[Victoriax]

Hi,

I have 4 indoor cat's Meeca & Tulah are 3 year old female's, Teddybear & Elfie are 2.5 year old brother's

their feeding background is.......

from baby - 1.5/2 year's
Royal Cannin baby cat kibble & wet mousse
Royal cannin kitten kibble & wet pouches
Royal cannin indoor neautered male Kibble, Gourmet wet, almo nature wet, Applaw's wet

from 1.5/2 year's - 1st January 2012

Burns holistic kibble, Gourmet wet pouches

1st January - present

no kibble
Applaw's. almo nature, Gourmet, Nature's Diet

I thought I was feeding my cat's with the best possible diet as Royal Cannin was the most expensive & created by a vet & regrettably didnt do any research into this up until about 1 year ago which is when I changed to Burns holistic food, I have also been researching raw feeding for the past year & am now confident that this is DEFINITELY the best diet for my cat's

Teddy has always regurgitated his dry food & I thought he was just a "sicky cat" but I now know that the kibble wasn't agreeing with him as he has not regurgitated his food once since eating only wet food :smile:

Luckily Tulah, Teddy & Elfie have always been lover's of wet food so they have taken well to a complete wet food diet but Meeca has always eaten kibble with the very occasional can of real tuna

Meeca is now eating only canned real tuna & ocean fish food which is obviously not good but she will not eat the other wet food's I have offered her many different flavour's & brand's & she point blank refuses to eat it, she will sniff it which I think must be a good sign but wont eat it, I have left her for 24 hour's without offering her the fish food & it is as if she knows I will give in eventually & hold's out for it

Teddy was sadly diagnosed with FLUTD last week but is doing well & doesnt seem to be suffering at this present time, I am supplementing him with Cysteaze & adding water to his food, I have also purchased a Feliway diffuser & am sweeping instead of hoovering as the hoover stresses him out

so my mane concern really is getting Meeca to eat other wet food & would really appreciate any advise & also would it be safe to offer her wet food daily & if she doesnt eat it give her the fish food in the evening-so each day she would only be having one small meal??

Tulah loves food & has eaten raw lamb neck & raw rabbit including a small piece of bone, such an amazing sound hearing her crunching on the bone this morning but when I mixed the rabbit in with the wet food she didnt eat it

Teddy & Elfie ate a small amount in with their wet food, what wasnt eaten I have put into an air tight container in the fridge - is it ok to offer this throughout the day & if not eaten by the evening throw it away & start with fresh again in the morning???

would it be best to allow Tulah to be eating a raw food diet while the other's are still transitioning or would it be best to wait until they are all eating it together???

I know that rabbit is very lean but I am trying different meat's at the moment just to get them used to the texture ETC. of the raw meat

I would eventually want to be feeding a whole prey & frankenprey diet to all 4 cat's

another thing I have noticed since they have not had kibble in their diet is that they are not passing stool's every day - is this ok or could they be constipated?? they have access to fresh grass which I grow indoor's & have a water fountain which is cleaned & fresh water added every day.

thankyou for reading

Victoria, Meeca, Tulah, Teddybear & Elfie xxx

 

[Victoriax]

another thing, my cat's had dandruff, Meeca & Tulah who are both black suffered the worst with it & now it has almost completely gone which must be something to do with the removal of kibble from their diet

it makes me so very angry that these dry kibble manufacturers can make out that this is the best possible food for our cats when it very obviously is in fact the worse, I am so cross that I was basically conned by what it say's on the bag's of this horrible stuff

I know that it should be obvious that cat's are supposed to eat raw meat but these manufacturers are so convincing it's quite scary

I was shocked when I saw an advert on T.V for Iams saying that wet food has 30% moisture & dry food has 3% water which makes dry food the best option, I was like where on earth do they get this information & why is it allowed to advertise like this making people think that food with less moisture is best!!!!!!!

sorry rant over ......

Thank you
Victoria x

 

[Victoriax]

I am quite dissapointed that I have 70 views but no body has replied to offer me any advise

 

[Geumja]

Hi Victoria, I have only one cat so I can only offer a little advice on maybe convincing your cats to eat new wet food - mix a tiny little bit of the new food into every serving of their normal food (1 tsp at first) then slowly increase the amount of new food over time (2 tsps, 3 tsps, all the while reducing the amount of the old food)

Same for the rabbit I think, don't mix 50/50 rabbit/old food right away, try a little bit at first and increase the amount slowly over time. Good luck!

