Took the Raw plunge today....

[ElvirasMum]

Okay, so every food we've weaned her onto and then tried with any sort of regularity has been a disaster.
I feel horrid for taking her off the Royal Canin in the first place, but we must've got a bad batch of it or something as the kibbles felt greasy in the bag. And then our breeder stopped feeding it to El's parents so we were like maybe this isn't as good a food as we thought?
So after the Royal Canin it was Blue Buffalo with the probiotics, mixed the two, weaned her from one to the other. All I can say is litter box yuck.
We then tried the Royal Canin again by itself, but alas, no improvement.
Then we went from Royal Canin into a Royal Canin / Wellness mix, then to just Wellness.
Failure. Disaster.
So now we have raw medallions. And so far so good, except I'm not quite sure what to do about the middle of the night.
When she was on the kibble, I was feeding her three times a day, but
El insists she's hungry between 1 and 2 am. I assure that she isn't, that she ate right before bedtime, but I'm getting pawslapped in the face to wake up and feed the little monster.
I've fed her two medallions three times a day, breakfast lunch and dinner as she's only 8 months old.
Is she eating enough? She's almost 8 pounds at this point, yes I know my baby girl is a MOOSE!!!

 

[ElvirasMum]

And we've tried each brand's wet food when she was eating the kibble, and canned pumpkin which didn't firm things up but made the smell WORSE if that was even possible....and the liquid probiotics to mix into her wet food.
The probiotics made the grossest poo puddle I've ever seen, smelled, and heard.
Hubby was horrified, said it sounded like a human person taking a crap in the cat box!
She's been vetted, she's had her fecals come back negative, she was wormed by the breeder and the breeder gave me another round which I did when she was younger, getting her to open her mouth for that stuff was no picnic.

 

[muddpuddles01]

Is there any sort of kibble you feel ok enough with to leave out for her at night? That's what I do is leave out some innova grain free for her to midnight munch. It shouldn't interfere with the raw benefits.

 

[ElvirasMum]

Is there any sort of kibble you feel ok enough with to leave out for her at night? That's what I do is leave out some innova grain free for her to midnight munch. It shouldn't interfere with the raw benefits.

Every kibble we have tried has been a disaster for her! This wellness was the worst though. All I can say is "Poo-soup"
It chased Pete and I both out of the room!
But amazingly, no poo foot!

 

[muddpuddles01]

Yeesh! Idk... Lenore was the same, but as long as she has mostly raw food, the handful of snack kibble doesn't affect her at all. Once she's used to the raw, I'd try it. You can always stop the kibble.

 

[kristininn]

As hard as it will likely be, and as hard as you'll likely get paw slapped, I say stick to the day feedings of raw only, and give her time to adjust. After some nights of realizing paw slapping gets her no where, hopefully she'll give it up

As far as amount, I would look at the package you're using. Premade medallions often have different recommended amounts. I can tell you that Winnie eats 6oz a day, and Henry eats 10oz daily +1/2 can of kitten royal canin wet mixed in to the raw (and he's still a skinny little fella!).

Good luck with the raw!! You should have a happy litter box soon

 

[Franksmom]

Are you feeding Nature's Variety frozen raw? If so they have kibble, I feed it to them in the afternoon, but you could leave it out at night.

 

[Sphynx Happy]

Congrats on switching to raw!!!

As hard as it will likely be, and as hard as you'll likely get paw slapped, I say stick to the day feedings of raw only, and give her time to adjust. After some nights of realizing paw slapping gets her no where, hopefully she'll give it up

I agree with this. Give her time to adjust and she should realize it's not time to eat that early in the morning and then maybe you can sleep through the night also.

 

[SarahLovee82]

Every kibble we have tried has been a disaster for her! This wellness was the worst though. All I can say is "Poo-soup"
It chased Pete and I both out of the room!
But amazingly, no poo foot!

