salmon oil, 500mg a day, or krill oil (500mg) a day. I use both sardines AND an omega supplement. Some of my kitties get salmon oil daily, others get krill oil (I can't afford krill oil for 8 cats, or they'd all be getting that).

I also provide a daily probiotic. I use a human acidophilus+bifidus supplement with 10 billion CFU (on the advice of our holistic D.V.M.). My reasoning for this is that in a high protein diet, there's little fiber to provide a substrate for the growth of the healthy gut bacteria - and in the wild, cats would be getting a dose of probiotic with every meal (they eat the entire mouse or small rodent, so eat the bacteria in the gut).

Some include taurine - though if you include hearts in the diet a couple of times a week, they have a LOT of taurine in them. (FYI, hearts and gizzards are treated like muscle meat in a prey model raw diet - they are organs, but they are not secreting organs, they're just muscle). The bottom line? The guide line is roughly 80% meat, 6-10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% "other" secreting organ. (Most of us use kidney, as it's the easiest to source - over things like spleen, pancreas, or brain). The "ingredients" are typically balanced over a week, and organ meals are usually split up into a few meals, because "just" organs usually aren't tolerated or give them the runs.

If you want to learn more, I think you'll find this helpful:

http://catcentric.org/nutrition-and-food/raw-feeding/a-frankenprey-and-whole-prey-feeding-guide/

Here's a sample menu: http://catcentric.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/My-Feeding-Schedule.pdf

And here's a calculator to help you develop your own weekly menu: http://catcentric.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Frankenprey-Calculator.xlsx

Bascially all you need to know is how much food he's eating daily to come up with the weekly amounts and then how to divvy up everything.

Of course we're here for any questions!

 

[mazzaglia]

Great, thank you for all of the links and input! So far he's doing great on the Primal nuggets and I'm also giving him half a wing in the morning and evening. He hasn't actually bitten through the bones yet but definitely enjoys chewing on them. He's at the stage where he is losing his baby teeth so I'm sure it feels fantastic to him.
I'm thinking I will order some meat from Hare Today for him soon and see how it goes from there. I'll also add in the egg yolks as you mentioned.
I've never seen him so active, alert and bright eyes as this past week and a half!

 

[ldg]

Yep - the changes happen pretty quickly!

I started with commercial raw too, and then transitioned to homemade. Once he starts eating that bone, you may find it's a bit much, but I wouldn't worry about it as he's just having fun with it now. But too much calcium will make kitty constipated - very hard, dry poop that's difficult to pass. Too little calcium will result in soft poop. The wings do make great bone-in meals, once he can handle them! I had to cut mine up into bite sized pieces at first. Kitchen shears do the job just fine!

 

[mazzaglia]

So I bought another bag of the ground raw (duck this time). I fed him last night-2 nuggets of the chicken salmon and 1 of the duck. He refused them completely. I waited over an hour and then gave him a chicken wing, which he devoured. Now this morning he is very hungry and still won't eat the nuggets (I even added an egg yolk). Now I don't know if it is ground food altogether that he is snubbing or the duck. Maybe he only wants the actual pieces of meat?

 

[andrya]

That's entirely possible.

l transitioned my boys from canned to commercial raw to homemade raw. Now they won't look at the commercial raw - they turn their noses up at it. They will still eat canned if l'm late at thawing their raw. l use ground meat recipes so l can't give you any advice about prey model, l just wanted to say congratulations on transitioning your kitty 

 

[ldg]

That's what happened to me. I had no plans on making homemade or feeding frankenprey. But the cats got a little constipated on the commercial raw I was feeding them, so I offered them some just plain chicken. After that, several of them refused to eat ground food. I had to scramble! :lol3:

They'll eat it now, if I give it to them only a couple of times a week (which I do, I like giving them whole ground animal - it's also how I get raw egg yolks in them) - but they will not eat commercial raws - just the plain ground whole animal stuff. :dk: (I get rabbit, goat, pork and llama from http://www.hare-today.com. They won't eat ground poultry of any kind).

 

[jayvee56]

Hi -- you have no idea how blessed your kitty is to have a friend like you ! We lost 5 cats in two years to various forms of cancer, and after tons of reading, i realized it was the lousy diet of so many store-bought cat foods created by those animal-loving experts at Lever brothers (makers of Palmolive, and other wonderful household soaps and cleansers) -- sold under different brand names, of course!

After much reading and study, I found this site, created by a cat-owning vet, and we've been feeding our "new" babies (10 years old now), this diet and they're very healthy and happy. They both actually physically changed for the better after we began them on the regimen outlined on that site, and here's the address:

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

And, you might also seriously consider drinking truly filtered water (NOT Britta or Pur taste-only filtered), as our dear national water supply is literally poisoned with the rat-poison and proven carcinogen, Fluoride -- among other things. And, as you've probably found out, our cats are many times more sensitive to all drugs, etc. than we are! Again, after much research, we settled on Berkey water filters --- they seem expensive on first glance, but when you consider that the main filters are actually washable, and therefore, practically permanent (as opposed to the constant replacing of the other guys' filters), the cost is really worth not only the taste (much better than what the others provide) but also the knowledge that your kitties will also be freer from the dangers posed to their cousins from untreated drinking water.

good luck!

 

[mazzaglia]

Thank you for all of your responses! I think he really didn't like the duck. Of course he suckered me into giving him 2 pieces of chicken before I realized this, then I gave him some Primal beef/salmon and he devoured it! Makes me wonder if he'd eat whole duck? Hmmmm.....
As far as water goes, we are on a private well because we live in the sticks of NH (love it!). I am having another water test done for fluoride because of my kiddos though.
My husband and I are planning on some large local meat purchases to fill our full size freezer once we get our tax refund and I'll stock up on some stuff from Hare-Today for my Ramsay as well.
I have lots of people asking me about what I am doing with the cat's diet. Also worth noting is my local veterinarian just posted on their Facebook page a bunch of information about raw pet diets, which I thought was fantastic!

 

[mazzaglia]

For those that feed commercial raw diets-how do you ensure that your kitty's teeth are being cleaned if they aren't munching on bones?

 

[andrya]

l feed homemade ground raw, and the occasional canned.

l have to clean my kitties' teeth with cat toothpaste and a tiny brush that l got from the pet store.

 

[ldg]

I brush the teeth of my one kitty with the worst dental problems. But nothing can replace an annual dental. Even raw fed cats (eating bones or not) should have annual dentals. :nod: