Who makes cat food, raw or cooked?

    • Gold Top Dog

    Who makes cat food, raw or cooked?

    I really would like to try to get Kovu off commercial food. I kind of think that it, and not necessarily overfeeding, is the reason he's so fat (16 pounds last I checked. He's a big boy, but should probably only be 12 or 13).

    Problem is he's not been interested the times I've tried. I bought a pouch of the Feline Future Instincts stuff, and I tried a couple different raw meats with it (chicken, turkey, and pork, I think), but he could not have been less interested. Now Kovu pretty much eats anything (any kind of commercial cat food, dog food, people food..including beans and rice I made the other night, lol) so this was odd. I tried cooking the meat, but then it didn't mix well with the powder, and he wasn't into that either.

    Right now he eats Evo, which is fine and dandy, and he likes it a lot, but I was really hoping I'd see his weight go down a bit, and I haven't. If I drop his portions too much, he just goes and steals the other cats' food (Science Diet, bleh!). Same thing would happen if I tried any sort of "tough love" approach to the fresh foods.

    So I'm just wondering who doesn't feed their cats commercial food, and what you feed them. And if anyone has any tips, that'd be fabulous. Thanks.
    • Gold Top Dog

     Is he eating Evo dry or canned?  If you did nothing but switch to canned I bet his weight would drop.  There would be some other health improvements as well.  Kitties are just not built to live on dry kibble. 

     We are currently feeding 1 cat Merrick canned.  We are lucky enough to have a local place called Woody's Deli.  We are buying cooked turkey with nutritional supplements to the other 2 cats.  If you decide to cook your own ... at the very least add taurine.

    • Gold Top Dog

     I've been thinking about this. "My" cat (who, honestly, isn't  mine, but I take care of  him because nobody else will) loves any kind of kibble, dog treats, people food, canned food, crock pot, but WILL NOT eat raw. It kind of amuses me. I occasionally plop raw meat into his bowl, to see if he'll at least TRY it without protesting. Does the feline future stuff balance cooked meat? Canned food is expensive for a big kitty, so he's getting EP kibble, too.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Our cat, Pippi, that we lost 3 years ago come April at age 17,  would not touch raw meat at all.  We did give her a lot of fresh caught, microwved fish (incuding speckled trout, flounder, whatever we caught and I cooked for her and the dogs).  She loved the fresh baked fish, and in fact woud not eat cat food that was suppose to be fish. As a matter of act, she would not even eat kibble cntaining fish.  She liked the "real thing" straight from the sea to the microwave to her dish.  She also enjoyed boiled chicken, ut would et cnned or kibble chicken as well.  Jus not fish.

    • Gold Top Dog

    I used to have a cat who was raw fed. We have cats now, but they arnt "mine" so its not my decission what they get fed. But when i had "my" cat, she was on all raw, just like Bailey. She got pretty much the same thing he does, only they need small whole prey they can eat all of, because they cant eat big pork and beef bones like a dog can. She got beef meat, chicken(meat+bones), pork meat, goat meat, lamb meat, and some fish (meat+bones) Thats not enough bone for a good raw diet, so she got whole prey (live or thawed mice/rats) a couple times a week. Dogs are easy to switch to raw, dogs usualy eat anything.. but cats are like ferrets usually with the whole switching thing, if they havent eaten it since they were young, it can be hard. I just went though "the switch" with my ferrets, it was long, but we have succeded. IMO cats are SO different once they are on a raw diet. All the cats we have no (who are fed a nasty cheap store brand cat kibble) are fat, and very lazy. They dont act like "cats" at all, they just kind of lay around, eat, and poop. My cat was very "athletic". She had a really lean body, and just in general looked very healthy. She had been fed kibble for most of her life, but the few years i had on raw really changed her (even though she was already old, she got much healtheir) I love it when the animals (Bailey, the ferrets, and my cat) would come running to the sound of the fridge opening or the smell of meat, rather than the crinkle of a bag or the sound of scooping kibble into a bowl.

    • Gold Top Dog

     I'm no help, but I feed Peaches 1 tbls. of canned 2x daily and an 1/8 of a cup of Orijen 2x daily. Shes lost weight too. Went from 10 lbs. to 7.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Our cat, Bach, is a raw cat.  We've had good luck feeding him Bravo.  He seems to prefer the Rabbit, Elk, of Salmon, but he will eat other formulas as well.  He's not above swiping stuff from the dogs either.

    • Gold Top Dog
    Morigins does raw cat food
    • Silver

     Nature's Variety Instinct frozen raw is suitable for both dogs and cats. My dogs absolutely LOVE the stuff but my cats won't eat it... go figure. I feed them grainfree canned with a bit of dry Orijen, Acana, Eagle Pack or TOTW. Those kibbles are as close to "raw" as I can get.

    • Gold Top Dog
    I fed all my cats raw until the last two kittens we got. They had been spoiled until we took them in - eating was basically all they did, even as kittens. We got them at about five months old. They hated raw. Weird thing is, they now hunt for food just fine. So, presumably they are eating raw now. I think it was the change in lifestyle. Our other cat who eats raw when he hangs out in the house in the winter, was feral until I got him at three months old. He eats literally anything. It's hilarious watching him eat things like pork neck bones. He only weighs 5 pounds so the bone weighs about a quarter what he does! That's just for fun though - we use the Instincts TC for his main diet.
    • Gold Top Dog
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