Did you try anything grain free?
I do raw in morning & at night but I leave kibble out. I use Blue Buffalo Wilderness kitten which is grain free. Starla was on grain free when I first got her & poop was a lot better then, but she wasn't eating much of her food which is why I started wets & was a mistake.. Raw has stabilized her & Bentley has always been on raw, I did change his kibble though, breeder had him on Iams & the kibble pieces were just too big for Starla (even though it was kitten formula) and she was choking/throwing up because of it! The blue buffalo has a nice small size.

 

[susi794]

Typically, raw food is fed as a percentage of your cat's current weight, usually 2% or 3%. So, convert your cat's weight from pounds to ounces, then multiply that by either .02 or .03 to calculate how much you should be feeding your cat per day.

If your kitty weighs 8 pounds, then the math looks like this:
8lbs x 16 = 128oz
128 x .02 = 2.56oz of food per day (or 128 x .03 = 3.84oz of food per day)

Multiply the daily amount by 7 to get a week's total.
2.56oz x 7 = 17.92oz of food per week (or 26.88oz of food per week)

Now, take that weekly total and break it up by 80% / 10% / 5% / 5% to determine how much of the weekly ratio is meat, bone, liver and organ respectively.

So an eight pound cat fed at 2% of his body weight should receive 14.34oz of meat, 1.79oz of bone, .9oz of liver and .9oz of organ every week.

Hope this helps. If you are feeding a premade raw, then follow the directions on the bag....but an adult cat would roughly be fed the equivalent in ounces as that of two cans of wet food ( for the day) I think a can is 3.5 oz. so an adult cat should be fine with 7 oz. of raw split up into at least two meals a day Kittens will need more.

 

[Janelle S]

Are you feeding Nature's Variety frozen raw? If so they have kibble, I feed it to them in the afternoon, but you could leave it out at night.

By the way, Nature's Variety almost raw kibble or whatever it is gave Cleo not only the runs, but black colored runs (as the the rabbit kibble that our store had - very expensive - was the only variety in stock).

The medallions weren't enough for Cleo. I had to switch to Better in the Raw mixed with ground turkey and chicken. This way I can feed as much or as little as she needs - less expensive for sure.

 

[Franksmom]

By the way, Nature's Variety almost raw kibble or whatever it is gave Cleo not only the runs, but black colored runs (as the the rabbit kibble that our store had - very expensive - was the only variety in stock).

The medallions weren't enough for Cleo. I had to switch to Better in the Raw mixed with ground turkey and chicken. This way I can feed as much or as little as she needs - less expensive for sure.

So sorry about this, Frank and Luci are doing great on the medallions and dry food combo.

 

[muddpuddles01]

By the way, Nature's Variety almost raw kibble or whatever it is gave Cleo not only the runs, but black colored runs (as the the rabbit kibble that our store had - very expensive - was the only variety in stock).

The medallions weren't enough for Cleo. I had to switch to Better in the Raw mixed with ground turkey and chicken. This way I can feed as much or as little as she needs - less expensive for sure.

This is the same stuff I use, and it's awesome. I just leave out a handful of "snack" kibble at night, innova grain free, and it works great!

 

[ElvirasMum]

I have better in the raw mix on order, but we did go the whole way to Shadyside to the only store in all of Pittsburgh that had the Nature's Variety Medallions. 1st Elvy poo of the day = not soup! We may be on the right track!!!

 

[live2flythesky]

I have better in the raw mix on order, but we did go the whole way to Shadyside to the only store in all of Pittsburgh that had the Nature's Variety Medallions. 1st Elvy poo of the day = not soup! We may be on the right track!!!

I used to live in Shadyside!

Yay on solid poo...what variety of the medallions did you get?

 

[ElvirasMum]

I used to live in Shadyside!

Yay on solid poo...what variety of the medallions did you get?

Chicken & turkey.
I thought the Deer or the Beef would be a bad raw to start on!

 

[ilovedirt]

Maybe give her an extra half or whole medallion for dinner? When I had my boys on Natures Variety, it seemed like they were always hungry but when I switched them to Stella & Chewy's they seem more satisfied by what they've eaten. Yay for solid poo!