3 months - October 4, 2008

We are now in Week 14 and have encountered a couple of small problems with the raw feeding, although this is not due to the raw food, it's because of me <sigh>

The main problem is that a couple of the fur family were actually looking a tad plumper than I like to see, particularly Frangelico our neuter Bengal girl, and I know that this is because a) I am leaving the skin on the chicken and b) I am over feeding. Despite me having worked out the weights and percentages so that I would know exactly how much to give for each meal, whenever I put the right amount on the tray, it just does not look to be enough. So I have been adding more to the tray and I have to say that with the meat chunk/mince meals, more often than not, there is always a little bit left over. I have got to get myself into the habit of feeding no more than the daily allowance but it is so incredibly hard. Obviously removing the skin from the chicken thighs and drumsticks is very easy and for the past couple of days that is what I have been doing.

I've spoken with a couple of kitten families recently who also are feeding raw and they are having the same problem as me in that we have spent so many years with food made permanently available to the cats and to suddenly change to just 2 meals a day does tend to make one feel incredibly guilty. There have been some nights where it is 11pm and I'm wondering if the cats are all sad because they have no biscuits to graze on, or if they are starving because their next meal won't be until the following morning. It's total and utter madness I know because the cats are all perfectly content and happy and not one of them goes looking for food. The only time they ever come to me now and tell me they are hungry is at their set meal times where they all come to find me and converge at the kitchen door screaming at me while I am preparing their meals.

Another problem I'm having is offal because no matter what I do, the fur family are flat out refusing to touch the offal. I offer hearts/kidneys twice a week and not only will the cats not eat them, neither will the dogs and that's saying something. I just don't know what to do to get them to eat the offal but it is so important that they do. I think I am going to try putting it in the food process, turning it into mince and then offer it with one of their normal mince meals, mix it all in together and see what happens. If anyone else out there has any tips on how to convince the fur kids that offal is very good for them, then please do let me know because I'm getting a tad desperate here!

We do have one cat now who is being fed commercial meals again and that is our darling heart murmur child, Amaro. Sadly, she has started to decline during this past month and when she started going downhill, she did start losing weight and would not eat the raw food at all. We put her back on to commercial food straight away and although we do not know if she will get better this time around, she has regained her weight and so Amaro will continue to remain on commercial foods. She is fed 3 times a day, in the kitchen, away from the others but I am happy to say that she still continues to tear the meat from the chicken and quails and eats the bone as well. I don't believe the raw feeding has contributed to Amaro going downhill because this isn't the first time during the past year that Amaro has started to decline, despite medication etc. and she has rallied around on other occasions. Our little girl has always been living on borrowed time which we know, although to see her joining in with the rest of the cat family tearing at the meat on the bone, you would not think anything was wrong with her.

This is a very interesting time for our raw feeding because at the time of writing this diary entry, we have one lady who is currently 4 weeks pregnant, and another lady who is currently 2 1/2 weeks pregnant and both ladies have had no commercial foods at all prior to their honeymoons. As you can imagine I have been spending a lot more time talking to other raw feeders and doing more research online because I must get this balance absolutely right with regards to taurine, calcium, vitamins etc. and I am trying to do this without the use of added supplements in powdered form. Our pregnant ladies are now being given an extra meal during the day so they are on 3 meals per day compared to the rest of the family who have 2 meals per day.

I am really quite excited about our first raw fed babies and if I were to go off the weights and health of the current 8 week old kitten who is in our home then the future is promising. Our current baby is an 80% raw fed baby, her mother was eating raw prior to giving birth, and our baby was weaned onto raw and at the moment has just 1-2 small pouches per day mixed in with her raw food. From the moment she was born she has been the epitome of fantastic health and her weights have been phenomenal.

October 10, 2008

Well, I am very embarrassed to say having now worked out an entire weight/daily food allowance chart that goes from 1 kilogram up to 72 kilograms (our cats' combined weights are approximately 72 kilograms), I have discovered it is no surprise at all that some of the fur kids are putting on weight. I could not believe just how much I have been overfeeding them by over 1 1/2 kilos per day. In actual fact they have been receiving 1,690 grams more raw meat per day than they should be <sigh>. So that is it, from now on, everything will be weighed. One of the issues we have here is that we never have the same amount of cats in the same rooms at feeding times with the exception of Ashanti who should be receiving no more than 150 grams per day (that seems such a small amount!). For example, at the moment we have approximately 8 kilos worth of furries upstairs (yummy mummies and a baby), we have approximately 52 kilos of furries downstairs, and we have 4 kilos of furry in our bedroom at the moment as she has been to stud with an outside boy and we are allowing a week's leeway to ensure no cross infection.

This means that what I have had to do is combine weights for each of the groups of cats, and write down what the daily allowance is for that group. Now the groups will change periodically when baby leaves home and expectant mummies move into the kitten room, hence my daily allowance chart encompassing such a large range of kilograms. Even now I am shocked at just how much they have been overfed by but I tell you, when I reduce their meals which I'll be doing as of tonight's evening meal, if I start seeing cats who look very thin, I am not going to be happy at all!

Raw feeding can be complicated, I guess it would be easier if we just had one or two cats?

Week 15 - October 15, 2008

Since our last entry, we do have some heartbreaking news in that we lost our darling Amaro on October 12, 2008. Her little heart could no longer take the strain placed upon it and our angel is now at peace in Rainbow Bridge.

I have got to say that so far, I am not seeing a huge difference with regards to reducing the meat proportions to the correct quantity although Afrikoko is losing some of the weight that she had started to gain. Mind you it is hard to tell with Koko because being a young girl she is still going through a lot of growth spurts. Frangelico doesn't seem to be losing much at all! It is still very early days however in that we've only had 5 days since I changed the quantities. I have found it so very difficult though, take the other night for example.................. I weighed out the daily allowance, everyone was fed their dinner, and within half an hour dinner was gone, there was nothing left at all. Now admittedly, none of the fur kids came up to me at all and complained about still being hungry, but I did say to Graham that I am just so very tempted to go and prepare another meal for them because it's such a long time between evening and breakfast :( I won't do it though, no matter how guilty I am feeling because even with a raw diet, the family should not be overfed as much as I had been doing. I did think that when breakfast time came around that everyone would be totally starving but surprisingly, half the family have been running straight for the breakfast meal while the other half have just been wandering through the home doing what they always do and only going to breakfast when it suits them. I guess that must mean that their little tummies are still feeling very full despite having reduced portions.

I'm hoping that in a months' time, the fur kids who have started looking a tad plump will be back to their normal weights