Dualbunny's Pets: A Desk Reference

[dualbunny]

Daily round-up: I had today off. Officially. Not just 'cause I wasn't working or something. Boo Boo is cleaning Lily's face and killing me with the cuteness. I finished clipping for my vid, and intend to be in a vidding place tonight and this weekend--and then some. And I got ice cream and have a shiny, fluffly, clean dog with the cutest

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[dualbunny]

Yep. In fact tonight Lily and Boo split their second whole quail--feathers and everything. Of course I had to do the actual splitting. They are not sharers. ;D

We do mostly chicken, and pork, and a nice mix of organ types as I can find them. The cats get small chickens and they can eat all of the bones in them. Miles gets larger ones. And for pork, they mostly get brisket, because Corki can't have chicken every day (comes back up if it's more than an occasional thing) and the bones/cartilage in the brisket are something she can chew up. They also get beef, whole mackerel, and turkey.

I just ordered some stuff from an online rodent supplier, so that's where the quail came from. The cats will also be eating a whooole bunch of mice and a couple of rabbits. The rabbits are the toughest thing I've come across. I've had them as pets, so it's strange. But it doesn't change the fact that the cats are designed to eat them.

The model I'm following is based on feeding whole prey animals as much as possible. Either whole animals or by making "whole" animals out of pieces of different animals, which someone dubbed "franken-prey". There's an emphasis on as much variety as you can manage, since most of the meat sources out there today don't necessarily get fed the best diet themselves. Cat can be tougher to get the variety into (picky picky!), but it helps to ensure the best range of nutrients.

Of course there are people who don't feed a ton of variety and their animals are still in better shape then when they were on kibble. But, anyway, that's why I've gone to the trouble of ordering frozen animals over the internet. Certainly can't afford to do it regularly, but the mice were still cheaper than going to the local pet store.

The animals all love it though. And I love that the litter box doesn't smell anymore. I actually switched to unscented cat litter, because the perfume was just overpowering me now-LOL. :D Plus Miles' deposits shrunk to half their old size. Amazing the difference when their bodies use the food you give them. :)

I think it's safe to say I've been converted. ;D

[ad_kay]

That's really interesting! The raw food stuff I've looked at has been mainly about adding a supplement powder and salmon oil to ground meat, not so much about whole critters:
http://www.felineinstincts.com/
http://www.felinefuture.com/

I bought the powder from Feline Future, but then realized that I need to get an accurate food scale to be able to mix portions properly. Would like to switch them over to raw foods for all the reasons you mentioned.

How did you introduce whole animals? Were they freaked out at first? Ptera loves ground raw chicken, fish and shrimp, and is intrigued yet deeply perplexed by whole chicken necks. (She hasn't grasped the concept that she could hold the neck down with her paws.) Mr. Pants is completely horrified and wants nothing to do with it. I think I could fool him by gradually mixing in a bit of ground raw chicken with some canned food at first. He ain't the brightest kat in the world.

[dualbunny]

I did spin by the FelineFuture website in my web-trolling. It actually seemed comfortingly complex at the time, if that makes sense. ;) But also complicated enough to make me put it off longer.

The groups that eventually gave me the courage to just jump in with both feet were these Yahoo groups:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/
(High traffic list, 3000+ members, lots of info and advice, also great at holding hands for new converts. More dog talk than cats.)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rawcat/
(Still a pretty active list, but not as busy as "rawfeeding". It is a sister list to it though, and there is a fair amount of overlap with members from what I can tell. Easier to make sure your cat questions don't get lost here, but the other list uses the same principles, mostly just larger servings. ;])

These groups are based on the idea that dogs and cats are carnivores and don't need any veggies added to their diets. Some people seem more flexible about that than others, but it's the general idea. Also the whole prey-model. Lots of people don't ever get to the whole animal stage though. It's sort of the ideal toward which the diet should work toward.

