RAW FOOD

RAW FOOD feeding is based on giving our pets what they usually eat in wild, in other words RAW FOOD.

Here’s a list of  foods to be served RAW, and how to get your cats used to natural feeding.

QUAIL:  whole or in pieces with entrails, bones, skin and legs.
CHICKEN: wings and legs with bones, the rest in pieces with smashed bones.
MICE:  in USA you can find suppliers of mice of all kinds, you can buy them frozen in pet shops. You should feed your cats the whole mouse.
RABBIT: must be given in bits with raw bones or minced (with bones) together with chicken, beef, veal, turkey, mice, quails etc…
PORK: in bits or minced, raw, together with  chicken, beef, veal, turkey, mice, quails etc…
VEAL/BEEF: in pieces or minced with chicken, beef, veal, turkey, mice, quails etc…
HEART/LIVER/ORGANS/TONGUE: heart is very important because it’s rich in taurine, you can feed veal/pork/chicken/rabbit’s heart;  chicken’s liver is good, you can mix it with other entrails.
DON’T COOK BONES: only quails’ bones can be cooked, other animals’ bones when cooked are dangerous.
RAW BONES: they’re important for excrements’ firmness, for calcium,  the medulla is very appreciated by our cats and sometimes it’s what convince them to eat raw food.

HOW TO GET YOUR CAT USED TO RAW FOOD:

It’s not simple for an adult cat to start eating raw and fresh food!
Cats must learn to appreciate raw food, they must understand that they have to chew and so you should start mixing some of the old canned food with the fresh one, or you should start feeding them cooked food at first or slightly cooked removing the bones, if you cook it, ONLY QUAILS’ BONES CAN BE COOKED.
Cooked quail (better if slightly cooked) can be minced or whipped (with skin, bones and entrails)
You can froze all the food and then give it to your cats if your afraid of toxoplasmosis, salmonella etc…
Don’t ever cook the foods in the microwave, because it splits foods’ cells.
Remember to feed your cat an appropriate amount of fats (turkey/chicken’s skin, mixed flesh) Fats are important for a balanced diet.
Raw BONES won’t hurt anyone, if they’re too big the cat won’t be able to break them, the ones he can break won’t hurt him/her.
Bones are dangerous only if cooked (except quails’ ones), because they loose the flexibility and animals cannot chop them anymore as they usually do in wild.
The quail must be given entirely (with the skin wich is important for fats), with all the entrails, it has very fragile bones and you can chop it with normal scissors.
Anyway you have to break only bigger animals’ raw bones so that cats can smell the medulla and appreciate the meal.
Bones and entrails are important just as flesh, they are essential for a balanced diet.

All the breeders who feed their cats a raw diet can confirm that kittens at 4 weeks can already eat chicken’s wings chopping them perfectly.

Of course a cat who’s only used to canned food won’t understand what to do and won’t see it as food immediately, and he/her certainly loosed the chewing ability.

Step by step the cat will see it as food and will recover the muscles to chop.

FISH:
Fish is quite a different matter  (preferably anchovy,  entire or in pieces, small ones to avoid mercury’s risk) that must be given only cooked, and only once a week if the cat likes it, otherwise it is better to avoid giving it at all. After a fish meal it’s better to feed your cat red flesh, that helps the animal to get rid of heavy metals (mercury)