Today I want to share our raw feeding plan for the cats.
I have discussed the many styles of feeding when it comes to a raw diet and how we originally came to the decision to feed raw. It is time I address my own method of feeding.
Many raw feeders are reluctant to post their actual recipe online due to the chances for liability. So please note the following:
Making the decision to feed a raw diet means you are taking the nutritional care of your pet into your OWN hands. You as the pet owner are responsible for doing the research, watching for concerns, and adjusting if need be. Every pet is different, every meal plan is individual and nothing is risk free.
Please keep this in mind. I will provide as much information that I can, BUT I am not a veterinarian or trained nutritional consultant. I am just passing on the knowledge and experience I have gained over the last nine years.
This is not to deter you from feeding this diet, quite the opposite. All I want is to caution you to go into this endeavor fully educated and prepared. I truly want what is best for your pet!
That out of the way, lets get to the nitty gritty!
_____
The Pet Meadow’s Feline Raw Feeding Plan:
I currently feed a whole meat type raw plan designed to mimic whole prey, BUT that fits into my budget. I minimally cut up meats into two to three meals a day, adding in whole organs and other tidbits.
This current plan has been in place for about five years with only a few minor tweaks along the way. Prior to that I fed almost the same recipe but in ground form for four years.
Meats Fed in order of frequency:
- Cornish Game Hen
- Chicken (mostly thighs and wings)
- Pork (boneless meat chunks)
- Turkey (mostly thighs)
- Rabbit
- Wild duck, goose, and pheasant
- Eggs (both raw and cooked)
- Fish (either canned salmon or sardines in water no salt)
Organs in order of amounts:
- Liver (chicken, turkey, rabbit)
- Kidney, lung, spleen (mostly rabbit)
- Heart (not technically an organ but good source of taurine, chicken, rabbit, and turkey)
Supplements:
- None
_____
Feeding Rules I Follow
- Ratio of bone to muscle meat at about 10% (cornish hens are about 30-40% bone, so I alternate a boney cornish hen meal with a muscle meat meal)
- 5-10% of total meal should be organs with liver being the largest percentage
- I feed the equivalent of about 3-4% of ideal body weight split into two meals. Example: 12 lb cat = 5.75 to 7.7 ounces of food total a day.
- For kittens or cats needing to gain weight I feed 3 meals a day and base their food amount on the full grown or goal weight.
- Protein variety is mandatory. While chicken/cornish hens make up about 60-70% of my meals, at least every 3rd meal is another type of protein.
- While I do not feed organs every day, I feed larger portions several times a week to meet the 5-10% requirement
- I practice complete nutrition over the course of a week, not every single meal
- I cut up the meat only small enough for my cat’s skill levels, meaning it is as large as possible to promote chewing and a challenge
- I feed only human grade meats and handle it like I would for human consumption. For all wild game I freeze hard for two weeks before feeding
Where I Source My Meats
- Majority is purchased from local grocery stores
- Game meat we harvest or I gather from friends
- Most organs I order in bulk from a local raw distributor or from my rabbit supplier
- I ship in rabbit plus organs about three times a year from Hare Today (in US)
Tips
- Good kitchen shears do almost all my food prep work
- Feeding cats in crates, cages, or on old towels keeps messes to a minimum
- I have a raw food designated area in the refrigerator and freezer
- I have inexpensive storage containers with same color lids that are only used for raw food storage
- I love my digital food scale. I am terrible at eyeballing food amounts.
_____
What I Love About My Plan:
- Prep time is minimal, usually I prepare each meal as I serve it taking about 1-2 minutes for 4 cats
- Majority of my shopping is done near my home and doesn’t require a ton of extra freezer space
- All cats have beautiful looking teeth and really good jaw and neck muscles
- Litter box does not smell and stools are compact and infrequent
- The cats enjoy the variety and are not bored
- I rarely have any hairballs or vomiting
- Kitty waistlines are very easy to control
What Can Be A Headache
- Going on vacation requires a bit more prep for four cats some with special needs (I cut meals up into individual labeled baggies) and twice a day in home visits from a petsitter is required
- Sometimes they make a mess, its inevitable
- Three of my four cats are sensitive to red meats (not unusual). I cannot use beef, venison, or buffalo in my meal plans which would allow for more variety
- Each cat has quirks that have to be addressed, like Mia is sensitive to too much skin and fat, Cosmo at 16 does not like to chew really boney pieces, etc
- I cannot feed chicken necks, a good inexpensive source of boney meats. Two cats swallow them whole which is not overly fun
- Commercial meats seem to have increasing amounts of additives and fat in their products, raising my food costs and making it more difficult to source decent supplies
What I Continue To Try and Improve On
- Getting more omega 3′s into the cats is hard. They do not like fish oil supplements and you should not feed whole fish too often. Because our budget allows for mostly conventional raised meats, they are likely getting too many omega 6′s. I continue to try and find new ways to increase their 3′s and improve our meats without breaking the budget.
