Would it be safe to feed raw in one of the timed feeders?

[waddle]

I know there are some that refrigerate the food but not sure how safe this would be with raw? I feed my cats the Stella and Chewy‘s frozen raw dinner morsels and just discovered a local store carries the similar product from northwest naturals and got a bag of that to try as well.

There is at least one day a week, sometimes two or three, that I am gone from home for 8+ hours. I can leave dry food out but am trying to minimize how much of that I feed them. Theoretically they’re probably fine without a meal during that time, but I have been feeding them four small meals a day because if Sophie gets too hungry she wolfs it all down and then throws it back up.

 

[daftcat75]

No. Raw most definitely would NOT be safe for a timed feeder. Rather than falling back to dry for this, I would suggest looking for a canned food that Sophie likes and put that in the timed feeder. Canned food, being a cooked product, can sit in the feeder for hours with or without refrigeration. It's a good idea to have at least one canned food meal in her diet anyway. It will help you weather out any supply or quality issues with the raw.

 

[waddle]

Unfortunately canned food isn't a great option either. Sophie's stomach is very sensitive these days and I'm thinking it's the gums in the canned foods. She has vomited and had diarrhea and it seems like as soon as I cut out canned food it goes away. I also have to stay with very limited ingredients due to my other IBD kitty. Thinking about trying Rawz again but I can't get it locally and neither of them seemed too keen on it when I got cans from them to try.

I do also feed them the freeze dried raw from Northwest Naturals. I know the Stella and Chewy's says you can feed small amounts dry so maybe I could leave a little of that out on the days I'm gone for a while? Not sure how good that would be either though.

 

[Talien]

Try something like this or this if you are looking for a good LID canned food. I've gone back to feeding that to my Cats myself since Balanced Blends shut down, it's not raw but for canned food you won't find too much better.

 

[daftcat75]

You can buy Rawz online. Krista, my angel IBD/lymphoma kitty, ate Rawz out of timed feeders for the last year of her life. Between the steroids and the lymphoma, it seemed like she was hungry every two hours. Near the end, I was feeding her every three to four hours with timed feeders covering meals I couldn't be present or awake for.

 

[daftcat75]

Try something like this or this if you are looking for a good LID canned food. I've gone back to feeding that to my Cats myself since Balanced Blends shut down, it's not raw but for canned food you won't find too much better.

I don't know why Chewy links seem to run a gauntlet of ad redirects and come out all stupid and random at the end. Those two links should redirect to Tiki Cat Succulent Luau and Tiki Cat After Dark. Those are both excellent gum-free foods. Unfortunately, they both contain chicken which is usually the first protein crossed off the list with IBD kitties. I really don't have any other food suggestions beyond Rawz. Theoretically Ziwi Peak looked alright. In practice, Krista never liked the stuff. Hound and Gatos looks like another brand that could work. But Krista wasn't impressed with that one either.