Hi all

I have never been too worried about feeding raw but tonight I was cooking minced steak for dinner and had some of the raw mince left so thought I would try Mika and Scarlett. They love it and wolfed down loads of it.

My question now is should I have just given them a little bit and introduced it gradually??? I didn't even think to be honest it was just so nice watching them really chewing and enjoying it that I let them have it all!!!

Some advice would be great, especially if I am now expecting for them to have the squits all night!!!

Thanks

Lou
X

I don't know. Today I gave my 2 siamese (no one else wanted it) a tiny piece of raw chicken each. They both seemed to enjoy eating it like proper cats in the wild eating their zebras! lol... I'm gonna just prehaps give them a tiny bit every other day and see how it goes.

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x meow x

Have to say I mainly feed mine rc persian 30 as their staple diet, but just recently I have started adding white fish for them all. You can get loads of it frozen from Aldi, thats where I get it, then boil it down and mush it.Victor loves it, he goes for it like a mad man! Its not posh fish like haddock or owt,its probably pollack or coley (sp) in lidl though you need your specs on to translate the foreign stuff!

When I changed my cat over to raw I didn't bother with transitioning (except supplementing the meat until he started eating bones). He loved it so much and it seemed so natural that I just went for it, and he was fine, no stomach problems at all.

I would say though, be careful with the minced meat. Because it's minced it has a bigger surface where bacteria can grow, hence more potential for stomach upsets. So if you are considering feeding raw on a regular basis, switch to chopped up pieces rather than mince

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Have a look at my photoblog!

Fit for the sunshine so it followed her, a happy tempered bringer of the best, out of the worst.

So could I use braising steak or something like that instead??? I only bought the mince today so it should have been nice and fresh.


Thanks for the advice - bit of a newbie to this raw lark!

I wouldnt do raw, I like the cooked fish and chicken idea personally. The bags of raw fish in the frozen section of Lidl are so cheap to buy, we just boil them down and the cats love them to bits. Their poos have gone so much more solid since as well

I'm not planning on doing it all the time - just as an occasional treat!!! As much as they enjoyed it, I swear they thought it was prey that had to be dragged round the kitchen and killed!!!

Mika and Scarlett's poos are already nice and solid (thank goodness) but the others have intermittent squishy ones so perhaps I will try them on more of a chicken and fish diet...if it makes a difference. I normally shop in Tescos but I do have an Aldi near me...is that the same sort of thing as Lidl???

Yeah but not as cheap as Lidl, lol I tried mine on raw chicken wings and all they did was chuck them round the lounge and left them to go off !! Cooked white fish though, they seem to attack it like its Christmas come early

Whichever meat you can get, really. I use a lot of rabbit, as it's the cheapest meat I can find (£3.50 or so for a kilo) but chicken is great, and beef, and lamb if the cats like it - mine hates lamb I feed pork too, but I know some people advise against it because of a disease that can be in pork meat.

I'm sure they'll be fine with the mince, it's just a bit more risky than regular meat I give mine mince too, when I have some spare from my own dinner, but I wouldn't go out and specifically buy it for them.

I found this raw feeding thing to be quite scary when I first started reading about it, but it's quite simple really. Just think of what a prey would contain, and then try to replicate it. So, mostly just meat, and then a little bone and a little liver or other organ meat. That's it really! Then give some raw fish once a week and you're all set.

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Have a look at my photoblog!

Fit for the sunshine so it followed her, a happy tempered bringer of the best, out of the worst.

Feeding minced beef, especially a lot initially can lead to runny poo. Whilst there are scare stories around re. larger surface area for bacteria actually the risk is minimal the hygine standards that human food has to go through are quite high otherwise we'd all be suffering from bacterial infestions. For pet food manufacturers the standards are even higher under EU regulations than for food for human consumption.

As a treat any meats (cooked or raw) are ok but only in small amounts as long as they have not been processed i.e. salt added or "enhanced"

If you are planning on introducing a raw diet, chicken wings or rabbit is a good start.

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Karen

www.kiskasiberians.co.uk - The home of Hypoallergenic Siberian Cats
www.back-2-nature.co.uk - Raw Food for Dogs, Cats and Ferrets

www.rawfed.com - Information on Raw Feeding