Now that we are part of the way through Week 4, I made the decision that it was time to try and wean everyone over to the raw diet. Having said that, Ice is now another convert and again, he is another cat that I thought would be very hard to convert but for whatever reason, he suddenly decided that the raw food is not that bad at all and he has been joining in every meal time.

I hadn't been sure about removing all biscuits and only feeding raw but I did do some more reading online, I also contacted another breeder, Sarah of Sarikakings Bengals who has been feeding raw for a long time now. Thanks ever so much for your help and advice Sarah. So I guess that between Sarah's advice, what I had read, and the fact that yesterday, I did replenish the biscuit bowls for the non raw eaters, and a few hours later, there were piles of cat vomit in the front hallway and it was all from the biscuits. That really did it for me because on the raw foods, there is never any cat vomit apart from once in a blue moon when one of the cats eats the grass in the cat run and then brings it back up. (Not a pleasant subject really!)

This changeover does mean that I have to monitor the cat family extremely closely, well the previous non raw eaters anyway because now it will be a case of they eat the raw meat or they are going to go hungry. Obviously we are not going to let any of the cats starve themselves, so daily monitoring is essential to ensure that everyone is eating and maintaining their optimum weight. The main cats we have to worry about are Cacao and Amarula. Up until these point, neither of these cats will touch the raw, they haven't even shown an interest. Amarula is a tiny, tiny little girl and she can not be in the position where she can lose any weight at all so if she doesn't start eating the raw, we will have to get her onto another food straight away.

It is going to be a very difficult few days I think and even this morning I was so tempted to put down bowls of biscuits but I have to remain firm and wait it out for a couple of days to see what happens.

I have found it difficult withholding all biscuits for the past 48 hours and feeding raw only and I was expecting to have a riot on my hands. The good news is that no one has starved themselves and even the non raw eaters are now nibbling at the raw food and the entire feline family is comfortable with their new feeding routine. First thing in the morning and around 7pm of an evening, they all line up outside the kitchen door screaming at me to give them their dinner so that is a very good sign.

This morning however, after I had put their food down and went back into the kitchen, I came back out to find only Tuaca, Frangelico & Toussaint eating breakfast and it did concern me greatly. So I went upstairs to see what was going on only to find that the little monsters had opened our bedroom door and were having the time of their lives in our room and in the wardrobe. After finally getting them out, they did venture back downstairs and remember that they were supposed to be eating breakfast.

I did find this interesting in that this does tie in with some of what I read online with regards to the fact that cats on raw foods are not permanently "hungry". By this I mean that when the cats were on their commercial wet food meals, home cooked meals and had biscuits left out all the time, they were constantly eating. It would not be unusual at all to see the cats eat a breakfast meal of Hi Life, Natures Menu, and Felix and then within 10 minutes of eating breakfast they would be straight to the biscuit bowl to eat biscuits as well. Yet now, none of the cats go looking for any biscuits, instead, once they've eaten their raw meal in the morning, they then spend some time having pampering sessions before playing a few games and then settling down to have a cat nap. Having said that, I can't help but wonder if just 2 meals a day is enough yet it seems to be adequate especially considering there seems to be quite a bit of food left over after the meals. But one problem of mine has always been feeding them far more than they need and it would seem that I'm doing the same with the raw food. Still, better that than to not give them enough :)

We have had one very major change during the past 48 hours which pleases me immensely and that is the state of the floors of a morning. Any breeder, or indeed pet owner in a multi cat home will know what I mean when I say that coming downstairs to the mess first thing each morning is a total nightmare. You can always guarantee that some cats will miss the litter tray and then you end up with poo on the floor, or worse yet, on the skirting boards, or some will gorge themselves with biscuits overnight and you wake up to piles of vomit etc. Since removing the biscuits and having the entire feline family on raw, it is actually a pleasure to come downstairs and see the state of the floors. For 2 days now there has been no vomit/poo on the floors at all, stools belonging to the "sensitive tummy" people are definitely firming up, and it really does make a huge difference. That isn't to say of course that the floors are immaculate because we do have 3 cats who continue to spray in certain areas, drowning the floor, as well as scattered litter across the floor but there is such a huge difference compared to what is was like when everyone was on the commercial foods. The other bonus with this of course is that it makes my job of cleaning the floors (and litter trays!) so much easier. In actual fact, if the last 2 days is anything to go by, I can honestly say that I wish I had changed over to raw feeding years ago.

To sum up, Week 4 has been a successful week with the feeding and I shall be waiting to see what Week 5 brings. I am of course still wondering just how long it will be before the cats are eating the bones as well. At this stage they have progressed to thoroughly tearing the meat off the bones but then tend to leave the bones, with the exception of course of Ashanti and Toussaint. The only bones that they will so far eat is the quail bones but then of course the quail (which is still their favourite raw food by the way) has much smaller bones than chicken.

I have included some photos below which are just general (not so great) photos of some of the feline family enjoying their raw meals. These photos were actually taken a couple of weeks' ago when we were entering the start of Week 2 but I have only just now got around to downloading them from the camera. You can no doubt tell by the photos that raw eating can be a messy affair which does mean that the floors have to bleached after each meal.