Melamine to Frankenprey: A Documented Journey

As many of you know, there was a massive pet food recall due to melamine contamination in 2007. Hundreds of food brands were recalled and thousands of cats and dogs across the US died; many more are compromised for life. I was feeding some of the recalled and poisoned foods. Three of my four kittens pulled through — for which I remain eternally grateful — but I lost their brother, Oliver. Since then, I have been obsessed with all things cat food related. Even before Ollie passed away, I knew kibble was a bad deal. Processed dog food evolved out of a World War II food shortage, a need to give pet owners the convenience they wanted and an excess of agricultural by-products. As companies found cheaper ingredients for their pet food, they flavored the kibble — often with animal digest — so dogs would actually eat it.¹ When the increasing popularity of cats made it profitable to create a kibble for cat owners, the pet food industry simply tweaked their canine formulas without either understanding or acknowledging the fundamental difference between a canine's digestive and biological system and that of a feline.

 

After Ollie's passing, I began feeding canned foods that did not contain grain or fish. I wasn't impressed by the consistency of quality or delivery, so I began looking for something better. Better for my cats, better for my wallet and better for my peace of mind. It didn't take long for my research to show me that a raw diet was the healthiest and most natural for my feline family.

 

At the beginning of this project, siblings Allen, Rachel and Meghan were 2 ½ years old and siblings Spencer and Heather were 4 ½ months old. I don't have a starting weight for the kittens as they were rescued ferals who couldn't be still enough long enough to weigh. The adults weighed 9.9lbs, 9lbs and 9.13lbs respectively. Rachel could stand to add some weight, Meghan could lose a bit and Allen was at his perfect weight.

 

I blogged the entire transition in real-time. Here is our day-by-day entry into the raw food world as it really happened, with doubts, questions and researching along the way. Footnoting has been added where needed.

 

 

Ok. *deep breath* I'm doing it! I'm going to start feeding my beloved furbabies a raw diet. For now, it'll just be in the evenings, but at some point, when we are all comfortable with the raw food model, I expect to go 100% raw. If I can pull all the pieces together, I'll be using the whole prey diet.

 

I'm a little nervous, but I'm so completely convinced that it's the right thing to do for them that I can't justify keeping them on a commercial diet any longer, even if it is a canned, nearly 100% grain-free diet.

 

So, from everything I've read, I need to take it fairly slow. I'm going to go out this weekend and purchase chicken, quail, turkey and maybe duck meat parts, then chop them up into bite size pieces and offer them as a regular part of the evening meal. Eventually, I'll make those pieces bigger and add in pieces of organs, then pieces of meat with little bitty bones, then bigger bone-in pieces, and then voila!, I should have them right where I want them. *grin*

 

One of my brothers-in-law is a chef and he said he'll be happy to give me all the organ meats they routinely throw away. I didn't talk to him long enough to know how frequently he serves those kinds of meals, but he cooks for a really large number of folks, so it should be a fairly good quantity each time.

 

*rubs hands together* This is going to be interesting!

 

Any suggestions, advice, or tips you raw-food-experienced folk think might be helpful is greatly appreciated. At this point, I'm most interested in how/where you purchase what you need, how often you feed what parts of the prey, and how you made the transition for your cats.

 

Thanks!!!!!!!

 

 

Well, that wasn't very well thought out.

 

I was too excited to wait until the weekend, so I picked up some chicken on the way home tonight. I worked late, so it was really late when I finally walked in the door.

 

So late, in fact, that the cats, all the cats, began snatching chicken off the plate and fighting with each other while I was hacking pieces off! I could not keep up with them.

 

All total, they ate nearly a pound and a quarter of half-frozen chicken in their first raw meal. And, yes, I did say half-frozen!

 

Guess I can't prepare and serve at the same time anymore. LOL!

 

 

The cats ate even more raw tonight, but I was better organized this time. It looks like I'll need to feed the kittens separately from the adults and let them get pretty full before I put down the adults' food. Otherwise, the kittens steal the others' food and run off with it. Which causes the adults to grab pieces and start running too, and I just can't have raw meat all over the house. *eye roll*

 

Plus, if I cut great big chunks for my two piggies (which I did tonight), it really slows them down so my delicate girl can eat in peace. That's a nice perk, since I don't like how thin she is.

 

I'm amazed at how much raw they're eating. I was originally going to give them canned in the morning, raw when I got home from work and canned again before I went to bed. They've always had three meals a day and I wanted to stick with that; but they might not need that third meal. We'll have to wait and see.