How to get Bea to eat raw food?

[beamom]

I finally tried raw food with Bea. Nothing else - meds or grain-free food - has stopped her diarrhea completely. So I ordered some of the powder from Feline Instincts to add to ground meat. I got some boneless chicken thighs and chicken livers, ground them up and she wouldn't touch it. I sprinkled on some of her forti flora probiotic powder and she ate it as long as that was on it. It took 3 sprinkling for her to eat some of it. Next meal she wouldn't touch it, even with the forti flora on it. Later I tried just a raw chicken liver, as she needed to eat something (she'd been not feeling well a week before and hadn't eaten much for a couple of days and has lost a pound). She ate the chicken liver if I sprinkled the forti flora on. Then I gave her some without and she ate it. But she won't touch it again.

I am getting so frustrated. If she ate something once, why won't she eat it a second time? She needs to eat. I had a can of chicken baby food so gave her that until I could get to the store. I got some of that high calorie stuff in a tube and got some of that in her (not that she was willing) and guess I'll go back to her canned food. I can try the premade raw foods, but it will get expensive trying things and throwing it out if she won't eat it. She is pretty picky about canned food, too, she won't eat a lot of the high quality or grain-free ones.

She loves dry food but they either go right through her or give her diarrhea.

I am feeling so discouraged.

 

[Gensen]

Hang in there.. raw is a good diet and I would guess that she will eat when she gets hungry but you mentioned the boneless thighs and chicken livers... that on it's own is not a balanced raw diet... when feeding raw it is very important to follow a good balanced receipe with proper bone/muscle/organ ratios included... an unbalanced raw diet can be just as bad as feeding bad kibble. So I would try the premade raw and see if you can find a brand she likes... it may be a bit of trial and error but if you can get her going on it it will fix poo issues and is great for the cat.
Hope someone else can chime in to give you some advise on the best way to "tempt" her into eating...

 

[Gensen]

Oh, and good luck with your baby and getting her switched over...

 

[Gensen]

P.S. Thought of you and thought this may be helpful... VenturaGuy posted under a thread called "How much raw is too much" and he said he orders premade raw sliders from a place in 1oz servings... he posted the link... I thought that was a nice small size so maybe you would not be wasting so much if she doesn't eat it... but who knows maybe she will LOVE it.

 

[beamom]

Hang in there.. raw is a good diet and I would guess that she will eat when she gets hungry but you mentioned the boneless thighs and chicken livers... that on it's own is not a balanced raw diet... when feeding raw it is very important to follow a good balanced receipe with proper bone/muscle/organ ratios included... an unbalanced raw diet can be just as bad as feeding bad kibble. So I would try the premade raw and see if you can find a brand she likes... it may be a bit of trial and error but if you can get her going on it it will fix poo issues and is great for the cat.
Hope someone else can chime in to give you some advise on the best way to "tempt" her into eating...

Thanks

I added the powder from Feline Instincts that makes it a complete diet. I only gave her the liver by itself to see if she would eat it, as I had nothing else to give her at that time, I couldn't get to the store then and I knew she was hungry.

 

[beamom]

P.S. Thought of you and thought this may be helpful... VenturaGuy posted under a thread called "How much raw is too much" and he said he orders premade raw sliders from a place in 1oz servings... he posted the link... I thought that was a nice small size so maybe you would not be wasting so much if she doesn't eat it... but who knows maybe she will LOVE it.

I saw that, thank-you, I'll check out the website.

Bea is a stubborn 11 yr old that I rescued. I think she was only fed junk dry food, so I was hoping she'd love the raw, since she likes certain kinds of canned food, but I've thrown out so many cans of food in trying to find ones she likes, ugh.

 

[Cathie]

mix the raw with the canned she likes and slowly add less and less of it. you can also add tuna juice to it ans see if that helps.

 

[kristininn]

I did exactly what Cathie recommend when I transitioned Winston and it worked like a charm. Hope it works for you too and that Bea is feeling better soon!!

 

[SealySphynx]

Some cats are easy to transition to raw and some cats can be a huge pain in the you know where! There's a ton of little tips and tricks to get them to start. You don't have to grind up the meat, it's better for their mind, teeth, and gums if you leave it in chunks and let her chew it for herself.

Since she's being picky, you'll have to be sneaky. Cut her meat in tiny chunks and hide a few pieces under her canned food. When she's eating those pieces you can start adding more raw meat and less canned food. Move really slow and if she stops eating it, go back to the last step where she did eat. Eventually you want to be feeding slices of food at least the size of your little finger.

Try different protein sources, some cats are finicky. Sometimes they'll go from living a food to hating it. You have to get her to eat, she can't not eat. Healthy dogs won't starve themselves, but heathy cat will. If cats don't eat, they can get really sick.

Oh and just another quick tip, most cats really like pork. If she's not wanting to eat the chicken, try pork. Oh and she should be eating 85% muscle meat (which includes gizzards and hearts), 10% organs (5% liver, 5% any other organ), 5% edible bone.

If you ever want to ask questions, you can PM me if you want. I raw feed both of my cats and 4 dogs.

 

[beamom]

Thanks, everyone. Somewhere I got the idea that you shouldn't mix cooked and raw food, it was all or nothing, but I see I was wrong on that. I'll try again, mixing in a little bit of raw to canned.

Bea doesn't chew her food or treats much, so I wasn't sure if chunks was the way to go, or what size chunks to cut up, since I didn't want her to choke trying to swallow it whole. I'll try the 'little finger' size to see how she does. I think she has some bad teeth - the vet made a comment when she had looked in her mouth, but I think she was first trying to stop the diarrhea and then deal with other issues.

She's been so picky about any kind of food the last couple of weeks, it's been extra frustrating. Thanks for your support!

 

[SealySphynx]

Your not really supposed to mix canned with raw, but with some cats that's what you have to do to get them to eat it. I've heard stories about how cats always have to have a little smear of canned food on their raw or they won't eat it.

Luckily both Sealy and Hadyn took right to raw, but in my case they were both kittens. Our only issue here is getting Hadyn to chew bones most of the time. She'll eat the bones from Cornish game hen and whole mice fine and sometimes the bones from rabbits, but she makes me smash them for her if its chicken or duck, spoiled little brat