Anyone feed your cat (s) raw cat food? If where do you buy it or do you make your own? If so what recipe do use use. I recently got a rescued cat and the only information on her is that she is 2 and a half years old and belonged to an elderly lady who sadly died. I would imagine that there was not much play involved as Millie is a very laid back, or one could call it lazey so consequently she is putting on weight. I have been doing a lot of research on cat foods and I tend not to buy the proprietary brands fom the supermarkets. I tend to use Zooplus as they have an excellent choice, keen prices, cheap delivery and reasonable customer service. But I have come to the conclusion that raw food would be far better option than her current 50/50 wet and dry food she gets now. Better for weight control and overall health. Any advice suggestions would be welcome.
Our cats have been fed almost exclusively on a diet of Felix "As Good as it Looks" for the best part of 15 years. We generally shop around for the best discount and buy in bulk - they eat about 7-8 pouches a day between them. Three things: 1. They love it, and moving them off the premium stuff usually ends in little piles and smears of puke in delightfully inconvenient locations. 2. It's still cripplingly expensive - on par with feeding a small child. Sheba and Hill's are about the only more expensive options without going to a specialist supplier. 3. Kiss goodbye to their teeth over the years. And say hello to breath akin to raw sewage that you can smell form the other side of a 5 metre room when they're cleaning themselves I've never even considered making my own due to time constraints. We did have a third cat who over the years decided that he preferred to be fed on a diet of Tesco Value frozen white fish portions, which we blended with IAMS to provide at least most of his nutritional needs. He got to 21 before his kidneys packed up, so this was definitely a viable option. I think the key thing with pets is that you can spoil them to a certain extent, but after a point you're just throwing additional cash at them with no effect.
Our cat lives on those pouches of "premium" cuts or some such nonsense, with a few biscuits mixed in. She gets a tin of tuna once a week as a treat. +1 on Nick's mention of the consequences of moving them on to cheap food. It's not worth the time and effort required to clean up the mess, and it's bloody awful discovering that mess with your bare feet first thing in a morning!
I have actually slipped over and fallen down the last four stairs - substantially injuring my toe in the process - on a pile of generic Whiskas boke in the dead of night before now. It's a health and safety hazard.
I have never fed Whiskas or there ilk as it is processed garbage so why would I feed it to my cat. When you spoke of "substantially injuring my toe" what exactly was the injury? Was in more than a stub? A blackened nail perhaps? A break maybe? Amputation? Where you able to walk?
Back in the day, we had cats who would turn their noses up at anything other than kitty slop - you know, that horrible cheap cat food which is actually indistinguishable from cat vomit.
But it did mean he didn't have to listen to the cat puking up outside the bathroom door... ...well not in stereo anyway
Our (not so) little monster normally has those little tins of Gourmet whatever as she has some tricky digestive issues (yay for pedigrees...) which mean that most other foods tend to come back up. She also has to have very high fibre dry food otherwise there's blood in her turds so that has been Hills R/D for the past 7 years which, although not cheap does tend to last her a while. 1 bag lasting around 6 weeks. With it being a diet dry food normally used for overweight cats, it does mean that we have to make sure that she gets enough from her wet food otherwise she starts to lose weight and get a little skinny. She has always been a house cat (never learnt about outside before we had her so not worth the risk) though so she's not getting a lot of exercise
True, that day my hearing was converted to digital mono. It left the affected ear a little pinky. I've in-grown used to it now. Utter derail, what the hallux going on?
Our cat used to eat nearly everything, minus fish cat food. She'd have the amazing ability to know when my dad was preparing any form of meat at which point she'd run to the kitchen and do this.... Needless to say she always got something. Her general food was just supermarket wet cat food, nothing special and she was happy with it.
My cat eats Tesco own brand cat food and Lidl (Coshida) cat biscuits. The combination is fairly cheap compared to the Felix he was getting. He also supplements his diet with the odd rabbit or mouse every now and again. He's from a litter of farm cats though and will nom through just about anything you give him, with the hard exception of the Whiskas pet food line. Both he and his sister will barf up Whiskas (if they even eat it in the first place). Otherwise, you can feed cats with raw meats but you may need to look into a Taurine supplement. Also, a cat's metabolism means it needs to eat 'erry day otherwise they risk feline hepatic lipidosis. I'd consult a vet before making such a dietary change just to be on the safe side.
The raw food comes prepared with all the necessary supplements and I was aware of the importance of Taurine that is why I am reluctant to make my own feed for her.
Our kitten is currently on felix "as good as it looks" but as someone else said, it is cripplingly expensive at the best of times. If you can get a big case for £3 then great, but it isn't common. We're planning to switch to a dry cat food like iams or one of those purina brands. Wet food isn't really good for the cat long term and it isn't good for their teeth. Dry food is good for healthy gums and teeth. Our kitten has a taste for cooked meats though, cooked chicken and ham but no raw meats. weird thing he is.
Dry food isn't great for the kidneys though - you need to make sure that they get enough water to drink if you're going down the dry food only route.
