Melamine to Frankenprey: A Documented Journey

 

Got a question about what my floor looks like when the cats are done eating. My answer is this: I got sick of cleaning the floor under the cats' bowls every day long before I started feeding raw and bought them a table of their own. It's 28 inches tall (the perfect height for comfortable cleaning), 4 feet long and 20 inches wide. I wash it with soap and water after every raw meal. I set up another table across the room from the original one for the kittens, to make them more comfortable and less inclined to run off with the raw food, but I decided today that I don't like cleaning it (it's low and has a grainy surface), so I'm just going to feed them on the counter where I cut the meat. It's where the two of them start out every meal anyway, so I might as well give myself one less item to clean. *eye roll*

 

 

I've encountered the first resistance to an offering. Since the reaction to everything has been so positive, I started looking around for regular or large-quantity suppliers. I got lucky right away and scored a couple hundred good-sized mice off Craigslist for a nice price. Unfortunately, after the second whole-mouse meal, my guys all decided they like the first half of the mouse, but not the second. They won't eat the darn things from the waist down, not even my most voracious eater, Spencer. Oh, and the kittens insist on playing with them first. I had no idea a cat could toss a mouse that high. *sigh*

 

Happily, a local raw-feeder I was talking to today is giving me a meat grinder (some people are awesome), so I'm just gonna grind the little meesers up and give it to them that way. *grin*

 

 

Today is two weeks and two days I've been feeding at least one raw meal a day to my cats. About a week in, they became reluctant to eat their canned meals and a few days ago began leaving more canned than they were eating.

 

Because they've done so well accepting everything I've offered (with the single exception of the whole mice) and with the improvement I've seen in their coats and their energy levels — despite the fact I was watching them closely for possible negative reactions to their change in diet and was not, with only a single raw meal a day, expecting any positive changes — I decided to give them what they want and feed them entirely raw.

 

So I sat down and finally performed the calculations necessary to plan their diet: 3% of food by weight with 80%/10%/5%/5% meat/bones/liver/other organ respectively. And guess what I found out?

 

The buggers are supposed to be eating around 9 ounces shared between the five of them per meal, not the pound and a quarter they've been gobbling down every night! I repeated my calculations several times to make sure I was doing it right, and there is no doubt about it.

 

I guess that explains the 6.5 ozs Allen's gained, the 6 ozs Rachel's put on and the 3.5 ozs Meghan's added in the last two weeks. In Rachel's case, I'm happy about the weight increase; she has always been too thin for my comfort and has steadfastly refused to gain no matter what I fed her. The kittens have picked up quite a bit, too, but I don't mind since they're so young and Heather was another too-thin kitty.

 

I spent several days trying to find sources and figure out the best way to handle the ingredients with little progress, and then I got a call from a local raw-feeder who had heard I was looking for help. She gave me some very awesome, very specific tips. Putting her information together with my research, I've come up with a plan I'm comfortable with. The best tip she gave me: I can order any amount of anything a local Whole Foods sells and they will grind it up for free!

 

I had to rule out my first choice of whole prey, since the cats have declined to eat the mice and ordering other prey online is crazy expensive. I wanted to continue to feed as much chunked meat as possible, but needed a way to get the bones and other stuff into their diet. So I divided their monthly numbers by three and calculated the percentages so that meat alone could be fed twice a day and a ground combo of meat, bone, heart, liver, organ and supplements that could be fed for breakfast every morning. Feeding them this way, their ratios will be balanced at the end of every day.

 

Today, I made the following Whole Foods order: 10 lbs chicken wings, 13 lbs chicken hearts, and 5.5 lbs chicken liver. This will be mixed with 6.5 lbs of ground chicken breast and some salmon oil, vitamins B complex and E, taurine and maybe a multi-gland supplement. This mixture will be fed for breakfast and will last for two months. That, plus the 9 ozs of raw chicken, beef and whatever else I pick up for their lunch and dinner meals, will cost me an estimated $240.

 

Compare that to the $200 I was spending every single month for canned food!

 

 

I offered turkey for the first time tonight. It was supposed to be chunked meat I cut off a drumstick (wow, those tendons are tough), but by the time I was done peeling the bones bare, I think the food was more mush than chunky. *sheez* I seriously need a new knife!

 

They went crazy for it! Meowing and scarfing it down as fast as they could. Clearly, turkey will be a favorite around here.

 

Tomorrow night, I'm going to try to pick up some beef heart and see how that goes.