I recently discovered how awful processed food is to feed to a cat. I am interested in starting my cat on a raw food diet. I need some suggestions and or recipes to get started. I live in an urban environment and I am personally opposed to grinding meat. Can anyone help?|||Hi there...here are some websites to help get you started on raw feeding for cats: http://www.holisticat.com/rawdiet.html http://www.catinfo.org/ http://www.rawfedcats.org/ http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/sa鈥?/a> Extra info: http://www.felineinstincts.com/ http://www.rawlearning.com/|||Cats need taurine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine#Tau鈥?/a>|||If you do this you have to be careful to make sure you get all the vitamins and nutrients your cat needs. Talk to your vet first, if you refuse to grind meat your options may be slim. There may be commercial choice, like frozen food, or supplements you can add to the meat and buy from a local store. Buy from a butcher you trust, not the supermarket. You can't leave her food out in her dish for long. One of my cats just eats a mix of small prey animals and Meow Mix seafood medley. She's 15 years old and still very healthy. She won't eat anything else.|||Seattle has given you some good links on the raw food diets. Yahoo groups can also be helpful. One I like is WholeCatHealth. There you can commiserate and rejoice in making the switch with your cat - not all cats can accept the raw food if they have been on kibble all their lives. Cats who have eaten canned food are easier to convert and for some people that is a necessary first step. I have done a home-made diet for my cats for eight years now. I use the supplement powder from Feline Instincts because I am lazy about buying all the supplements separately and putting them together. I always get my ground meat (chicken and turkey) from small markets where the meat is ground as needed - never packaged and is hormone and antibiotic free. So my process is as simple as mixing up a 2 lb meatloaf for a family (except you don't cook the meat). I then freeze it in muffin tins which I transfer to a gallon ziploc bag to thaw out as needed. Right now I have two cats and one "muffin" is fine to share for their evening meal. Two lbs of ground meat makes a dozen muffins for me. I use canned in the mornings. When you use ground meat you lose the benefit of the teeth cleaning properties of meat chunks and chewing on bone. My cats won't just not eat the chunky stuff so I had to compromise and bear the brunt of teeth cleaning on a yearly basis. At http://www.littlebigcat.com Dr. Jean Hovfe has an article titled "Easy Homemade Diets for Cats and Dogs" which will give you an idea of the best supplements you need to put in your recipe. Be aware that in using ground meat you MUST have a calcium source in the food. Otherwise the phosphorus/calcium balance is thrown off and would not be healthy for your cat. My recipe includes four oz of chicken or turkey liver for the vitamin A and I put in as many chicken or turkey hearts as I can get for additional taurine (there is taurine in the RAW meat).|||Google the info you need and do NOT forget to include the proper amounts of taurine which is a necessity. The other answers are very good and remember not to give onions especially. Grow oat grass for them.|||Excellent! You've made a wise choice. Now you can make this as easy or as complicated as you wish. You do not have to grind your own meat, although that is certainly an option. There are many different schools of thought on raw feeding - you should just choose whichever works for you. I personally chose the whole prey route. This means ground meat, bones and organs in the right proportions so I don't need to do any supplementing. (There are those who feel it's better to feed chunks rather than ground so the cats get the dental benefit, but ground works better for me and I give them chicken necks for their teeth, so it's all good.) You may get lucky - you could plunk down some meat and your cat would eat it. But many others, myself included, first had to get their kibble junkies off kitty crack and onto canned food as a first step. After that, small amounts of raw meat can be added to the canned, and gradually increased until it's all that's being served. Or you can certainly continue feeding some canned and some raw. You have to take it at the cat's pace. There are some Yahoo groups dedicated to raw feeding...you could join all of them (just go to Yahoo groups and search raw feeding) and review their theories and choose whatever works best for you. This is how I started. I got rather baffled and even gave up on the idea, but I was encouraged to try again - my vet suggested just picking any theory and giving it a shot. So I do encourage you to join these groups and do your research, but don't let the myriad of options stop you - they all think they have the best method of feeding raw - you have to decide what's best for YOU and your cat. Good luck! Ok, one more thing - another way to tempt a cat to eat raw is to sprinkle or mix in bribe foods. For me, I crushed some dry food and sprinkled it over the raw. That helped get my girls started. Oops I completely skipped over suppliers. There are online sources for meat - such as www.hare-today.com, or you may be able to find a local supplier. If you're in the midwest area, you can look at Taylor Pond Farms. This is where I get the bulk of my raw. www.taylorpondfarms.com. Not only that, but you can look at commercially prepared raw diets such as nature's Variety - this and some other brands do offer a completely balanced food.