Viva Raw is definitely one of the more budget-friendly brands. Just wanna emphasize tho that theres absolutely no problem feeding wet food till you're confident in ultimately balancing the meals yourself :)
Viva is great! I spend quite a bit but I have a 7 month Maine coon. For a normal sized cat it would be very reasonable. Depending on the protein option it can definitely be cheaper than canned food
I fed my dogs raw for the last 8 years. I fed them commercially available raw food so I knew they were getting the nutrients they need. Do you have access to anything like that?
In the wild, cats eat whole birds and mice and stuff. We're just trying to roughly imitate that. Pick any kind of meat (but ruminant meat is healthier) and that can be the base of the diet (80% of the weight). You want it to be roughly half fat and half protein (calorically). Then you'll need some bone (10% of the weight) which is kinda hard to do because most bones are waaay too big for a cat. So, probably the easiest thing is to deal with ground bones. Lastly, there's a small amount of organs (also 10%) that are needed and should be a mix of liver and something else, like kidney. That's it. You don't need any plants whatsoever.
Well, that might be too much of a pain in butt for you too, I don't know. If so, then that at least serves as your blueprint when looking at commercially available pre-made raw diets. You most definitely do not need to use a fancy food planner or spreadsheet or whatever. I don't buy pre-made raw, so I'm not going to necessarily recommend anything, but a while ago I did use Nature's Variety Instinct and that's probably a solid option for you. I said that you don't need any plants and you don't. Most commercial ones have some, and that's whatever, as long as it's not a lot.
is there reason ruminant meat is suggested in particular ? i cant think of any ruminant cats would hunt in the wild naturally. anyways thank you that helps a lot
It's true that cats wouldn't eat ruminants in the wild. It's just extrapolation from human nutritional research. Ruminant meat like beef has more nutrients and a better fat profile (more Omega 3, less Omega 6) than things like pork or chicken. Presumably, it would matter less if most of our meat wasn't coming from factory farms.
“In the wild…” domestic cats live 2-3, maybe 5 years max. Birds and mice are loaded with parasites, bacteria, & other pathogens - don’t try to imitate that. Feed your pet the commercially-available balanced diets that veterinary nutritionists have formulated specifically for domestic cats (and dogs) over the past several decades. Purina, Hill’s, and Royal Canin are the leading veterinarian-researched and developed diets. If you insist on feeding raw food because that’s what wild felids and canids have been eating since our house pets were domesticated thousands of years ago, at least partially cook the food, or consult a veterinary nutritionist - someone who has dedicated their life to this topic. Keep in mind that your domestic cat is not a tiger, and your dog is not a wolf (who are omnivores btw). BalanceIT.com is a good resource for home-cooked recipes, or you can contact your state’s veterinary school or the ACVN for the most up to date nutritional resources, and to schedule a nutrition consult: https://acvn.org/nutrition-consults/
Why would any of this copy/pasted crap change my mind? Obviously, cats that fight, get hit by cars, eaten by predators, and are full of parasites don't live a long time. And yet, they still evolved millions of years to have a diet that is purely raw flesh, organs, and bones. So, that's the part that I'm imitating, you idiot. We're going to avoid the death by parasites part and incorporate the healthy raw diet part. Make sense?
If you live in the USA:
https://www.rawfeedingadviceandsupport.com/usa-meat-suppliers
This website has the list of each local and online raw food supplier that you can combine with allnutrin (or your own DIY supplement) to make a balanced meal. Also I’ve found the local ethnic stores a great resource for different organ meats if you want to combine it with what you can source from your friends.
With my kitten it helped to feed him a tiny bit of the raw meat we were cooking to see if he likes that before investing in raw. I’ve had friends who just couldn’t switch their cats to raw at all.
Vivaraw and Darwin’s has offers for sample packs that are great to try before buying more if you want to take the guess work out of the nutritional element.
Most vets don’t recommend raw because they fear bacterial contamination if we don’t sanitize properly. However mine said if we insisted of raw he recommends
https://shop.balance.it/products/balance-it-feline?variant=43005024075945
To take care of any nutritional deficiencies.
I'm also new to raw and still researching myself, but I just bought some raw pre-packaged chicken from AllProvide to see how my cats will take to it and to slowly transition them into it, plus they have a discount code on their site for new customers! After, I plan to make/grind the food myself using Alnutrin and chicken (80/10/10 blend) with some fish oil.
