First vet visit -- a little discouraged about raw feeding

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Originally Posted by =^..^=

This is what I was talking about - it has to be balanced. Tossing the cat a chicken wing or filling it's bowl with chopped beef isn't a balanced diet. Some sites recommend added vitamin-mineral mixes and taurine, not just organ meat and bone to the meat.

BTW, I never got my cats to eat chicken with the bone. They'd eat the organ and muscle meat and leave the small pieces of meat with bone in it to dry up in the bowls. Bigger pieces like chicken wings or backs, breasts, necks were dragged all over the floor and carpets and never eaten. It was gross.

Did you ever try Cornish game hens? They are more expensive, but the bones are much easier for the cats to chomp through.

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

Science Diet is TERRIBLE. It's full of carbs.

www.catinfo.org

And mainly:
1. All wet, even if it's not the expensive stuff, is better than dry. Even expensive dry.
2. Low carbs = better.
3. Except fish. Fish isn't better, although I think that the fish varieties in smaller amounts might not be a problem, they are prone to containe environmental toxins in concentrations that may be unhealthy if fed often. Especially the kinds made with tuna and other large fish. Some cats are allergic to fish. The best foods to give cats are bird and bunny. Chicken, turkey, duck and occasional rabbit is what I stick with.
4. You'd be surprised about Fancy Feast. Sure it's got by products probably and isn't the highest quality, it's cheap for reasons. But in terms of nutritionally useless fillers (carbs) it's not that bad if you stick to the Classic or Chunky Turkey or Chicken varieties.
5. Most foods with gravy have high carb starchy filler that goes into the gravy.

Personally I think that one of the best canned cat foods is Tiki Cat, but only the chicken kind. It has extremely low carbs. I also feed Nimbus Nutro Max Cat Duck chunks n' sauce (it's his favorite) and Fancy Feast chunky chicken or turkey just to balance out the cost of the higher priced foods.

I'm almost morally opposed to buying Hills. They have almost the whole veterinary industry snookered into selling their products in this country, and it really gripes me because they put corn meal and all kinds of unhealthy junk in it. I don't buy Blue Buffalo products either, but it's not because I know them to be bad, it's because they refuse to release their nutritional data (they won't answer questions about % calories from fat/protien/carbs--info that isn't on the cans) and I find that suspicious. Don't tell me your stuff is the best of the best and then refuse to say what's really in it. Nope.

I will give the cats fish sometimes, not white fish, however. They get Salmon if I've made some extra money and am feeling comfortable, financially. However, pets should not be fed PNW salmon...I totally just blanked out and forgot the word, but it can be salmon from anywhere else.

Anyway, the main reason I was quoting you is to say I am in 100% agreement with you about Tiki Cat. If you want your cat to have a more "raw" diet, but you feel that preparing raw is far too time consuming, (it doesn't have to be...not after they've been on it for awhile), then Tiki Cat is by far the absolute BEST alternative. Look at the ingredients: all. meat. No fillers, no by-products, none of that garbage. It wouldn't hurt to cut up a small chicken once in awhile, just to let them gnaw on the bone, get the marrow, etc. You can also give them raw eggs, shell and all. For cats you may need to crack it open and then put the entire thing, shell and all, in to a bowl. Some cats will eat the shell, some won't. For dogs, just hand them the egg, straight from the fridge. They know exactly what to do with it.

As for Science Diet...OP, if you want your cats to get diabetes, go ahead and feed them Science Diet. I'm sure the vet will be pleased with the amount of money they are raking in not only from you purchasing the crap food, but the numerous vet visits you'll be paying for later on.

[Sonic_Spork]

Also if I ever see the ingredient "powdered cellulose" in a food (I often read labels of new foods when I see them for the first time)...that's one of few ingredients that will make me put the food back on the shelf in a huff.

It's sawdust. Seriously. That's just not ok.

[chondriac]

Thank you everyone for very informative posts. I stocked up on some more canned foods based on the recommendations.

I think my cat has accustomed to raw foods so much that she actually prefers it to the canned, however. The other day, she wound't touch the canned food I put on her dish. I found some raw chicken pieces that had thawed in the fridge, so I put it out as well and she gobbled it up happily. Today, I cut up a cornish hen I bought for about three bucks. She chomped away with her very able teeth... she wouldn't do much damage to drumsticks but she has no problem with ribs or necks.

Also, she's quite small -- less than eight pounds. One cornish hen will be about 2-3 servings for her -- a lot cheaper than some canned foods. I will be using cans just for convenience and to balance out whatever nutrition I may be missing if I fed her just raw.

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Originally Posted by chondriac

Thank you everyone for very informative posts. I stocked up on some more canned foods based on the recommendations.

I think my cat has accustomed to raw foods so much that she actually prefers it to the canned, however. The other day, she wound't touch the canned food I put on her dish. I found some raw chicken pieces that had thawed in the fridge, so I put it out as well and she gobbled it up happily. Today, I cut up a cornish hen I bought for about three bucks. She chomped away with her very able teeth... she wouldn't do much damage to drumsticks but she has no problem with ribs or necks.

Also, she's quite small -- less than eight pounds. One cornish hen will be about 2-3 servings for her -- a lot cheaper than some canned foods. I will be using cans just for convenience and to balance out whatever nutrition I may be missing if I fed her just raw.

You will miss no nutrition on a completely raw diet. Just make sure that you switch up the meats. Can't be all chicken all the time. You also need to give them organs. (Keep in mind, in raw world, "heart" is not an organ, it's a meat. I'm talking liver, kidney, that kind of stuff.) With cats you want to be sure that you aren't grinding their food. They need to eat it, as it comes.

From the link I provided on the first page:

Third, cats do not have the capability to create taurine from methionine and cysteine, like dogs do. This means that a cat must ingest sufficient taurine in order to meet its taurine requirements. The excellent news is that taurine is found in virtually all meats, especially beef heart. By feeding a cat a raw diet, the cat should receive the best, most bioavailable form of taurine via its food. There is one proviso: do not grind the food. Grinding increases the surface area of the meat and thus exposes more of the "good stuff" to the air. This results in oxidation of taurine and a resultant decrease in overall taurine available to the cat. Additionally, grinding creates the perfect environment for bacteria growth, and bacteria also utilize the taurine in the meat, thereby further decreasing the total amount of taurine available to your cat.

Anyone who feeds their cats raw food must know this. If you ensure that they are getting 80% meat, (using a variety of meats, not ground up), 10% bone, and 10% organ in their diets, and you feed them 2-3% of their healthy body weight, you don't need to supplement anything.