Transitioning to raw question

[auchick]

So... I'm moving to a country in a few months where commercial pet food is expensive and poor quality. Mia currently eats NVI Chicken Raw Boost (she loves to pick out the raw bites mainly and seems luke warm on the kibble portion) and is obsessed with Hounds and Gatos chicken canned for her meal at dinner. But these won't be available where we are going so I've made the decision to attempt to transition to raw food before we move. I have tried her on an exclusive canned diet several years ago and she got tired of it after 3-4 days so I'm not sure how well this is going to go.

A few weeks ago, I gave her a 1 oz portion of the Primal chicken chub as a test run when I was making the portions from the chub. She seemed very excited at first, ate about half of the serving by itself. Our next meal attempt, she refused to eat the same way and I had to dilute it in with her canned food, 50% canned, 50% raw. And then I kept having to mix more and more canned in with it for her to eat it over the course of a week until we were at about 3/4 canned and 1/4 raw. I gave her a week off and tried again tonight with 2/3 canned and 1/3 raw, which she ate without much fuss. 

My question is, when transitioning... how do I know if we are transitioning too quickly vs she simply doesn't like the flavor? And how quickly do I do the transition? How do I know if she's ready or not to move to the next step? Should I just stick with diluting it with the canned slowly? I thought about buying the NV Boost bites that she likes to use as a topper but I think she'd probably just pick them out like she does with the kibble right now. Would like to avoid Fortiflora for now if possible...

Thanks

 

[ankitty]

This might help?

http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/how-to-transition-your-cat-to-a-raw-diet

 

[auchick]

Thanks but that wasn't really what I was looking for. Perhaps my original post was too long.... I really just want to know how to know if my cat doesn't eat the raw food because she doesn't like a flavor and never will like a flavor vs. not eating because I transitioned too quickly. To me, there's no point of going through this hassle if I have to dilute it with 3/4 canned food in order for her to eat it...

 

[lisahe]

I think it's worth trying another flavor -- our cats get bored very fast if they don't have a lot of variety, so we mix up various combinations for them.

 

[mzalisakay]

Cats are picky and and they like to be difficult. Some times my cats will chow down like crazy, sometimes they're meh about the food and pick at it. No matter the flavor. I find that sometimes switching out all the time makes them less enthused because if they chowed down before and I change the type (from cornish hen to duck), they get ..miffed about it. They're not used to raw or having variety though. 

My cats have been on kibble their whole lives... it's easy for them to realize that it's "food" I am giving them based on the smell when I open a canned item or open the kibble tub.  I've noticed that there is very little smell at all with commercial raw so that throws them off still because they don't automatically associate the smell as "food" yet. It could just be confusing to your cat. 

I've read so many articles about how difficult it can be or how long it can take to transition cats. For me, it was and sometimes still is a matter of going back and forth of adding in 50% previous food one feeding and 100% raw next feeding, until they just eat 100% raw. I've been feeding commercial raw for about a week. 

Right now they're eating 100% raw. I feed them 1 oz a time x 4 times daily. I found with my cats, feeding them less but more often works out better. They are practically "starving" by next feeding and are more likely to eat whatever I give them, lol.