 

[~Siameseifuplz~]

It's great to see you've educated yourself and are improving your cats' diets! I'm sorry to hear about Teddy, hopefully the increase in water and stress reduction will help keep things under control.

so my mane concern really is getting Meeca to eat other wet food & would really appreciate any advise & also would it be safe to offer her wet food daily & if she doesnt eat it give her the fish food in the evening-so each day she would only be having one small meal??

That's pretty much what I did with mine. Breakfast was kibble, dinner was wet food. If you don't eat wet you're waiting until breakfast. At the same time, for the wet meal, I'd use bribery. I'd make little wet food balls and sticks kibble in it so he'd have to pick pieces of kibble out and they'd have wet food stuck on them or he'd accidentally grab some wet food. I'd only have a spoonful of wet food on the plate and then kibble on top of it, again to make him accidentally eat some and get used to the taste, smell, and texture. Since yours likes tuna you might try to mix the tuna with the other cat food, first have mainly the tuna, and then slowly over several days or weeks increase the amount of regular wet food. When you do this it might help to have a small, separate section next to the mixed food that is all tuna so he'll start eating that and then won't want to stop eating when he finishes and will give the mix a try. Or have the food stratified with the top section being entirely tuna and under it being the mix, that way it still smells mainly of tuna and the first bite tastes of only tuna, but he might grab some mix my mistake. You have to be creative. I wouldn't deprive the cat of his second meal for too long though, that wouldn't be healthy. But for me the amount of kibble used in the bribery process was enough for a second meal.

You might be able to just try the transition from the fishy foods to raw, it may not be any more difficult than going from fishy to regular wet food. That's up to you and whether or not you think getting him onto regular wet food first would be easier/more helpful int he final transition to raw (if that's where you end up going with this cat).

Tulah loves food & has eaten raw lamb neck & raw rabbit including a small piece of bone, such an amazing sound hearing her crunching on the bone this morning but when I mixed the rabbit in with the wet food she didnt eat it

She might not like the foods together, will she eat the meat if it's by itself? If so you can probably just transfer her onto raw without any transition time. Also in the early phases you might need to do a little bribery to remind them that it is indeed food, I'll drag the food along or repeatedly pick it up and drop it or fling it to get their interest back on it. I always have to do that when introducing a new meat the first couple of times (except pork, he dove right into that). Willie loves meat but won't touch it if it's near the wet food for some reason (and he eats wet food too, though he mostly does that because he has to). He has to drag it away, across my carpet *sigh*

Teddy & Elfie ate a small amount in with their wet food, what wasnt eaten I have put into an air tight container in the fridge - is it ok to offer this throughout the day & if not eaten by the evening throw it away & start with fresh again in the morning???

I would personally only let them try the meat at meal times, that way they will be nice and hungry when you present the meat. As far as safety goes, it's probably fine to bring meat out and put it back in the fridge to use again, but only if the meat was out for a short time. If the meat has started to get sort of leathery on the outside it's time to chuck it in the trash. That's mostly opinion though, I have no real idea of when meat become unsafe. I've left meat out for hours before and he's never gotten ill, but he also might just not touch it after a certain time.

It's fine to transition one at a time if you have to, just be sure to keep an eye on who's eating what so you know nobody is eating too much and nobody is starving themselves. Also remember the raw fed cat might guard his food from the others so make sure nobody bugs her while she eats, if she smacks them for sniffing her raw it could further turn them off of it.

another thing I have noticed since they have not had kibble in their diet is that they are not passing stool's every day - is this ok or could they be constipated?? they have access to fresh grass which I grow indoor's & have a water fountain which is cleaned & fresh water added every day.

Cats on a higher quality diet will poop less, I honestly don't know how often mine go (though I probably should for health purposes). What's more important than frequency is what it's like when they DO poop. If it's very dry and crumbly right after it comes out or it looks like they are straining to go or you find pieces around the house (like they couldn't get it out when they were in the box and they walked around with it half hanging out until it finally passed) then you will want to do something about it.


I wish you luck with your transitions, hopefully the little ones don't give you too much trouble. The fact that three of them have consumed raw meat already is very hopeful, they don't sound terribly paranoid about their food.

Keep us updated!

 

[BotanyBlack]

Sounds like you have done a lot of research. I myself see no problem in feeding one straight raw while the others transition, she eats that way and it may actually speed up the others when they see her eating it.

