Is that furry Feline friend giving you the look at feeding time?
If you have recently tried to abruptly change your cat’s mealtime offering to a healthy Raw dish, it may well have been looked at with disdain…cats have a reputation of being finicky.
They are also not partial to rapid change so you may have to embark on a gradual transition. Taking them from a long offered diet of kibble and / or wet food to a nutritional, well-balanced Raw meal, may in some instances, pose a challenge. In particular, in older cats. Younger kitties may be more open to a sudden change.
It’s always worth a try to offer some raw cat food. Cut up some raw chicken, turkey or liver and offer it to the fireball. You may be surprised and it’s accepted straight off. If not, try a gradual approach.
If your cat is currently only eating dry food, you can transition either straight to raw or take an interim step and transition first to grain-free canned food and after a few weeks on that then introduce raw.
Here are a few tips on how to go about things:
Cats generally love their dry food, which research suggests, is far lower in moisture content than a raw food diet.
Many of us probably leave a bowl of kibble out for free feeding. We have to change our ways here. It is not necessary to have food available at all times.
Introduce set regular meal times and don’t leave the food out for more than 30 minutes. Your fluff ball will eventually get used to the new routine, and not being able to snack throughout the day may have more of an appetite come mealtime; which will go a long way towards her eventually accepting what’s on offer.
Put down a small offering of kibble and another of the wet food. Keep up with this for a while.
If the stubborn one continues to ignore the wet food, try mixing just a little of it with the kibble, ever increasing the mix of wet food until kitty is accustomed to this new taste and texture. Eventually the kibble should be entirely out of the meal plan.
If you have persevered this far and successfully transitioned from Dry to Wet canned food, then let things be for a few weeks before the move from canned to raw food.
The steps should be very similar to those mentioned above, excluding the kibble of course:
Offer some cut-up pieces of raw chicken, turkey, or chicken liver. If they still don't go for raw cat food right away, there are a number of things to try.
Put their canned food on a plate rather than in a bowl, and put a little raw food next to it. This will introduce them to the new aroma which is subtler to what they are used to, but they will eventually start associating that smell with mealtime.
It's best to ensure the raw food is not cold. Room temperature is preferable.
Once they get the taste of it, start reducing the amount of the canned food and increasing the raw, remembering to offer a variety of flavour and texture, ensuring that those little jaws get working as they should and their taste buds learn to accept more than the same old thing every day.
You will eventually win this battle and the rewards will prove to be worth it.
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