Help with Lucky and his raw diet!

Ok, let's back up a bit. What was his normal food before you changed it Monday night? The best way to change a cat's diet is gradually, not instantly. Instant change can cause digestive problems as well as outright refusal to eat.

Assuming that Lucky has been eating canned food, probably the best way to get him to eat a raw diet is either by mixing in a bit of small, chunked up raw into his canned or by offering him some small pieces of raw as an appetizer right before giving him his canned food.

You say he's eaten raw chicken breast, but refused ground pork bones mixed with, sorry I can't remember what you mixed it with. Chicken is often offered as the first meat when converting cat's to a raw diet. The ground pork bones might be a bit to much in the bone department.

Keep in mind the all cats do not like all meat, just like people sometimes don't like something. Why don't you stick with poultry for a bit. Get some chicken thighs, gizzards, hearts, and liver to expand his horizons a bit. Also look for some turkey. Stick with boneless meat for a week or so, Lucky will be ok without bone for that time period, especially if he is still getting some canned food. Make sure that any meat you buy is not enhanced, but natural.

When you think that he's getting used to raw, you can try some chicken wings or a game hen for bone, although you might have to smash up the bones a bit for him at first. You can also try some other meat, like beef, pork, lamb, and rabbit if you can find it. If you can find quail, they have very small bones than cats can easily crunch through. Avoid bones from large animals like pigs, sheep, and beef, they are too large for cats and even ground up the pieces can be too large.

All the best!

Since Lucky isn't starting on raw as a kitten, it would be a better idea to go simple and slow as beckyhiker says.

Start on only one protein. Chicken is easy to digest, not too exotic, easily obtainable. No bones at this point, either you debone it or use chicken breast. Hide bits in his usual food for a week or two. There really is no hurry and it's better safe than sorry.

After that, you can start organs. remember, the ratios are meat 80%, bone 10%, liver 5%, other secreting organs 5%. Heart is counted as meat. I don't measure precisely since I feed a 50% canned and 50% raw diet. You might want to keep one of his meals canned during the transition and also you will have to make a decision if you want him 100% raw or 50% or whatever.

For bones, I don't try anything bigger than quail which I don't have to smash. Your choice. Some people have no probs feeding chicken ribs and chicken wing tips.

For my 10lb cat, a typical day at the moment is:

Breakfast: 2.6 oz canned, variation between venison, duck, lamb, chicken
Dinner: 1.7oz quail with bones and innards, chicken or beef, sometimes 1/2 a chicken heart
Snack: 0.5oz Nature's variety instinct raw in whatever meat I buy. This time it's bison.

I'll try to answer questions:

As I posted in my first one Lucky has been on a RX UT kibble food since his UTI last year. I heard it was best to switch cold turkey on one website as kibble digests differently and the change between raw and kibble will cause stomach issues? I don't know this is all new to me and we don't eat much meat so I really don't know much about them. I had a very hard time getting the meat I did get and trying to cut/grind it for him. We live in the middle of no where with a tiny meat and grocery store and a super walmart. Thats it for like 60 miles to the next biggest city. They have very few meats other than very expensive stew/roast/steaks at over $6/lb and ground meats. That was what I could find. I did find chicken organ parts but he refuses them.

So, I should stick with chicken/poultry for a little while? I can try that. I'll keep my eye out for other birds. I'll mix some canned cat food with some raw without bones for a while. He did eat the ground up raw and some cannned this morning. He didn't touch his lunch which was the same. Do you think feeding him 3 times a day is too much? He used to get about 3/4 of a cup of kibble because he is a little bit chubby. Do you think I should just feed him 2 meals or keep trying 3?

I have read that it's usually recommended to feed cats at least three times a day, especially when you're dealing with younger kittens. I gave two daily feedings a try, and had problems with my older cat vomiting (which happens because the cat's highly acidic stomach can get upset when it goes too long with out food). That doesn't mean you have to rush home during your lunch hour to feed your cats three times a day - I feed mine in the morning around 8am, then again in the evening around 5-6pm (or as soon as you get home from work), and one last time right before I go to bed. I think that 12 hours is really a long time for a kitten to be going with out any food.

I also had problems getting my older cat to actually chew her raw, and not just lick all the wet food around it. There were a few things I did to help her get used to chewing her food. First thing was to switch her from pate style canned food to chunks in gravy (I used Weruva, Wellness pouches, and Tikicat canned food because that's what Sassy would eat). Having her eat chunky food got her used to the idea that she was going to have to chew at every meal. At first she wasn't thrilled with all this extra work, but she got used to it :roll:

Plus when it came to mixing raw in she HAD to chew, so she wasn't just licking all the wet and leaving all the raw. I tried mixing with pate food for a long time, but switching to chunky food was what actually got some of the raw in her. So I just thought I'd mention it.

When I finally started giving her full raw meals I was stilling giving her canned in the morning. Then in the evening, after she'd gone without food all day so she was nice and hungry, she'd get a meal of JUST raw meat. The first week I did this I actually used a fine cheese grater to turn the raw meat into textured mush. It helped - as did crumbling Temptations over said mush, or dribbling a little tuna juice over it. After about a week of that I was sick of the hassle, so I used kitchen scissors to cut her meat up. It took a long time to get her eating bigger and bigger pieces, but I just kept slowly increasing the size and kept the bribes handy. She still has trouble with bones, so those are cut up a lot smaller - but she's slowly getting better at it. Last bone-in meal there was definitely some actual crunching going on.

And, like you, I had no problems what so ever with transitioning my younger cat. While I was trying to feed Sassy itty bitty pieces of raw beef heart from my fingers, Moxie jumped up on the counter and devoured a huge chunk straight off my cutting board. The first time I offered them a chicken wing each Sassy looked at me like I'd lost my mind, while Moxie had eaten the whole thing in about 30 seconds.

Just keep trying different things, and hopefully Lucky will soon get the idea. But really, I think you should probably add another meal in there, for your younger cat especially. Kittens need a lot more food than adults. I'm not sure exactly how much (me, I'd be inclined to just let him eat until full), but hopefully someone else on here with more experience can help you there. Good luck!