Whole Prey Raw .... Anybody have experience with this feeding?

[jordann]

So I just found the Hare Today website and saw they have whole prey feeders .... First off, I saw the whole rabbits and they are HUGE! One 6 lb rabbit would last my 85 lb dog 5 days, so I'm guessing cats don't eat whole rabbits? Is this a good alternative to change things up from ground?

Does anybody feed this whole prey model to their kitties (or dogs) and what are your experiences with whole, versus ground? Is it cheaper than going the ground route?

I had more questions, but of course completely forgot them.

 

[Willowy]

Some people do, but of course for cats you want smaller prey like mice and day-old chicks, not whole adult rabbits and guinea pigs. You can buy them whole and cut them up, but most of the bones in adult animals are too large for cats so it would be a lot of boneless meals.

Unless you raise your own, it seems quite expensive. Mice about $1 each. . .a grown cat would need a lot of mice (7 or 8? I think) a day, so fairly pricey, at least buying online. If you live near a hatchery you could probably get day-old chicks cheap.

Oh--and some kitties just don't recognize whole animals as food. You might have to cut them up. Ick.

 

[jordann]

My husband and I have been toying with the idea of getting chickens for eggs and meat, so I'm sure we could just let some hatch for Tilly ..... If I were to do it that way, would I need to kill the chick first or could I leave that to her? I know then we would have issues with her trying to eat the other chicks. She gets outside time during the day, because we live in a rural area .... She spends her time with the dogs anyways, so they would protect her if anything was stupid enough to venture into our yard.

So the largest I should venture into would be quail, or are the week old babies too big? I have never heard of whole prey feeding (seems silly to not have thought of that )

 

[ldg]

You should PM TCS member Cat Person. :nod: She raises quail, mice (I think), chicks, and... ??? to feed as live whole prey for her kitties.

My indoor-only cats have cornered a mouse on a couple of occasions. They don't recognize it as food, and just play with it. We've had to rescue the mice. My hesitation in feeding whole live prey would be that our indoor cats don't know how to quickly kill. My ferals hunt mice and on occasion a bird, but they know what they're doing, and their prey doesn't suffer. I would not be OK with another animal suffering just to be a meal for my kitties.

The only whole prey I've fed my cats is quail. I order the 4-pack from Hare Today. The only cat I have that will eat the head is our kitty that was rescued at the oldest age: he was "3 or 4" when we brought him inside only. He was a feral cat that obviously did a lot of hunting (well, all of my indoor-only pet kitties are, it's just most of them were younger when we brought them inside-only).

But even these are rather large. It takes less than 1/4 quail to be a meal for my cats. I've figured out how to divvy it up between them, but at first the amount of bone I fed them made them constipated. And I have to cut it up for almost all of them, or they don't know what to do with it. :lol3:

 

[jordann]

That would be Tilly ... Not knowing what to do with the animal. Our last kitty would have loved the whole prey food, since she pretty much supplemented her food with wild things she found .... Still don't understand how she would get the birds. Guess I should focus on getting Tilly the kibble addict on raw then we can figure things out from there.

Thank you thank you!!

 

[cat person]

Hi

,

I am sorry, for, not finding the thread sooner

. Anyway, as LDG says, I feed my cats whole live prey. I breed, the following prey items: Quail, Mice, Rats (small reptile feeder size) and seven day old chicks. I also feed rabbits. The breed, I chose to use is Netherlander Dwarf.

I have two DSH's that are indoor/outdoor cats and one indoor F3 Savannah. All three cats, are very familiar with what a prey item is. Two from going in and out, at will. One from his genetic heritage.

If you breed, your own prey items it is insanely cheap. Much cheaper then ground raw. Of course, it is much cheaper then dry or canned. I would say, try coating a prey item, like, a pinky mouse with some dry food. Or, if, you can stomach it, put some of the pinky mouse in the cats dry food. Let her get a "taste" for whole prey.

Is the cat in question a stricktly indoor or indoor/outdoor cat?