As to the poop thing, most cats on raw only go every 2 days some even go every 3 days. Just watch the poop. If it is too dark give more bone, if it has too much white or they strain decrease the bone.

BTW I agree cat food manufactures should be ashamed of what they put in the food as well as the way they educate people. But then they are raking in lots of money on cheap ingredients and not having to pay the vet bills.

 

[PaigeGwenn]

Just a minor side question, on the note that you are feeding you cat Poussin. I hate to get side tracked here, as I am watching your thread with interest, hoping that in the furture I may be able to switch my 4 Babies to canned food.

Aren't Bird bones bad for cats to chew? every now and then i like to give my cats a little raw chicken, but i always give it to them boneless because I heard they like fragment and splinter easy and could injure them. Not true maybe?

Good luck with the new cat diet!

 

[shan841]

Just a minor side question, on the note that you are feeding you cat Poussin. I hate to get side tracked here, as I am watching your thread with interest, hoping that in the furture I may be able to switch my 4 Babies to canned food.

Aren't Bird bones bad for cats to chew? every now and then i like to give my cats a little raw chicken, but i always give it to them boneless because I heard they like fragment and splinter easy and could injure them. Not true maybe?

Good luck with the new cat diet!

Raw bones are fine, only cooked bones splinter.

 

[Victoriax]

Hi,

Thank-you for the advise so far & sorry for sounding a lil impatient

yes I have been doing lot's of research over the past year just wish I had done it sooner.

Tulah will eat the raw meat & she will eat canned food but doesnt eat when mixed together, so... I think I will allow her to eat raw meat diet from now & allow the other 3 to transition at their own rate,

last night I put a tiny amount of chicken canned under Meeca's tuna, the chicken was left in the corner of the bowl but she had licked all around it & im sure she must have eaten even a tiny amount by accident, this is progress as she would not even touch her tuna before if any thing else had been added so slowly baby step's with her I think tonight I will put a tiny bit of raw rabbit under her tuna & see how that goes

all 4 of my cat's are so different bless them so I am having to try different bribes for each of them.

Teddy is thankfully back to his usual happy & very bossy self lol such a joy to have him telling me what to do again hehe
he is eating well & producing nice sized pee ball's, I will continue to supplement him daily with the Cysteaze for the rest of his life as he will always be prone to FLUTD flare up's & hopefully the Cysteaze will help keep it at bay.

I would say they are passing stool's every other day & they look fine, much less smelly than before which is a bonus

Elfie used to suffer with quite frequent diarrhoea probably every few month's, I would give him a dose of Prokolin which would sort it out so I am hoping that without the kibble in his diet he wont have to suffer another episode

watch this space

Thank-you
Victoria x

 

[Victoriax]

all 4 cat's have done very well today

Meeca has been eating her Tuna food with a tiny amount of chicken food underneath it, she has been leaving the chicken in the corer of her bowl but at least she has eaten around it whereas previously she wouldn't even tough the tuna if anything else was in her bowl

the other 3 have all eaten small chunk's of raw rabbit in with their canned food at each meal time

they are eaten 5-6 small meal's a day at the moment which I am trying to decrease to 3 meal's but because they have eaten lil & often all their lives at the moment they wont eat a large amount in one sitting so I will increase the meal size gradually over time, possibly by adding more raw to the canned slowly & then when they get to only 3 meal's a day of ideal size I will start reducing the canned & adding more raw until they are on 3 raw meal's a day.

I have offered Teddy & Elfie just raw but the wont touch it so they will have to transition through their canned

I am really pleased with their progress so far, the longest part was getting them to eat the canned with raw in it but once they took the plunge they seem to be moving a log at a good pace now

so proud of my lil bubba's <3

 

[Victoriax]

really pleased with our progress, Meeca has been eating Natures Menu wet food with no kibble at all for the last few week's but she is still not eating any of the raw that I mix in with it, she pick's the bit's of raw out & leaves it on the side at the moment

Teddy usually eats the raw in with his wet but wont eat the raw on it's own yet

Tulah & Elfie are both eating raw on it's own including small bones

I have offered them so far....

rabbit
chicken
pork
pouissin
lamb neck

Tulah devours all meat's with great gusto but Elfie will not eat chicken or poissin but loves the rabbit, pork & lamb neck

so I am very proud of my baby's they are all doing fantastic

I am going to get some small mice in the next couple of week's to see how the go down.