My guys were actually really easy to switch over. They were getting two meals a day of kibble, so that helped right off the bat. It can be harder to switch when they've been getting free-choice. I just skipped their evening kibble one night to sort of empty their stomachs a little, and started in with some chicken the next morning.

I think I gave the cats smashed up drumsticks. The bones seemed much too large for them, so I smashed them up. After doing that though, they actually seemed more likely to swallow them badly, so I didn't smash them again. The local Asian market carries some smaller chickens that work great for the cats. Between the four of them (three mostly--my oldest can only have chicken every once in a while), they can eat every scrap of them.

They were a little confused when I first gave it to them, especially Corki and Sasha, but they caught on. Didn't really eat much for bone right away, but within a few meals they caught on to the idea of chewing those up too. And when I have something that they don't really want to eat, like say Corki and Sasha and certain organ meats, I just mix a tiny bit of canned food in with it.

I've read many stories now of people who struggled to switch their cats. With dogs you can just say, "This is it. Eat it or don't." Eventually they'll give in and eat it, and catch on that it's real food. Cats can run into pretty serious problems if they start starving themselves. The big thing people look out for is the possibility of hepatic lipidosis. Especially with overweight cats that suddenly stop eating. The hepatic lipidosis rarely ever causes the not eating. It's a secondary problem that arises from the not eating.

All of that just means that with cats, you have to work on their terms. :) If they switch right over, awesome. If they don't, you do like you were talking about. Mix a little ground in with some canned and work your way up to all raw, then up to larger chunks, then to pieces with bone, and so forth until, hopefully, you're up to feeding RMBs (raw meaty bones) of an appropriate size. If you only ever feed ground, you don't get the teeth cleaning work of eating bone, or the fun that they generally get out of it. Sometimes having one cat that catches on can help to switch other cats. As far as using their feet, Lily and Sasha do pretty regularly, Boo does very rarely, and I've never seen Corki do it.

Unless they're trying to get stuff unstuck from their teeth. I've had them swallow stuff wrong and get a bit of bone stuck in their teeth on occasion. It's a little scarey looking, but the only one that didn't get it out on their own in a few seconds was Sasha and some softer tiny bits of pork bone. I flipped them out of her teeth with my fingernail. She probably would have gotten them out on her own, but she wouldn't finish eating with them there.

The hardest part about all of it? Just getting started. Then it's all about fine tuning and making progress. It was saying goodbye to the kibble that was the toughest. :)

[ad_kay]

Been meaning to thank you for this info! I want to switch over. I think Ptera will be the easiest. I have given her raw chicken necks and raw ground chicken, and she is highly enthusiastic. But raw chicken necks leave her perplexed. I also left a chicken neck outside to see what our feral kitties would do... they were really flummoxed. One of them even acted afraid of it. Kept swatting it with her paw. "Is it alive???"

[dualbunny]

Aww...cute little freaked out kitties. :D Chicken necks are one of the tougher sells if you ask me. So much bone that even if they do take a stab at it, they might not get the point. You could try legs or thighs if you want to give a try with something recognizable. Breast with a little bit of breast bone still in might work too. Or just get chunks of boneless meat of any kind down pat before going on to the boned stuff. Cats generally do just fine with whatever kind of variety you can get them to eat.

It took all of my cats a little while before they understood that they could handle a neck. ;)

[ad_kay]

I might try chicken chunks this weekend if I can find some organic chickens at the farmers' market. I give Ptera raw shrimp as a snack, but only if it's been frozen previously. I have no idea if fresh raw shrimp is safe.

[dualbunny]

I've never heard of any parasites that are a problem with shrimp. That's pretty much the only reason to freeze before using. Wild-caught salmon from the Pacific northwest, and any wild game that could have fleas, worms, etc, it's best to freeze at least solid before using. Some people say for a month, other's just say to make sure it's frozen completely.

Since shrimp freeze and thaw so quickly though, I can't imagine it makes much difference. :)