Here is Part Nine in this series by ACAN student and Founder of Cat Centric, Tracy Dion:

Friday Feb 20, 2009
Fed pork loin chunks this morning. Only the kittens were enthusiastic about eating it, but no one turned their noses up.

Throwing the food down on a towel is working wonderfully. I love rolling that thing up to reveal a perfectly clean table!

Someone asked me if I included any beef flavors when I was feeding canned. The answer is yes. In fact, I fed beef in Wellness®, Evo® and Nature’s Variety Instinct® flavors, among others, and no one ever had a problem with it. I guess that rules out sensitivity issues. At the least, it makes them more unlikely!!

Beef is harder to chew than chicken and turkey, and Rachel is the slowest of all the cats, so maybe she’s being lazy and swallowing chunks she should be cutting down?

I know too much food and food eaten too fast can cause issues, but can too-large food chunks cause stomach upsets, as well? Anyone have any experience with that?

If so, I’ll be happy to cut her food down a little more while she gets used to all the chewing she needs to do now. Considering how easy this has been for me — yes, I totally recognize that I am very, very lucky — I think I can manage cutting one cat’s food into bite-size pieces.

Sunday Feb 22, 2009
I’ve finally found a source for organ meat, the last ingredient I needed. Turns out my favorite grocery store sells both chicken and beef kidneys; I never saw them because the beef only comes in once a week and the chicken needs to be special ordered. I picked up a couple months’ worth of beef kidney today and I’ll order some chicken tomorrow. I also found a butcher about 45 minutes away that sells pork kidneys and placed an order with him. I’ll keep looking for other organs, but the need is no longer critical, thank goodness!

I gave the cats some beef kidney, beef heart and bison meat this afternoon as a snack, just to see if they’d eat it. Everyone chowed down with gusto. Rachel surprised me; she ate everything without any of the Whole Life™ treats I sometimes have to use to tempt her, especially the beef heart. So yay!

After talking to some folks on another board, I ascertained that Rachel was, indeed, being lazy about properly chewing her beef chunks. I’ve been cutting her pieces in half before offering them to her and we’ve had no more upset stomach issues. Problem solved!

The cats have been on raw food for three weeks and three days now, 100% raw a little over half that time. I have sources for everything I need and I’ve worked out the majority of the kinks in a feeding methodology that I can sustain and that addresses all their needs. Oh, and I bought a lovely set of knives and something to keep them sharp with.

Sunday Feb 22, 2009

I have slightly modified my feeding schedule:
Breakfast: 9 to 10 oz of beef round (comes in precut stew pieces) or pork loin chunks I cut and package myself.

Lunch: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday they’ll get about 11 oz of something with bone in it for lunch. Chicken wings, half a quail, a quarter of a Cornish Hen, or half a chicken breast with ribs.

Sunday and Thursday, lunch will be 6ozs of either chicken or beef liver and 5oz of chicken or beef heart. Tuesday and Saturday, lunch will be 6 oz of chicken, beef or pork kidneys and 5 oz of chicken or beef heart.

Dinner: Either a chicken quarter or a turkey drumstick with the bones removed. The weight for these can range from 12 oz to 18 oz, but averages about 14 oz. Every now and then I’ll try something different, just for the fun and variety of it.

I have enough weighed and packed in my freezer for nearly two months and every night; I just take out whatever they’ll be eating the next day. Once or twice a month, I’ll restock my freezer.

And it’s as simple as that.
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Tracy is a writer and feline behavior and care consultant, specializing in nutrition and the benefits of feeding a species-appropriate diet. She has worked with rescue organizations fostering and socializing birds, dogs, rats and cats, lives with six of her rescued and rehabbed cats, and is the author of CatCentric.org, a blog, article and resource site with an emphasis on species-appropriate nutrition. For more information on Tracy or raw-feeding, please visit CatCentric.org.
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