Raw diet?

[sorraia]

First - Congratulations on finding a vet who is supportive of raw diets! Many are not. Many are trained the old school way, where processed kibble foods are the way to go, especially the ones they sell in their veterinary offices.

Any way -
I DO feed my cats (and dogs) a raw diet. I currently have two cats on a raw diet, and had three until a couple years ago when my elderly cat (at least 18 years old) had to be put to sleep (due to renal failure, which we managed for at least a year on a raw diet - she had been switched to raw at around 12 years of age, after living her life on kibble). My cats are thriving. They are around 10 years old, and you wouldn't know it by looking at them. They are in good condition, and they run and play like kittens. They actually have a ritual every day of running around the house like crazy hell demons, chasing each other and wrestling. They've been on a raw diet for more than 6 years, and the only reason my vet doesn't pressure me to change is because their annual blood work is always perfect and their body condition is always perfect.

Cats are obligate carnivores. While they can digest some plant material, their bodies are not as efficient in doing so as for meat. If they are provided with a balanced meat diet, there is no need to add any plant matter. My cats do not get plant matter. They also do not get added supplements. I follow what is called the "prey model diet". I actually started them on whole prey, then switched to prey model out of convenience. Prey model involves putting together different parts of the animal to mimic a whole prey item, often affectionately called "frankenprey". Due to cost and availability, the majority of their diet is chicken, but sometimes includes other animals, like beef, pork, turkey, and quail. Approximately 5-10% of their diet is organ (does not include heart or gizzards, those count as "meat"), 5-10% bone (my cats will eat the small bones in cornish game hens and the smaller softer bones, like ribs, on full size chicken), and the rest is made up of "meat" (mostly muscle, but also includes connective tissues, some fat, skin, etc). They don't necessarily need to receive organ and bone in every meal, but the overall composition of their diet should be 5-10% of each of those, and the rest falls in that "meat" category. When feeding organ, a good portion of it is liver, the rest is made up of spleen, kidney, reproductive organs, stomach/green tripe, and anything else that's available. I also like to add some heart to their "meat" portion periodically, because it offers a different composition of different nutrients than other parts of the animal.

That's the basic run down. There are other diet options, but this is what I follow.