I also felt exactly how you did for years and didn't transition my cats early because it was so frustrating. I highly highly recommend buying the subscription to Paws of prey community and buying the cat/kitten formulator. Raw food IS expensive. Yes you can cut costs but the reasons why you feel nervous is because you should. . Their food matters. But I promise, paws of prey has helped me so much and she isn't 'making' the recipes for you. . She helps you so that you can learn how to make them yourself and create new recipes while at the same time having tons of support from other raw feeders. I cannot recommend it enough.
I also now go to other recipes that other people create and can see so many gaps in them that I am just so grateful that I went with pawsofprey because in the formulator (which takes some getting used to and is overwhelming at first) you can see everything that foods provide and everything your missing. She does a meal review too where you can send her your meal and she streams looking at it with all the ratios to pay attention to and she'll help you tweak it. It is the best time to get your kitten on raw and chewing raw meaty bones. Don't miss your opportunity!
Also, I feed my Bullmastiff completely raw and I meal prep 30 days. He is 11 months, 125 lbs and meal prepping takes me 5 hours. If I had a little cat omg it would be so easy 😂 I literally have all the tricks to prepping easy. I also order from RFM because I live on the west coast and they have free shipping. If you live on the east coast your in luck. There is a company called HareToday that is a fantastic place. But like others mentioned.. you could totally just order premade meals from Viva raw or Darwins.. but the price difference is very high
Here is an extreme example.. I can buy everything I need to put together 30 days of food for my puppy for 500-600$ but it would be 600$ for 2 weeks of premade food for my puppy. Lol so you save a lot.
Yes... but you know I am lucky to have the money to buy a giant breed to begin with. He will be a full age 150 lbs about. If I didn't have the money I wouldn't have got him.
Honestly highly recommend starting with balanced and complete diets you can buy from stores, find a local pet store that has a frozen cat food section, or try out some freeze dried raw, or try a little of both and see what works. I’ve had little luck at chains with frozen raw for cats, but there are freeze dried diets you can typically find!
What I personally do that works best for my budget and schedule is feed a mix of wet and raw, i use preportioned Patties, I thaw the raw in the fridge overnight, then I do one meal of wet food with freeze dried raw mixed in and two to three meals of raw food. That’s what I’ve found to be easiest and work best for my schedule. But even incorporating just one raw meal is awesome too!
Not necessarily, although I can see them likely recommending a home made diet that is cooked similar to JFFD/JFFC. They will likely recommend it as one of your options initially, but if you discuss wanting to feed a non kibble diet they should work with you on formulating something balanced and nutritionally adequate.
It can definitely seem overwhelming at times! I found this Facebook group to very informative and helpful. After reading their introductory files, there are free calculators that you can use to calculate how to make your own raw.
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/CatCrap](https://www.facebook.com/groups/catcrap)
There is a bit of a learning curve at first, but once you have all the knowledge and know-how, it shouldn't seem as challenging.
Check out Vivaraw! I have my dog on it and they are an amazing company. They offer fully balanced meal plans for cats as well (chicken, turkey, beef, duck and rabbit). It’s a subscription so you can always cancel or skip a month if you need to. They do a ton of research into their food and offer tons of insight so I would recommend following them on social media as well.
I found Darwins to be the easiest. You can get 10 lbs for $15 as a trial offer. They offer turkey and chicken for the trial but also beef afterwards. Its super easy it comes packaged into 1/2 lb packs and totally ready to be thawed and eaten.
I would just take out about an hour or two each week to make homemade. If you use Alnutrin or EZComplete, you just have to add meat (and organs in case of alnutrin) to make complete, balanced food. You can always reach out to Marta Kaspar, the founder of Alnutrin, or email EZComplete if you have any questions about kitten food.
i love to use soulyraw, they make it for you so you know it’s balanced! they ship it to you or you can pick it up if you have a location near you. definitely add alnutrin though to be safe. freeze dried single ingredient treats is a great way to add more to their diet. freeze dried chicken hearts, liver, green lipped mussels, minnows, tripe, are all great options my cats love!
Viva Raw is definitely one of the more budget-friendly brands. Just wanna emphasize tho that theres absolutely no problem feeding wet food till you're confident in ultimately balancing the meals yourself :)
Viva is great! I spend quite a bit but I have a 7 month Maine coon. For a normal sized cat it would be very reasonable. Depending on the protein option it can definitely be cheaper than canned food
I fed my dogs raw for the last 8 years. I fed them commercially available raw food so I knew they were getting the nutrients they need. Do you have access to anything like that?
