Tobyjoe and I heard that feeding raw meat to cats will prove beneficial for them. Anyone else hear this? We have been feeding Tucker (pookum won’t touch the stuff, she’s dry cat food ONLY) chicken lately. (This began when Schmitty decided he no longer wanted to eat. Desperate, we cooked chicken for him, Tucker, being tucker, wouldn’t hear of being left out.)

I haven’t tried anything raw yet but am curious to hear what others think. Ever read and/or hear about this diet? Cats were, after all, meant to eat raw meat, right? And don’t the little guys who are unfortunate enough to live on the streets eat raw meat? Just wondering what others think.

There was a book about raw food diets for pets that my friend Kelly Sue passed along to me when Dub was sick… I can’t recall the name off hand, but I’ll see if I can track it down and provide more info.

I found Steve’s Real Food today while perusing online. I wonder if our local pet store carries it. I could give it a go. The site says that cats who are only used to dry food might not transition well, but those who like to eat things like vegetables, cheese, real meat, fruit, etc will transition easier. Tucker likes most anything. Pookum won’t touch anything but dry food.

I haven’t done extensive research about this (I’m more likely to try to go vegan with the kids than raw) but instinctively I want to say that what isn’t safe for us to eat raw is not safe for our pets either. Raw meat from your local supermarket was raised and slaughtered in some appalling conditions somewhere and that has most likely contaminated the meat with pathogens that will make us and them sick. Even free-range and organic stuff is still laden with bacteria, and our pets have reduced immune capacity due to being domesticated animals instead of wild.

and our pets have reduced immune capacity due to being domesticated animals instead of wild.

Good point.

That’s what I was afraid of.

Vegan tho? How so? What would you give them? Do you have names of brands? Make your own? Curious.

I have a friend who works for PETA. His dogs are vegan, and we’ve talked about it before – he acknowledged that it’s a lot easier to go vegan with omnivores like dogs than carnivores (our feline friends.) Here’s the PETA info page about veg pets: http://www.helpinganimals.com/animalsHome_gi_vegAnimals.asp

There are a lot of foods out there. I tried Evolution and the cats hated it. Thomas got sick right around the same time, so I abandoned it entirely. I’m thinking about trying again, particularly in light of the Menu Foods debacle. Both Kali and Pearl got sick from their food so I’ve been trying to find new stuff that’s palatable to them and acceptable to me, no easy task. There’s a supplement called VegeCat that you mix in to other foods (if you prepare your own, or buy a base with which to cook meals.)

There’s a site for vegan cats, and they have a decent faq – http://www.vegancats.com/pages/1007/FAQ.htm

They also carry a book that I bought way back when called “Obligate Carnivore.” If you’re not already a vegetarian/vegan, it sounds pretty preachy. They do make some valid points, though. The most common argument I had at the time (on LiveJournal, of all places – SO glad I abandoned that particular online community!) was that cats need the protein taurine and they can only get that from meat. Wrong! The stuff in commercial pet food barely qualifies as meat in the first place, and most of the natural taurine is leeched out during the rendering process. Lots of commercial pet foods have synthetic taurine added, and that’s the same stuff in vegan foods. I think the biggest issue for me is finding stuff for them that they actually WILL eat.

Tornado Kitty has been on a raw diet for a while now; I’ve been using Bravo frozen raw diet. I’m luck in that there are a couple of stores in my area that carry a variety of frozen raw food for pets and in that Tornado Kitty is willing to eat it. If she has a choice between off-the-shelf canned cat food and this raw food, she’ll take the former, but I don’t usually give her a choice. :/ I think her health has definitely improved since she has been on the raw diet, in terms of getting closer to an appropriate weight and being able to jump up on the furniture with less hesitation. :) It’s a bit more effort for me to keep a small portion of the raw food thawing in the fridge in time for the next meal, but it seems to be worthwhile.

Katie, thanks for the information. I think i’ll give it a shot. I am assuming that Bravo delivers? I’ll look now.