Oh yeah, and a note about serving size: a 10-lb. cat will typically eat about 6 to 8 oz. (generally about 1/2 - 3/4 cup) of food a day. I recommend feeding the kitties twice a day, more often if feasible, and let them eat as much as they want.

Also, because of my itchy submit finger, here are the instructions for mixing the recipe above. Are you ready? Because it's pretty complicated.

1. Mix together the meat, calcium and veggies in a large bowl. Mash everything so it's well-mixed.
2. Divide into serving-size portions and store in baggies or those little handy disposable-yet-reusable plastic containers. Freeze.
3. Remember to allow 24 hours for each serving to thaw in the fridge, or the cats will have to wait an extra 1/2 hour as you thaw the food out in a warm water bath.
4. Mix the supplements in with each feeding.

Recipe no. 2 is loosely based on the Feline Future recipe and was refined somewhat by Michelle Bernard of blakkatz.com. There are two variations to this recipe: one with raw bone (requires either buying whole ground prey or grinding whole prey yourself), and one without. I recommend that you not feed this too regularly because there are possible issues with psyllium seed husk and B vitamin absorption. I'd also ignore the advice about getting rid of the skin and extra fat; the people who advocate this diet are of the "cats need lean meat" school of thought which I don't agree with because from everything I've read, cats thrive on a high-fat diet.

Anyway, the PDF file is available here: www.catfood.catnutrition.org/Cat....pdf . If you can't access it, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to type it out.

OK, here's my kitties' daily meal plan. You can call it "Recipe no. 3" if you like. Serving size is per kitty.

Breakfast:

1/2 packed cup meat chunks and organs (about 75% meat and 25% liver, kidneys and hearts, heavy on the hearts)

Dinner:
2 oz. whole ground rabbit (includes everything except feet and intestines)
1/2 oz. ground rabbit giblets OR 1/2 oz. minced liver
250 mg calcium carbonate or citrate (to balance breakfast)
1/4 teaspoon kelp/dulse OR 1/4 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon veggie mush
1/2 teaspoon EFA OR 1000 mg salmon oil
250 mg taurine
Light sprinkle of Call of the Wild powder to balance the giblets/liver, and also because the cats like the taste

A few times a week: Egg yolk mashed into dinner.

On Treat Days (which happen twice a week), each kitty gets:

2 chicken necks, chopped into pieces
1/2 can high-quality wet food

I coat the necks with the wet food and let the kitties lick and crunch away.

Not another recipe--but bribe foods! Getting your cats switched over to a raw diet can be tricky, and sometimes they need persuasion and good old-fashioned bribery. Some foods various people have had success with:

- Grated parmesan cheese
- Any cheese (my cats are particularly fond of cream cheese)
- The liquid from canned tuna/salmon/clams
- Canned clams or fish
- Nutritional yeast
- Kibble powder (basically pulverize the kibble in a food processor)
- Call of the Wild (made by Wysong)
- F-Biotic (ditto)
- Salmon oil
- Dabs of canned food
- Tomato sauce (an odd one, but it apparently worked with this one inappetant cat with chronic renal failure)

Sometimes a light sprinkle of Sweet Bribery on top is enough to get the kitties going (once cats lick something and decide it's food, they're usually happy to consume the rest of it), other times you need to take it slow and easy by mixing only a tiny amount of the new food with an old favorite, gradually decreasing the amount over the course of a few weeks.

I've updated my feeding method somewhat, so I thought I'd record it.

I now give the Little Bastards their calcium shortly after their meat-only chunks meal. I cut up the calcium supplement in half (it's "Absorbable Calcium" with 50 IU vitamin D from Puritan's Pride, and is in paste form as opposed to powder) and mix the two little dabs with nutritional yeast. The cats love it. Hitler has learned to recognize the distinct "snip" of the kitchen shears cutting through the capsule and she's rightatmyfeetholyshitwhere'sthetastytreat and all excited. It occured to me that because I was feeding my cats only two or three meals a day, that I was likely inducing hyperphosphatemia and hypercalcemia by turns every day with the old method. I don't know if it's true, but the idea made me uncomfortable enough to switch the way I did things.

I've also started adding a human multi-vitamin/mineral supplement three times a week to their food. It's Twinlab's One-A-Day supplement. They get one capsule split between them during the evening meals. I engaged in a brief e-mail conversation with Dr. Susan Wynn, a vet who feeds her cats and dogs a raw diet but who's doing a bunch of nutritional analysis and finding that many home-made raw food formulations come short of certain minerals. This study is as yet unpublished. Anyway, she recommended adding Theragran or an equivalent once a day, half a tablet per 10 lbs. cat. I hate grinding up tablets, so I found a capsule with a comparable nutritional profile. I'm giving it a shot. I'm not giving it every day because these mult-vits are fairly high in vitamin A and D, and I'm feeding them liver and organ meats. According to my math, what I'm giving them now is not anywhere near the AAFCO maximum for vitamin A and D even with the capsules, though it's well over the minimum. But I'd still like to be cautious.

I'll let you know after a couple of months if I observe any appreciable improvement in their condition.

Hrmmmm...just wondering...does salmon oil = fish oil supplements (either gel-cap or liquid) that is available at vitamin shops or does salmon oil = a special pets-only oil made specifically out of salmon?

Is there anything bad that results from giving cats fish oil supplements (NOT cod liver oil, but the more generally labeled "fish oil")? What about, say, olive oil?

Thanks! I appreciate any input.

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