Yesterday I was doing some research for a post I am writing for tomorrow and I came across a raw feeding site that promotes the natural prey model. What is that you ask? Well, it means that kitties are fed a combination of a variety of whole, raw, small carcasses, (for example small game hens, chickens, duck, quail, rabbits, mice, rats and/or fish). Obviously, they don’t suggest you feed a whole chicken but rather a piece of the chicken, without cutting it up or grinding it.
Mom has read about this before and thought perhaps she could give it a try as a treat if we could eat outside, but since we can’t, she never gave us anything but our chunked and ground food. She’s pretty savvy and knew the very first thing we would do is pull the whole thing off the plate onto the floor. Since she was getting ready to make us a batch of fresh, raw food, she thought, what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll just have to mop when they are finished. She decided to give us each a thigh bone after she cut most of the meat off for our regular raw food.
Well, mom was right about the plate. Off the chicken went on to the floor. Pretty quickly, though, I decided it was just not lady like to be gnawing on a hunk of meat and bone and abandoned mine. Echo gnawed on his for a while and checked mine out too. Ocean really got into it. He chewed on his for quite a while then worked on mine and Echo’s some. All-in-all though, none of us ate much of it and mom fed us our regular dinner.
I decided right away this wasn’t lady like!
Echo gave his a good try.
Ocean really enjoyed his as well as ours!
Mom snapped all the photos right away, before we pulled the chicken off on to the floor!
If you were to start feeding your kitties like this, I think you would need to do a very gradual transition since this is so foreign to the way we are fed these days.
Would you consider feeding your cat the natural prey model raw diet?
Christy Paws
Glad that you’re feeding these guys raw – they’ll be so much healthier as a result. They usually recommend chicken wings or necks though rather than thigh bones which can be a bit tough on their teeth. Unfortunately, we can’t feed chicken in our house – Charlie is allergic.
a thigh bone is also pretty thick and hard to chew on for most kitties. Wings and necks are easier for them to chew on. My youngest skippy used to eat the entire wing except for the nob at the biggest joint.. But I got lazy about getting them for him and so he’s been out of practice so now he usually just rips the meat off.
We’ve heard of the whole prey raw diet but haven’t tried it. The closest thing we’ve gotten is chunks of chicken livers and beef heart that weren’t ground. We really loved them, but we did make a mess all over the floor. Mom says that she knows that raw bones are supposed to be okay for us to eat, but it makes her nervous.
I only eat bones that have been very finely ground so no danger from them. Whole bones make mom nervous too. I don’t think she could ever do the whole prey thing on a regular basis!
I have tried the frozen raw food like Bravo with mixed results. I had to mix it with wet food just to get them to eat it and even then could not get it past about 40% before they shunned it. I eventually gave up and now just give them Freeze dried raw food as a treat. They like it dry but when I add water they won’t eat much.
I thought about buying a grinder and making my own but I understand not grinding it could be better, especially for their teeth. The problem with that is, unless you are feeding the mice, they probably won’t get the nutrition they need from a single piece of a larger animal, like a chicken. The other problem is, I would want to make sure the meat is high quality organic since it is raw. Today’s CFO chickens are so unhealthy that you must cook it to kill the bacteria.
my cats ate bravo for years before the original bacterial scare that prompted a recall and their changing to HPP. My cats totally went off the food because they didn’t like the change in texture. Then when they went to their new process, it got even worse. As much as I loved Bravo before, I’m having a hard time supporting them now.
Since we don’t really have another option here, I went back to making my own.
Mom says, “NO,” emphatically We have too much of a problems with ants for us to be pulling food off the plate onto the floor. And she would be concerned that one of those bones might splinter and get in our throats. We know we were originally creatures of the wild, but this just isn’t our thing. Thanks for sharing, however. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
I totally agree. Not my thing either!
The bones are not a problem if it is raw. It is the cooked bones that splinter.
Mom has tried cooked food with us and it didn’t go over big. So chewing on raw prey type food is out. I catch a mice and give it away. It tastes yucky! Kli has 4 teeth so would suck the food. No, give me my Fancy Feast anytime. Mom likes opening a can too.
(((Shoko)))
guys….we wood like ta try raw but de food serviss gurl iz all…. hold de fone & mayo… coz her
listenz two too much stuff…bee it trooth ore knot…bout junk like salmonella & crap like that ~ ♥♥♥
A lot of people worry about that. We have strong stomach acid that kills that stuff and there are precautions the food service girl can take. Hope you get to try it soon. Mom is really late with today’s post but check it out later if you can.
OK, that’s just icky!
I say when civilization advanced to cook food…
we should eat cooked food….
I’m a bit spoiled you see!
Noodle and crew
My human is too squeamish to feed us raw mice, like the kind you feed snakes! She might try a thigh bone or something, though. She keeps promising to buy us some chicken hearts as a treat – and then forgets!
Humans can be so unreliable some times!
I have thought of preparing a ground up raw meal, but wouldn’t do this. The thought of them dragging raw meat in the house is too repulsive to me. I can’t even cut raw chicken, my hubby has to.
Because wes indoor outdoor cats, wes gets LOTS of real prey. There is nothing more satisfying than crunching the skull of a small rodent!
Kisses
Nellie
Oh, I’m not sure how I feel about that! I’m glad for you that you like it.
listening to a cat chew up bones is not for the faint of heart.. that is for sure. On one hand I am proud of my cats for being carnivores and doing what they should be doing, on the other hand I’m sobbing for the poor animal they are eating..
We’re trying a transition to raw — well some of us are, Pierre is having none of that — but prey model seems like it’s a long way off. Ground food is so much more familiar for us. The people whose cats eat it say it’s great, though, so maybe we will try it someday.
You do know people who feed the prey model?
Nope, the mom wouldn’t want to see us knawing on bones. But it sounds interesting.
Now dat’s weally innewestin’. Mommy sez she wuld have to mull dat one over a while and me sez, dat me agwees wiff you Christy. Not very ladylike at all. MOL Have a gweat day.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Lexi