- Good quality organs are hard to find
- I would like to feed more ‘true’ whole prey like mice on a regular basis
_____
Phew, there you have it!
Hopefully this is helpful to some considering or modifying a raw diet. I try to stay active in the raw feeding forums and community. Always learning I believe is key to being successful in taking nutrition into your own hands.
Please feel free to ask any questions, either in the comments below or through email (emeadow411 at gmail dot com). There are several links on the upper right side of this page with websites and discussion groups about raw feeding. I have also found there are a lot more homeopathic veterinarians recommending raw, locate one in your area and schedule a consult if you prefer that method.
(Please note, all information provided at epetmeadow.com is intended for educational purposes only. See disclaimer for additional information)
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
WOW, I’m practically speechless…you are amazing and your cats must be the healthiest in town.
I feel like a terrible cat mother – LOL!
Cat’s Cats recently posted..Tuxie Tuesday
Oh please don’t feel bad.
I only ended up here through a series of odd circumstances and coincidences. Who knows where I would be if those hadn’t happened (I changed my own diet later for my health problems influenced greatly after I cured a health problem in a dog with food changes).
My Mommeh is not brave, so she uses the pre-made frozen medallions. I think your way is much healthier though. Harley can eat any protein, but red meat makes me throw up, too! If I eat even a tiny bite of red meat (beef, bison or venison) I vomit within a couple of minutes. I wonder why that is?
Daisy the Curly Cat recently posted..Wordless Wednesday: Fight
I saw your rabbit for breakfast video on YouTube, which was so inspiring. I have been grinding all bones and ~50% of meat for about a year, but started feeding in chunks after I saw the video. Mine won’t be able to eat that large piece yet though. Plus one of my bengals is not good at chewing bones either. I guess it takes a little practice.
thank you so much for great information.
I also see you around the Bengal cat forums
Great post. I feed my dog and cat (an eight-year-old Labrador retriever and a six-month-old rag doll, respectively) a very similar diet. Switched the dog to the raw diet in late 2009, and switched the cat to one when I got her at 12 weeks. Both are extremely healthy. I found this post very helpful; I’m much newer to feeding a cat a raw diet, and there seems to be way more information about dogs out there. Also, I love Hare Today, and my kitten’s favorite foods are their rabbit pieces and their mice. Again, great post!
Thanks for your post, I found it because I’m considering switching my DSH to a raw-food diet. Have already moved my dogs over to a homemade cooked diet, but the cat needs help too. Do you just cut up some meat each day and put it in their dish and they go to it? How do you convert them from a commercial dry to this? I’ve tried putting in meat in my cat’s dish and she just noses it around and eats the kibble – any ideas? Thank you!
Your best bet is to start feeding canned food and mixing small bits of say cut up chicken or turkey in there (small bits of raw chicken liver sometimes go over well). You don’t have to worry about a complete raw diet at that point. Increase the ratio of raw to canned slowly, depending on her tastes. Another technique is to lightly cook the meat (make sure it has no bone in it), and then reduce the cooking amount each day. If she struggles with this, then you may have to get rid of the kibble completely and go 100% canned. The kitty crunchies are pretty addictive, and until they are gone some the cats will hold out. Most folks can get cats to go from canned/raw mix to 100% raw in a week or two this way (the more stubborn a month+).
For my crew, once they actually recognized raw food as ‘food’ and not something to be buried it was like a lightbulb went off. It still took some time to get them eating variety and full boney chunks, but over the course of a few weeks you don’t have to fret too much about being 100% complete.
I recommend checking out discussion forums, you can see all the creative ways folks have converted their cats.
As for our meals, yup, every morning/evening I just take a cornish hen, chicken thigh, or whatever I have thawed and using kitchen shears I cut it into pieces that are between 1-3 inches (my oldest cat gets the smallest bones/pieces). If I have organs thawed, I spread those evenly among the plates for my four cats. That’s about it. It takes me about 2-4 minutes to feed them and that includes me weighing everything. If I wasn’t so much of a procrastinator I could probably pre-cut everything in batches and feeding time would be nothing.
In the beginning it will take longer as you learn what works and what doesn’t for your cat, but once you get into a routine its a cinch. I don’t recommend preparing a bunch of food ahead of time until you know if she will eat it consistently. Many people get gung ho, buy a ton of bulk supplies, make a HUGE batch of a ground raw food recipe, only to find their feline turns up their nose. Guess the good news is you have a dog to help out with leftovers