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Post by melcab on Jun 29, 2011 15:52:20 GMT -5
My 14 yo  cat, Dragon, has been an outdoor/indoor cat all his life. So he catches and eats all manner of small animals. (saw him snatch a bat outta the sky once!) So he'd be a great candidate for raw, I was sure. Dragon had mysteriously lost a tooth recently...musta happened outside. I noticed he was having trouble with his kibble so I switched him to canned food. I don't think it's the best food for him and would like to switch him to raw. Hubby was away and I was home with the 3 kids. We were out of canned cat food but we had chicken breasts so I thawed some. (didn't feel like schlepping all 3 kids to the store) Dragon ate all the meat I gave him and was begging for more! This was a couple of months ago. Today as the ferrets were having their out of cage time, Dragon decided to go into the cage from the door at the TOP (that I left open for easy replacement of fuzzies after playtime) and grab the chicken wing I left for the ferrets at the BOTTOM! He ate the entire thing! (guess the missing tooth isn't a problem anymore) Wondering if anyone knows of the existence of a holistic cat forum? What about a dog one? I'd like to get them eating raw, and I've read a bunch of articles, but none of the ones I've found talk specifically about what nutrients are important for each animal and what foods to feed to get them. (ex. taurine for cats and ferrets, pumpkin helping move things along, bone/eggshell firming up stools, what percentages should be muscle, bone, organ for cats and dogs?) |
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Post by Heather on Jun 29, 2011 16:20:00 GMT -5
Congratulations, you've got a raw eating kitty. I found my one cat munching on a chicken neck the other day. I wish I could convince my MIL's kitties that the commercial raw wasn't the only stuff on the planet....I guess I should be just happy they're eating raw ;D I use a yahoo list called rawpaws. rawpaws@yahoogroups.com They will cover natural feeding for both cats and dogs, they were originally a cat list but have since moved to accommodate other carnivorous species  . They also have a vet approved recipe that you can use and will help you adjust it for the needs of your furkids. This is used to be the holisticats or something like that on the yahoo lists. ciao |
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Post by melcab on Jun 29, 2011 22:20:42 GMT -5
My cat is like a garbage disposal. He'd eat anything if I let him.
Holisticats! That's cute. Thanks for the info I'll check them out! As far as your MIL's kitties, commercial raw isn't the only stuff, but at least it's not the WORST stuff. Albeit expensive.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2011 7:33:00 GMT -5
We were out of canned cat food but we had chicken breasts so I thawed some. (didn't feel like schlepping all 3 kids to the store) Dragon ate all the meat I gave him and was begging for more! ;D My cats eat ground raw, but have been so adamantly opposed to moving up to actual pieces of meat that I gave up on it... and then last night, one of them stole a thawing chicken breast off the counter and was gnawing away at it. I wanted to throttle him! All those times he turned up his nose and walked away from a piece of raw chicken, and then he goes for MY dinner! I've been using all the ferret guidelines I learned here for the cats, but they made it pretty easy for me once they accepted ground raw, since they're getting meat/bone/organ in every meal. I do sprinkle on a taurine capsule occasionally. |
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Post by melcab on Jun 30, 2011 10:26:24 GMT -5
Call me slow, but what exactly is "ground raw"? Is that like, hamburger meat (or ground chicken/turkey) that you can buy in the grocery store? Or do you actually mean frozen, raw pet food that is packaged specifically for pets?
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Post by Sherry on Jun 30, 2011 13:01:20 GMT -5
It's the frozen commercial raw pet food  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2011 14:29:22 GMT -5
I get all my ground raw from hare-today.com ... they have grinds of the whole animal, with fur/feathers or without, frozen in 1 or 5 lb packages. It's unprocessed aside from the grinding. I've always thought of "commercial" raw as brands like Nature's Variety, but all the Hare Today stuff is made exclusively for pet consumption too.
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Post by goingpostal on Jul 2, 2011 13:47:40 GMT -5
My cat eats mostly raw, however she only does well with poultry so we are limited to chicken, cgh, duck and turkey. But she eats smaller bones fine, leg bone, necks, turkey wings I smash up a bit to get her to eat them, she'll eat hearts and liver on her own, but prefers not at the same time and she won't touch duck organs. She also eats whole mice and then she gets canned about once a week for variety. I feed her just like I do the ferrets basically.
catforum.com seems to have an ok raw diet section and holisticat wants a yearly fee to join but you can do a try out trial for free I believe, it's been a bit since I looked into it.
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Post by Heather on Jul 2, 2011 14:15:34 GMT -5
rawpaws is holisticats freebie sister list. I gather it was similar to this one, where there were a couple of people running the list. A couple of the ladies decided that the information that they could impart should have a cost, the other couple decided that information should be free. That is how rawpaws was formed (it's the freebie list ). A lot of the information is indeed for cats but they support dogs, ferrets (I had a lot of help from these ladies nibble fingers when I first started feeding my ferrets raw and nobody else seemed to. They were awesome knowing just the right words to key into those search engines) They've even been known to assist some bird people (the list owner has a couple of parrots that were rescued) and the odd bunny or two too ;D My Samurai could only eat fowl, now a couple of years into it he was able to eat rabbit (which of course isn't fowl) but that was the only furred creature he could stomach  ciao |
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Post by melcab on Jul 2, 2011 14:28:40 GMT -5
I suspect Dragon would not object to anything edible I put in front of him. He has a bad habit of eating my 7yo daughter's leftover spaghetti and even likes corn! (not that I feed him those things on purpose lol) He must have missed the memo that he is supposed to be an obligate carnivore. But naturally I want to feed him the appropriate foods so he gets all the appropriate nutrients. I'm going to check out that rawpaws list. Thanks, Heather! And I'll check out catforum.com too, goingpostal. Thanks! |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2011 10:32:48 GMT -5
Kari, don't feel bad. my cat who is pretty new on raw, wouldn't touch ANY BONE unless it was breast bone cut into tiny pieces. then all of a sudden, last night she ate part of a chicken wing. guess it has to be THEIR IDEAH!!!
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