FROM KIBBLE TO RAW
IMPORTANT: Feed the correct amount for the weight of your cat. If your cat is overweight, do NOT reduce amounts as once on raw, the weight will come off slowly, and naturally, without causing health concerns. You will need to feed 2 - 3% of your cats total weight in raw. Generally its recommended to feed 10% organs, 10 - 15% raw meaty bones, with the bulk being muscle meat.
Step 1: Transition cats onto canned food
If the cats are being free fed kibble, STOP!. Pick up the food and portion out the correct amount 2x a day. Once you have them accustomed to that then you can move forward. I’d say leave them alone on their 2x a day feeding schedule for two weeks before you proceed. You may need to leave them longer and that’s fine too – you have to read your kitties and see where their comfort levels are.
Once, you see that your kitties are doing well, you can proceed to lay in a stock of canned food. Please make sure that you get good quality canned food, preferably grain-less, definitely with NO by-products or BHA or BHT.
Once you are ready to begin, grind up ¼ cup of kibble into very fine powder. The goal here is to gradually move the cats over to eating canned. SLOW is better. So, reduce their kibble food portion by ¼, add in a ¼ tsp of canned food and sprinkle it with the ground kibble.
For those of you whose cats take to the canned with no protest, you can skip this step. If not, please proceed very slowly and pay attention to what your cat is saying at feeding time. :).
Only increase the amount of canned/decrease the kibble portion once a week. Otherwise, leave it alone and observe. If a cat doesn’t want to eat, give them two weeks at the previous level - that generally does the trick.
Continue until the cats are completely moved over to canned, and are comfortable. If this takes you 6 months, that’s fine too.
So, to recap, you add ¼ tsp of canned and remove ¼ of the kibble until only canned is being eaten.
Now, and this is important, STOP! Leave them alone. Let them get used to eating canned for at least two weeks without you futzing with their food.
Step 2: Transition cats onto Raw.
After two weeks, you can add in 1/8 tsp of ground raw. I suggest Nature’s Variety
Chicken and
Again, don’t overwhelm the cats (this is directed to those of you who KNOW you have fussy cats – those whose cats are less rigid in nature or younger, can go ahead with offering raw), this is very important as a cat that won’t eat is a cat who soon will be unhealthy and ill.
Keep increasing the amount of raw and decreasing the amount of canned until you have moved your cat SUCCESSFULLY over onto eating ground raw.
It has been my experience that it is not a good idea to throw a variety of foods at them during this transitional phase and it really upsets the fussy ones. So, stick to the chicken and turkey mix until they are eating raw well. Then you can buy a different protein, again, keep it ground, and give them a small piece. You may have to mix it in with the ground mix very well so they become accustomed to the taste.
As you can tell, I had a very fussy girl to deal with :).
At ANY stage in this process, feel free to offer a small chunk of meat, a gizzard, piece of liver, chicken heart, kidney, piece of pork etc. You just need to gauge how the individual cat is progressing. For instance, Bongo took to pieces of pork with great gusto, yet Tinkie took two weeks to warm up to it kibble sprinkled on canned. She’s the reason I took it so slow with everyone – and it actually paid off :).
Step 3: Transitioning onto chunks/prey style
Once you have successfully transitioned everyone to ground raw and have a bit of variety going on, then you can buy some Cornish hens or chicken breasts and cut those into very small pieces and mix those into the ground.
Again, with fussy felines, you have to go slow. Don’t forget that you are strengthening jaw muscles during this process. It took my male 5 months (he’s 10 years old) to get to the point to where he can manage to chew chicken wings without getting tired or upset.
Some of you will be comfortable having arrived at the ground raw point and that is fine. You can either buy commercial ground or make your own recipe following the “Raw Cat Food Diet Recipe Made WITH Real Bones” recipe developed by the author of the CatNutrition.org website – this is the recipe used for several years by herself and many other converts.
For those who wish to proceed onto prey-style raw, follow the same process as above. Gradually reduce the amount of ground raw with small chunks. Again, don’t get too creative with proteins, stick with one or two and work on getting everyone’s jaw’s up to strength. Keep in mind that it’s tiring to chew so always give bones after muscle meats.
Pretty soon, you’ll have your fussy felines eating raw with gusto :).
These steps are given to give you an idea of how to go about the process. It’s very daunting when old hands just throw out advice but never give you a “how-to” part :) so I hope this will assist those who do better with a ‘recipe’ approach, rather than just winging it.
