Well, I'm over the moon, all 3 cats are eating the chicken wings now, Poppy particularly like eating the wing tips but will gnaw the whole thing.

I've still got quite a bit of their dry food left so I'm just gonna give them that aswell until it runs out but once the dry foods gone, thats it. I'm not buying anymore!!

Whats the best offal to offer them? Are they more likely to eat liver, for example than kidney? What seems more acceptable to them?

Do cats tend to readily take heart?

I tend to buy my meat from supermarkets (I know, naughty me!) but I've noticed that I can't get heart from there anymore. Is there a reason for this? So, I kinda guess I'm gonna have to go find a nice local butcher to see if I can get heart and suitable scraps for them.

Does anyone know any nice butchers in the north-east area. Preferably Gateshead/Washington/Sunderland/Durham area?!

__________________
Donna...

PROUD mother of HARRIET...
and my furry babies;
DINSDALE - cat
PRESTON - dog
SCRABBLE - dog
SUKI - cat
POPPY - cat

soon to be mammy of some cute furry ratties!! xxx


"A Dog is for Life, not just for Christmas" - Dogs Trust.

Great news on the chicken wings! That's a major hurdle out of the way.

Heart is usually quite well accepted. My lads will happily chew on beef or lamb heart chunks - which is also great for the teeth and jaws. Heart is a very dense muscle meat and so contains loads of taurine. But heart does not count as organ meat.

Cats seem to be far less keen on liver and kidney, so you might have to get crafty. They might prefer chicken livers to pig or lamb. Don't forget they only need a small amount of organ meat. If you offer them 'neat' liver or kidney, they will probably walk away. So I cut it up very small and 'hide' it in their other food. Even then they may eat around it. So you could try whizzing it into a puree with some chicken leg meat, or some other meat which they are keen on, and then putting that in their food.

Regarding supplies, true, you don't often see heart in supermarkets. This presumably is down to lack of demand. I do sometimes see lamb hearts in Tesco for about £2 for 3. But most decent butchers will order a beef heart for you, with a few days' notice. They might even chop it up for you, which will save you some time in the kitchen. Why not order an ox tongue while you are at it? That way you will get about 3kgs of fabulous fresh meat for under a tenner. Portion it into freezer bags and that will keep you going for a bit.

Have you tried any minced rabbit etc from online suppliers like Woldsway or Darlings? The beauty of these is that it's the whole rabbit, minced, so bones and organs are included. They do other minced raw meat and chunks. Might be worth doing an order and seeing what your cats like.

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Rescue cats for many years, currently one moggie and 3 young Maine Coons.

Well all 3 kitties are now happily eating the chicken wings. I went to the supermarket and butchers today, the majority of which is now in me freezer.

From the butchers I got:
A big bag of frozen "dog meat" containing chicken carcasses, offal, meat scraps
2 lamb hearts (£1.29 for the 2 - bargain!)
2 Pigs trotters

From a different butchers I got a bag of meat scraps and a big bag of bones for free.

From the supermarket I got:
Belly pork slices
Chopped pig hearts
Pigs Liver
A chicken
2 packs of chicken wings (approx 12 in a pack)

Please bear in mind that the things I bought are for my 2 dogs aswell as the cats so I know that they won't like everything I bought but out of the things I bought I just want to know - can they eat everything or are there some things that they *shouldn't* eat?!

I think I might try getting some chicken livers as suggested by howlinbob rather than trying them with lamb/beef/pig livers if they're more likely to eat that.

Could anyone please help with how much I should be giving each cat per day when I get them onto the raw fully? Does anyone on here have any examples of what they feed their cats daily?

I'm taking things slowly as I still have cat food left in the house so at the mo I'm only supplementing their normal tinned food diet with the added benefit of raw and will slowly introduce more and more over the next 2 weeks. All 3 seem to be relishing the change and I now have a happy Dinsdale sat next to me after crunching his way through a chicken wing, bone and everything

__________________
Donna...

PROUD mother of HARRIET...
and my furry babies;
DINSDALE - cat
PRESTON - dog
SCRABBLE - dog
SUKI - cat
POPPY - cat

soon to be mammy of some cute furry ratties!! xxx


"A Dog is for Life, not just for Christmas" - Dogs Trust.