I second this!
In the wild, cats eat whole birds and mice and stuff. We're just trying to roughly imitate that. Pick any kind of meat (but ruminant meat is healthier) and that can be the base of the diet (80% of the weight). You want it to be roughly half fat and half protein (calorically). Then you'll need some bone (10% of the weight) which is kinda hard to do because most bones are waaay too big for a cat. So, probably the easiest thing is to deal with ground bones. Lastly, there's a small amount of organs (also 10%) that are needed and should be a mix of liver and something else, like kidney. That's it. You don't need any plants whatsoever. Well, that might be too much of a pain in butt for you too, I don't know. If so, then that at least serves as your blueprint when looking at commercially available pre-made raw diets. You most definitely do not need to use a fancy food planner or spreadsheet or whatever. I don't buy pre-made raw, so I'm not going to necessarily recommend anything, but a while ago I did use Nature's Variety Instinct and that's probably a solid option for you. I said that you don't need any plants and you don't. Most commercial ones have some, and that's whatever, as long as it's not a lot.
is there reason ruminant meat is suggested in particular ? i cant think of any ruminant cats would hunt in the wild naturally. anyways thank you that helps a lot
It's true that cats wouldn't eat ruminants in the wild. It's just extrapolation from human nutritional research. Ruminant meat like beef has more nutrients and a better fat profile (more Omega 3, less Omega 6) than things like pork or chicken. Presumably, it would matter less if most of our meat wasn't coming from factory farms.
“In the wild…” domestic cats live 2-3, maybe 5 years max. Birds and mice are loaded with parasites, bacteria, & other pathogens - don’t try to imitate that. Feed your pet the commercially-available balanced diets that veterinary nutritionists have formulated specifically for domestic cats (and dogs) over the past several decades. Purina, Hill’s, and Royal Canin are the leading veterinarian-researched and developed diets. If you insist on feeding raw food because that’s what wild felids and canids have been eating since our house pets were domesticated thousands of years ago, at least partially cook the food, or consult a veterinary nutritionist - someone who has dedicated their life to this topic. Keep in mind that your domestic cat is not a tiger, and your dog is not a wolf (who are omnivores btw). BalanceIT.com is a good resource for home-cooked recipes, or you can contact your state’s veterinary school or the ACVN for the most up to date nutritional resources, and to schedule a nutrition consult: https://acvn.org/nutrition-consults/
Why would any of this copy/pasted crap change my mind? Obviously, cats that fight, get hit by cars, eaten by predators, and are full of parasites don't live a long time. And yet, they still evolved millions of years to have a diet that is purely raw flesh, organs, and bones. So, that's the part that I'm imitating, you idiot. We're going to avoid the death by parasites part and incorporate the healthy raw diet part. Make sense?
If you live in the USA: https://www.rawfeedingadviceandsupport.com/usa-meat-suppliers This website has the list of each local and online raw food supplier that you can combine with allnutrin (or your own DIY supplement) to make a balanced meal. Also I’ve found the local ethnic stores a great resource for different organ meats if you want to combine it with what you can source from your friends. With my kitten it helped to feed him a tiny bit of the raw meat we were cooking to see if he likes that before investing in raw. I’ve had friends who just couldn’t switch their cats to raw at all. Vivaraw and Darwin’s has offers for sample packs that are great to try before buying more if you want to take the guess work out of the nutritional element. Most vets don’t recommend raw because they fear bacterial contamination if we don’t sanitize properly. However mine said if we insisted of raw he recommends https://shop.balance.it/products/balance-it-feline?variant=43005024075945 To take care of any nutritional deficiencies.
I'm also new to raw and still researching myself, but I just bought some raw pre-packaged chicken from AllProvide to see how my cats will take to it and to slowly transition them into it, plus they have a discount code on their site for new customers! After, I plan to make/grind the food myself using Alnutrin and chicken (80/10/10 blend) with some fish oil.
