Does anyone feed a raw diet to their cats? Mine are on Hills i/d at the moment due to illness but I have just started my dog on raw food and was thinking about doing the same with the cats. They've already stolen some from the dog so have go the taste for it! Anyone got any opinions???

Originally dogs and cars are carnivores. Mine have dry fiood available 24/7; raw or cooked meat or fish every day ( as soon as kittens weaned they munching on raw beef, pork, fish or boiled/roasted. We never had any problems with tummies; kittens normally quite chunky and lively.

__________________
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." --Bruce Graham
There are no rules, rules are only for people who fit inside a box, if you want to think out of the box there is no hope... Life has no Box. (Tony Howells)

I havent tried a BARF type diet but I have been feeding mine Orijen which is one of the highest meat contents you can get in a dried food (i believe its only available from zooplus), it contains 75% meat!!!!. It is fantastic and i would highly recommend it to anyone, plus the bag lasts ages as they dont seem to need so much. My cats are thriving on it and i think ive tried every expensive/recommended food possible.My cats are certainly happy customers

I have thought about feeding raw but to be honest i couldnt be doing with the mess in the house (and im lazy LOL!!)

Ang

__________________
No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.

They're my two options, raw or orijen. My vet has strongly advised against it but recommended hills as a permanent diet which I am definatly not going to do.

The mess might put me off, we had a roast chicken and forgot to shut the cats out after we'd sat down to eat and the carcas had disappeared when we went back to the kitchen, we found random bones all over the house and garden for a week after that!

All our cats have a wet and dried food diet and they all have raw beef on occasion including the kitts and they love it, when we have an expectant queen or a nursing queen we give them as much as they will eat,though Rosie our Seal girl will only eat raw meat when she's expecting or nursing apart from then she won't entertain it

__________________
Dogs have owners, Cats have slaves

Burnthwaites Siamese

Well I tried them with some raw chicken this morning and it went down well. Think I might just build it up and see what happens. There doesn't seem to be much info floating about for cats its all about dogs.

My dad feeds their cats raw meat, always has done. They have a moggie and a Korat, both cats do really well on raw meat. My cats get a little raw and their main feed is dried, but they love their raw food. I'm not sure about how much in weight terms to give the cats but I think it's about 4 or 5 oz each.

Im not bothered about amounts as I always have fed to eye anyway. Glad to hear there are people out their feeding all raw diets succesfully. From what I can work out its pretty much the same as feeding it to a dog just obviously less and smaller bones. Does your dad feed offal and bones as well as meat? What about veg?

ive been looking in to the barf diet and getting the book by Dr Ian Billinghurst
and they recon vets dont like you to put your cat or dog on it as it makes them to healthy so does them out of money.
if you google barf your get loads of info

__________________

mainly raw beef, sometimes chicken, not usually the bones although I know the cats will get the occasional bone but the korat has had to have some teeth taken out after he was bumped or kicked so chewing bones is hard for him, offal .. not sure about that one as I'm not usually there at feeding time, lol. They may do though, although not much. Both cats are shiney and very healthy though. Veg yeah carrots sometimes, don't think they get much veg though, although my cats get bits of veg chopped up, generally whatever we're having for tea, bit of brocolli, bit of carrot, a few peas. It all gets eaten, so I guess they enjoy it.