I've recently got 2 kittens and I'd like to switch them to raw like the dogs but the more I read the more complicated it seems. Any one have experience of raw feeding cats?

goldmali feed.s hers raw. am sure she will be along soon to help x
lea

I have tried with my crew and failed miserably ! Anything other than good old whiskas or applaws gets a paws down from them.

The only one who would possibly eat it would be Dave as he joins in eating with the dogs if I feed them mince or tripe scattered outside.

My cat ate raw while I fed my dogs that way.  I didn't intentionally switch him, he just prefered what the dogs got and would bully them away from their bowls so I started making him a bowl up too.  He ate whatever the dogs did.  Chunks of meat, some organ and bones.  He would crunch and munch his way through anything.  Only thing he wouldn't touch was any type of fruit or veg.  That got a major look of disgust.  Oh, and tripe, he wasn't too keen on that either.

He did fine on it and was in tiptop health-wise.  I would leave his complete biscuit in the bowl but it would be untouched.
He has also raw fed himself for years.  He eats the mice and birds he catches(all but the head).

I've fairly recently switched all mine to raw and it's been up and down, it certainly is a lot more complicated than for dogs.  (On the plus side I am saving around £150 a month by NOT feeding canned any more! It costs me around £190 to feed 38 cats for a month and then I order everything from Prize Choice bar the taurine which cost me £20 for about 4 months.) If the food isn't frozen first, they tend to get stomach upsets. If you freeze chunks of meat and thaw it out, they still got upset stomachs. (Bear in mind though I have Persians and Exotics who are notorious for delicate stomachs.) If you feed minces, the teeth won't get the benefit, and also the mincing process removes a lot of the taurine, so to play safe you need to either also feed chunks of meat or add taurine. (I add it.) You need organ meats such a liver and heart added, think it's meant to be 5 %. I started off feeding minces but avoided the beef as it gave them upset stomachs, but then because the chicken and rabbit includes a lot of ground down bone I actually ended up with two seriously ill cats, one nearly died and had to be on a drip at the vets for 3 days -because the amount of bone in the minces constipated them to the extent it became life threatening. You could look in the litter trays and only see pure white rock hard poo with traces of blood on. So I've spent the past 3 months trying to get the balance right by adding beef to the chicken or rabbit meals to balance things out. I was feeding chicken wings and chicken carcasses which made the teeth fantastic but of course it made the constipation worse, so now I am feeding heart chunks which they seem to love and stomachs are okay on. Remains to be seen if the teeth benefit as much.

Note: Honey's petfood will make up a raw diet for your cats and they make certain there is LESS bone included than for dogs, they do it in conjunction with a vet and the order is made up especially and they say you should not need to add taurine. This sounds great to me but my monthly cost would have tripled had I used them. Had I just one or two cats I'd have considered it.

Now the advantages apart from saving money is the cats are gaining weight nicely (having many not neutered, keeping weight on was always a struggle), coats are better, once they got used to it all they realised they loved real food, and overall they seem far healthier. :)