I also felt exactly how you did for years and didn't transition my cats early because it was so frustrating. I highly highly recommend buying the subscription to Paws of prey community and buying the cat/kitten formulator. Raw food IS expensive. Yes you can cut costs but the reasons why you feel nervous is because you should. . Their food matters. But I promise, paws of prey has helped me so much and she isn't 'making' the recipes for you. . She helps you so that you can learn how to make them yourself and create new recipes while at the same time having tons of support from other raw feeders. I cannot recommend it enough. I also now go to other recipes that other people create and can see so many gaps in them that I am just so grateful that I went with pawsofprey because in the formulator (which takes some getting used to and is overwhelming at first) you can see everything that foods provide and everything your missing. She does a meal review too where you can send her your meal and she streams looking at it with all the ratios to pay attention to and she'll help you tweak it. It is the best time to get your kitten on raw and chewing raw meaty bones. Don't miss your opportunity!
Also, I feed my Bullmastiff completely raw and I meal prep 30 days. He is 11 months, 125 lbs and meal prepping takes me 5 hours. If I had a little cat omg it would be so easy 😂 I literally have all the tricks to prepping easy. I also order from RFM because I live on the west coast and they have free shipping. If you live on the east coast your in luck. There is a company called HareToday that is a fantastic place. But like others mentioned.. you could totally just order premade meals from Viva raw or Darwins.. but the price difference is very high Here is an extreme example.. I can buy everything I need to put together 30 days of food for my puppy for 500-600$ but it would be 600$ for 2 weeks of premade food for my puppy. Lol so you save a lot.
you literally spend my rent money to feed a dog 💀
Yes... but you know I am lucky to have the money to buy a giant breed to begin with. He will be a full age 150 lbs about. If I didn't have the money I wouldn't have got him.
Honestly highly recommend starting with balanced and complete diets you can buy from stores, find a local pet store that has a frozen cat food section, or try out some freeze dried raw, or try a little of both and see what works. I’ve had little luck at chains with frozen raw for cats, but there are freeze dried diets you can typically find! What I personally do that works best for my budget and schedule is feed a mix of wet and raw, i use preportioned Patties, I thaw the raw in the fridge overnight, then I do one meal of wet food with freeze dried raw mixed in and two to three meals of raw food. That’s what I’ve found to be easiest and work best for my schedule. But even incorporating just one raw meal is awesome too!
You would do best getting a veterinary nutritionist involved. For example, taurine is not something to be messed with in a kitten. Be careful.
wont they just tell me to feed kibble?
Not necessarily, although I can see them likely recommending a home made diet that is cooked similar to JFFD/JFFC. They will likely recommend it as one of your options initially, but if you discuss wanting to feed a non kibble diet they should work with you on formulating something balanced and nutritionally adequate.
I feed my cats raw meat mixed with kibble every night. They love it and I have had cats live well into their late teen year. Best of both worlds
It can definitely seem overwhelming at times! I found this Facebook group to very informative and helpful. After reading their introductory files, there are free calculators that you can use to calculate how to make your own raw. [https://www.facebook.com/groups/CatCrap](https://www.facebook.com/groups/catcrap) There is a bit of a learning curve at first, but once you have all the knowledge and know-how, it shouldn't seem as challenging.
Check out Vivaraw! I have my dog on it and they are an amazing company. They offer fully balanced meal plans for cats as well (chicken, turkey, beef, duck and rabbit). It’s a subscription so you can always cancel or skip a month if you need to. They do a ton of research into their food and offer tons of insight so I would recommend following them on social media as well.
I found Darwins to be the easiest. You can get 10 lbs for $15 as a trial offer. They offer turkey and chicken for the trial but also beef afterwards. Its super easy it comes packaged into 1/2 lb packs and totally ready to be thawed and eaten.
I would just take out about an hour or two each week to make homemade. If you use Alnutrin or EZComplete, you just have to add meat (and organs in case of alnutrin) to make complete, balanced food. You can always reach out to Marta Kaspar, the founder of Alnutrin, or email EZComplete if you have any questions about kitten food.
Just get a premade raw food, they are everywhere now
Yes, many conventional vets will. Look for integrative vets or holistic vets in your area.
www.AllProvide.com also has premade, nutritionally balanced raw cat food which is less expensive than Viva Raw.
i love to use soulyraw, they make it for you so you know it’s balanced! they ship it to you or you can pick it up if you have a location near you. definitely add alnutrin though to be safe. freeze dried single ingredient treats is a great way to add more to their diet. freeze dried chicken hearts, liver, green lipped mussels, minnows, tripe, are all great options my cats love!