|||this isnt going to help but a raw food diet helps prevent lyme disease i have it too|||http://cats.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/raw鈥?/a>|||You can purchase different protein products from your local meat market, etc. (fish, chicken also)... Any naturally found organic food products would be best for any pet. Your imagination is limitless...|||My cats really like hard-boiled eggs! ~Hope this helps!|||go to the butcher or supermarket. you can get all the raw meat you like|||This is the mix I give on the weekends. It include raw free-range ground beef,chopped chicken hearts or turkey hearts(filled with taurine), and one spoonful of missing link feline supplement. Mix it all together and serve|||My dog was on a raw diet. It was a real pain. I spent more time preparing his food than mine. The raw dog food comes in a long tube which must be frozen or it will rot really fast . So you must saw off hunks and weigh them on a scale. Not sure how the commerical raw cat food works. It was good suff. My dog loved it. But I weaned him off and started him on Merrick super premium foods and he is just as happy. My vet discouraged the raw diet also. SHe said it was a food safety danger for the humans in the house as well as the fact that domesticated animals have not had to hunt for many years and thus are not equipped to digest raw in the same way as their prehistoric ancestors were so expect problems. She also said the Cornell University has a study site which for a small fee will rate you dog or cat food as far as its nutritious content matching your type of animal. She suggested I check it out. I did not because I had decided I'd had enough of raw...it really was a pain. And my dog looks just as healthy with the super premium food. Check it out.|||There are lots of resources for doing this on the internet. I suggest you try out this thing called Google.|||Your vet will tell you not to do this. Please schedule an appointment for you to visit with the Vet about your cat's diet so you can learn about healthy alternatives. Yes this will cost you for a visit, but if you don't you will wind up paying more money to have him cure a sick or malnourished cat... Don't trust some of the crazy things you will read on the internet. I have been raising cats for over 40 years. Although cats are carnivores (meat eaters) Raw pork can give trich, raw chicken salmonella, and raw beef other bacteria. This is why cats in the wild do not live as long as pet cats. The best food is dry kibble - Science Diet or Iams for Indoor cats, sold at pet stores like PetSmart and PetCo. Do not feed your cat canned tuna - too much sodium - destroys their kidneys. Also do not feed your cat onions, tomatoes, chocolate or any citrus fruit. These are poison to them even tho they like to taste them. I feed my three the Science Diet indoor, and have since they were weaned from their mothers. All three are healthy happy and active. They do get tastes or small bits of apple, pear, cantaloupe, cheese, and one likes yogurt (not the sweetened kind or frozen yogurt - the natural kind with no flavor or added ingredients., and then only about a teaspoon full) Do not feed them milk, except maybe once a month as a treat, then only about a teaspoon full. When I cook chicken, fish, beef or pork, I cook a small bit for them (no seasoning) and they each get about a tablespoon chopped fine. This is only a couple times a week. The nutrients in the dry kibble are carefully formulated to give your cat all the right nutrition.|||cats are carnivores but too much meat can affect their kidneys. This dry food crap even vets go on with is garbage. I use meat lean and cook it with dry soup mix and mixed frozen veges. They also get dry food occasionally. I put omega six powder in it and some olive oil. I vary this mix as well sometimes with brown rice. You will pay less vet bills if you give them a good diet. my pets never get sick.|||Teach your cat how to catch birds and mice. We had a Bobcat once that ate nothing but raw liver. Perhaps you cat would like that.|||Before you force the poor cat to live on raw meat, ask the advice of the best veterinarian in your city. The vet may think that cooking helps reduce germs in the raw meat that need to be monitored. Most of what a cat eats is meat..You probably won't find a cat wanting to eat much raw vegetables or drink raw milk.Raw milk would not be so good either. Probably best if you see what the supermarket has and what your cat likes best, buy those things. Take the cat for its shots. Make sure it does not get feline lieukemia, that's a tough way for a poor cat to live (and die)..

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