Raw Diet for Cats - It’s Not Just For Dogs!
We all try to give our pets love, right? To most people, they’re like having another family member in the house, and to this end as far as possible, we try to take into consideration their natural behaviours and instincts when caring for them because after all, any domestic animal that we keep, be it a horse, dog, cat, or fish, ultimately has it’s roots predomestication, in the wild.
So, what exactly is a raw diet? It’s simple, raw meat or rather raw animal, nothing added and nothing taken away. You see, it’s important to remember that despite the small wild cats (the ancestors of our pets; namely, the African wild cat) branching away from the other cats some 10 million years ago, the fact remains that biologically their dietary requirements are no different than the big cats, and they are obligate carnivores which means that there is nothing that is benefical or necessary in their diet that they can’t get straight from eating raw animal. In fact, while a dog can live quite healthily on a specialist vegetarian diet, a cat can not survive without meat.
I have always been a cat person, and growing up, we always had 3 to 5 pet cats at any given time who were biscuit fed, and I have to admit that it wasn’t until a few years ago whilst reading up on feline nutrition that I even became aware that using commercially produced raw food for cats was even an option - having not long before this discovered the benefits of the raw diet for dogs. I guess generally you stick with what you know and with wet and dried food always having been the norm, I never stopped to question it but then again thinking about it, if I was visiting a zoo and saw a Lion eating a big bowl of biscuits I wouldn’t be too impressed so why is feeding our own cats in this way any less questionable.
The biggest benefit to the wet or dry diet is clearly convenience on both storage and price as pound for pound it is cheaper, has a long shelf life, can be stored at room temperature - which I definitely used to take for granted - and also feeding in this method can fit in easily with busy schedules. Personally if I am going to be late home one evening, I have to get my cat’s preweighed meal out of the fridge and ask a friend to come round at feeding time to feed him and if I am away on holiday, it’s twice a day. Luckily, they are good friends!
So, there are some drawbacks to feeding your cat on a raw diet, there’s the extra freezer space needed to keep it in, there’s the getting into the routine of defrosting and weighing the meals that you need, and getting into the routine of the set feeding times - for me the mealtimes are 7am and 5pm - and there’s the cost. Once a cat reaches 12 months of age, if fed on a solely raw diet, it will need to eat 2–3% of it’s body weight per day, depending on the individual cat’s activity level, spread over 2 meals. Obviously, prices vary depending on your supplier, be that an online company delivering to your door or picked up at your local pet shop, if you are fortunate enough that they sell it, but currently I pay £45 for 4kg, which at 2 meals of 56g per day lasts for around 5 weeks.
So why am I such a big advocate of raw feeding then? Well, to be honest, about 3 months after my last cat was put to sleep at the age of 13, we got our newest member of the family, Stitch, a 16 week old black and white moggy - this was right around the time that I had discovered raw feeding - and, with the typical pet owner guilt that usually follows after the passing of a pet I thought “what can I do better this time?” So I gave it a shot to see what the fuss was all about, and now it’s almost 2 years later, and I wouldn’t ever change back.
Please excuse the cat hair in the picture!
So, the ingredients list on a packet of raw food generally looks like the above. Looks pretty straightforward, right? And that’s just it. For me it’s not so much that this is a feline super food, more that I look at the ingredients list on the back of the average shop bought cat food, and see things listed such as corn, wheat, and in some cases even carrots and peas! As said, a cat doesn’t need to eat anything except animal body parts so definetly doesn’t need to be eating any of this, and the long list of added taurine, vitamins, and minerals can all be gained in a much more natural way by eating a natural diet of quality protein. When it comes to the average recommended feeding guidelines for wet food, the cat will need to be fed 3 times the 112g amount that a 4.5kg cat would be fed a day on a raw diet.
So, my own observations for my cat Stitch, being the only raw fed cat that I have ever kept, are as follows.
No stinky cat breath when he yawns in my face, a nice sleak body, and his coat is always glossy and shiny. I have found that the diet also really works well for weight management; I make a point of weighing him once a month to make sure that I am feeding him the right amount and his weight is always spot on 4.5kg.
The final biggest thing that I have noticed the most is the energy levels that he has in comparison to previous cats that I have had. He is always up early charging around the house if he’s not outdoors, is always inquisitive as to what everyone else is doing, and definetly always embracing the opportunistic ways of a cat by trying to steal everybody’s food off their plates whenever their backs are turned. I put this down to a couple of things, firstly his timed meals as opposed to free feeding, which I must admit I have been guilty of in the past; and secondly that the volume of food in digestion at any given time is greatly reduced so he doesn’t have to sleep all day long to digest it.
For anybody considering trying out raw feeding, I would strongly recommend giving it a go. We all know the benefits to ourselves of having a healthy, wholesome diet, so why not extend that to our cats!
