As I am looking at moving my boys onto a partially raw diet I want to know what makes up a balanced raw meal? I know they need more than meat and in nature this comes from eating at least some of the preys stomach contents, bones, sinew, brain and skni/feathers/fur as well as the meat.

How can I simulate this in their diet? literally just toss some fur, brain and bone in the mincer along with the meat?

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Well, you could buy some mice and give to them whole, that'd be perfect I know many raw feeders aim to feed natural prey - mice, small rabbits, chicks, guinea pigs, rats, etc. I can't quite stomach that myself yet, although I tried giving my cat a mouse. He looked at me as if I was crazy!

So, let's say thats not an option - then this is what you do:

First, ideally the meat should be in as big chunks as possible, to help clean teeth (they don't have mincers in the wild!)

Don't mince the bones... they need to be whole so the cats can chew them.

All you need to do is add some organ meat (liver, kidneys, lungs etc) to the meat and add some chicken wings or ribs or other smallish bones.

I've found the following to be a good recipe for my cat:
Diced turkey leg meat from Tescos - 85% of the batch I make
Chicken livers - 5% of the batch
One quail for bones - quails have small bones, so I can use the whole quail. This adds roughly 10% bones.
(Some cats need less bone, some need more. Same with organ meat - its a bit of a trial and error process until you find what's the right balance for your cat. If the poo is white and dry you need less bone. If runny, less organ meat.)

This all gets mixed together (not minced, but in chunks) and frozen in portions.

Then, when I feed him I add a small teaspoon of Fish body oil to one of the meals per day. The oil helps his fur and stops it from going too dry.

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thanks!

sorry I missed a chunk out my post o

I am also (in addition to feeding raw) cooking up some of the surplus meat to replace some of the pouches they get as Misha refuses point blank to eat anything other than chicken and salmon raw so I know he isn't getting the balance required, so his portion of the brain, kidneys and liver I mince up and cook... but I know it isn't 'complete' like the pouches or the dry... so wondered if I needed to add anything else to the meat...

Indy will eat anything raw except liver which the response to is 'ewwww icky!'


just picked up a bag og chicken wings, half a beef heart and a big chunk of pigs liver for £1 from local market specially for the cats, also some chicken, stewing beef and fish pie mix (cod, salmon and haddock chunks) for us which the cats will also share, next week the butchers are saving me a 'kitty bag' of chicken, beef and rabbit offcuts including some lung, heart, kidney and brain and the 2kilo bag will be £5-£10

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