RAW feeding pets?! As in, raw MEAT?! Yes!!
Hey guys! So, what do you feed your cats? Or dogs, for that matter?
This is Spooky. She's a rescue cat, and ex-stray. She lives the life of luxury, and a couple months ago, I switched her, her 'sister' Squeaky, and the dog they tolerate, Pepper, over to raw feeding.
I have heard about raw feeding many times before. Actually, I learned about it at least 7-8 years ago, maybe more. The idea of feeding my pets raw meat, however, was gross, and I never could give it a try. However, in recent years, Pepper has come down with more and more food allergies, and the idea of feeding raw kept popping its head up. Many people do this for their pets with great success. I finally 'bit the bullet', so to speak, and gave it a try.
It took a little 'getting used to' for them. I had to mix raw meat bits into their regular food. At first they were reluctant, but over time, they came to LOVE it, and now eagerly await their mealtimes. Now, I won't go into all the details of the diet just yet. When I get some fresh meat, and take some pictures, then I'll probably do another post with more info, but for now, I thought I would open up discussion about raw feeding. I buy things that I can find on clearance, or things that are cheap to begin with. Chicken gizzards, livers, hearts and feet are a good start, chopped up discounted pork, ground turkey, etc. Home grown meat is even better, of course. Raw eggs are delectable for them. It's actually not as expensive as I thought it would be. More expensive than feeding cheapo grocery store dry kibble, but about the same cost as higher-quality food. Even cheaper if you find things on sale...
It's only been a couple months, but so far I have definitely noticed a difference in the health of the animals.
Pepper, although not completely allergy-free, is doing MUCH better now. The cats both have shinier fur, look sleeker and healthier in general, and best of all, their poop doesn't stink! Haha, well, you know, poop stinks, but before going raw, you could absolutely tell when they had just used the litterbox; it STUNK for about 10min before the deodorizers in the litter kicked in. Now it never smells like cat poop, AND they poop less often, due to not being fed fillers that their body can't utilize. I don't know about you, but anyone out there with a litterbox to clean can appreciate this!
So, how about it?! What do you feed your carnivores? Do you raw feed? Do you make cooked homemade food? (I used to!) Are you content with kibble? Let me know what you think in the comments!
Thanks for reading! As usual, I hope your day is the best! ♥
This work by @SquishySquid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
I don't have any pets now (unfortunately not allowed in this apartment) but I never gave them raw meat when I had pets. Not because I didn't want to, but I just never got into the details about it. What I did do is give them high quality food, because I could tell the difference in the fur for sure compared to cheap food for the cats. I must admit I was lucky having cats without any allergies, so maybe that's why I never considered giving them raw meat ;) But nowadays I am much more aware of food and what food can do with a body, so I think this would defo be something that I would consider when having a pet again in the future.. Great post! I am curious to read follow ups ;)
Absolutely check into it! It is amazing the difference! I always bought the good quality, grain free food for them, and there is still a big difference in their health going from that to raw!
Ill have to do a follow up post here soon. Ive just been so darn busy lately! Ugh!
My husband's cousin who is a health advocate for many things said it is best to fit them raw food too. He used to have a dog with cataract and all that treatments just didn't work. He started feeding it raw meat instead of processed or even our own cooked food. The cataract was gone!
Hope you are doing well, @squishysquid! It's been a while since I last came by!
#steemitmamas
WOw, that's amazing! Thanks for sharing that about his dog! It's encouraging to hear stories like that. I can definitely tell a difference in the health of these animals from switching to raw, and considering they were designed to eat raw meat from the beginning, it only makes sense that that is the absolute best thing for them.
Thanks for stopping by! ♥
We give our dogs raw deer meat all winter. After my husband kills deer, we freeze all the bones with meat on them. And pieces I don't like. The dogs love it! They really won't eat dog food duringvthst time. Saves a lot of money!
I bet! That's fantastic that you have deer meat to give them. We don't hunt here, but someday I would like to!
Interesting... we haven't really tried the raw food route, although it makes perfect sense since cats are hunters and raw food is pretty much what their insides were designed to process and digest. A little bit of raw fish (usually salmon bits) sometimes go in the cat bowl. I guess my question would be whether you need to add any kinds of supplements to the meat, or is the meat alone a complete nutritional balance foe cats?
Lovely pictures of your cats, by the way!
=^..^=
Awww.... Your cats are so adorable... I never feed my cats with raw meat, they're so spoiled, if I give them some raw food they will just look at it, play with it, and go away 😅
Thanks! ♥
Haha, cats can be persnickety! If they are used to eating something, it is hard to change that habit.
The smell is a very good reason for feeding raw and homemade meals for our pets :) I think the kibble is just too hard to digest. I did a little experiment and soaked in water for a few hours different types of kibble to see what one would soften up first. They all stayed hard for a really long time. I imagine its like that in their bellys.
Yes, kibble is supposed to be pretty terrible for them. Canned wet food is better, but still not great.
I have had kibble soaking overnight and it was still pretty firm in the morning, haha. I think it might be part cement! ;)
I've looked into the raw diets off and on, and used to feed a raw prepared diet, but my elder cat hated it and we weren't able to find it again when we moved to Tennessee.
I do plan to try it again, going more slowly for Bear, to give him more of a chance to adjust. And, once we get a chest freezer, it will be a lot easier to stock up on sale meats and augment them with garden veggies.
At the moment, I am feeding a high quality refrigerated food for Lolo, and was feeding something similar for our cats, but our local stores stopped carrying the cat version, meaning that for now I'm back to high quality cat food, which is not ideal.
Kibble, in our home, is strictly and only a treat, and I buy the highest quality I can find. My stepdaughter refers to it as "kitty junk food," which I consider an apt description.