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  #1  
Old May 12th, 2012, 07:49 AM
mischa91 mischa91 is offline
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New to all of this. Spencer & Mischa's raw journey.

I have 2 4 year old cats, 1 (Mischa) is pretty slickly most of the time with numerous trips to the vet and never a very good diagnosis. The other (Spencer) is overall a pretty healthy cat, he's a bit underweight and is quite a bit larger than Mischa. Recently he's been having some stomach upset and diarrhea, the vet is coming out some time next week; she's a new vet to my pets so i hope she's better than the others.

I've come to the conclusion that with 2 now sickly cats there has to be something i'm doing that is causing it. I've checked all around the house and there's nothing harmful they can eat, i keep plants in an enclosed greenhouse in my spare room, don't leave food lying around and they can't get into any of my aquariums/supplies for the fish. The only thing i can think would be causing upset tummies is the food they are eating.

Right now Mischa is on premium wet food mixed in the morning with pumpkin to keep her pooping properly. She has bouts of sickness and i take away food for a day and she gets better, i suspect she is allergic to something, most likely fish because feeding her anything which is primarily fish makes her vomit almost as soon as she's finished eating. My old vet wouldn't entertain the idea and said if i wanted to do home experiments to check for allergic reactions i could.

Spencer gets a lower quality wet food (fancy feast mostly) and some dry kibble because he needs to gain some weight.

I've been doing some reading and am interested in moving them over to a raw diet. I've found some good directions which do involve grinding, i'm going to try and find a local meat place that might do some meat grinding for me in the beginning. I bought chicken thighs to see how the meat would go over with my cats. I partially cooked it and added it to their food. Spencer couldn't get enough bless him, he left most of the cat food in his dish. Mischa has been a bit harder to convince, she didn't eat the first lot but did eat all of the second lot, i suspect because it was cooked more. She ate most of it this morning since i cut the chunks smaller.

I think today i'll go get some organ parts (it's really gross for my poor vegan self to be going about cutting up organs, but i love my cats and want what's best for them).
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Old May 12th, 2012, 09:13 AM
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Myka Myka is offline
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When switching dogs over, I've found grinding the meat and partially or even fully cooking at the beginning really helps. Also, go really slow, some pets have a hard time adjusting, others do the switch easily. Try a smaller butcher store (especially one that deals with wild game) rather than a meat cutter in a grocery store for grinding meat.
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Peewee - Jan '06 - 6.5 lb Chi (adopted May '09)
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  #3  
Old May 12th, 2012, 09:55 AM
mischa91 mischa91 is offline
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Yeah, i partially cooked the chicken yesterday. I'll go as slow as i need to, it seems to have helped Mischa already, for the past few days whenever she's eaten her meals she's thrown some or all of it up (she does this from time to time) yesterday and today she hasn't.

I'll look for a smaller butchers, i looked online but maybe i'd be better asking around.
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Old May 13th, 2012, 09:01 AM
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Myka Myka is offline
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Look in the Yellow Pages.

Also, not sure whereabouts you are, I've found the Hutterite colonies to be good places to buy turkey. They sell me Utility Grade birds for a reasonable price. I'm very sure to not tell them that I am using the turkeys for my dogs. I'm always paranoid that if I tell people it is for my dogs that they will sell me "not for human consumption" birds. My butcher knows though, it is hard to explain why I would want them ground bone-in otherwise. I trust him though, I buy all my meats there.
__________________
Ella - Jun '20 - Reg AmStaff
Squeak - '15/16? - Tabby cat (adopted Nov '18)
Streak - '18 - Black cat (adopted Nov '18)
Peewee - Jan '06 - 6.5 lb Chi (adopted May '09)
--------------------
Roxy - Feb '05 to May '20 AmStaff (adopted Jul '11)
Myka - Nov '98 to Jan '10 - APBT X
Lacy - Sep '92 to Jul '03 - Sheltie
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  #5  
Old May 14th, 2012, 07:43 AM
mischa91 mischa91 is offline
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Thanks. I'll have a look around.
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