# Switching to Raw



## Grove (Oct 17, 2012)

Sorry if this is just another thread on this as I know it's been discussed before but I wanted to start a new one to see what people are doing now as things change and I seem to remember more people considering switching to raw last time it was brought up

Gandhi is currently on a combo of wet and dry Lily's kitchen food. He has kibble for breakfast and tea and then a tray of wet food for lunch. In addition to this he will have a fish skin most days and then sometimes a venison ear or chew

Since looking into the safety of bones recently we've found that a raw bone from the butchers will take him well over an hour to get through the meat on it before it becomes just the bone. This is good because it gives him skmething to do and in scraping off the meat he is getting a bit of grinding action on the bone, instead of like with the venison marrow bones he had where he was crunching through and chewing the whole actual bone. My only concern is it does seem a bit fatty 

But this got me thinking about other things he could have like chicken wings, and then I thought maybe he could have a part raw diet. But then how does this work with getting the balance because the Lily's kitchen food has veg etc 

I'd be interested to know if feeding raw, what everyone feeds and where it comes from


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## Cat 53 (Aug 26, 2012)

Mine are fed tripe from Bulmers near Melton Mowbray. Chicken wings from Asda. Fish from the Asda fishmonger, odds and sods from our local butcher. but they mainly have the tripe which is a complete food for them.


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## Marzi (Sep 17, 2012)

I use Natural Instinct tripe and turkey as the base for their raw food as it has all the added extras and is balanced. But they also have fish skins, chicken wings, egg and the odds and sods bits of whatever. They also do occasionally have a kibble meal and I use kibble for treats - just in case I ever need them to have it for convenience.


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## RuthMill (Jun 30, 2012)

Mine are both fed nutriment which a balanced compete raw food. I have done copious amounts of research and I am really pleased with this food. As well as being balanced, it has lovely ingredients such as coconut oil which has it's own many benefits. There are other good foods out there too as well as home combos, but I'm not confident with getting the balance so I go with nutriment which arrives frozen and very fresh. 

Raw feeding is still a bit of a controversial subject, and I think everyone chooses what's right for them. 

In relation to animal fat, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Animal fat is natural and it's not the fat causing the problems. Thankfully, we are finally getting to a stage where people are beginning to realise that the "low fat revolution" has contributed to our obesity and health problems. Sadly processing food to reduce the amount of fat, automatically increases the amount of sugar, artificial flavourings etc. including Trans fats, ie artificial fats which are the harmful fats which cause the problems. I am not going off on a rantogram, as I have done previously about fats and sugar  but as long as you're not feeding overly processed food with added trans fats (veg/sunflower oils), carbs and sugar; animal fat in the form of meat, bones etc as the fat source will not cause problems and has actually been shown to improve heart health. My motto is cut out the unnatural or the stuff that must be processed to death to make it edible.


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## DB1 (Jan 20, 2012)

Nutriment for me too, although I was happy with Barking heads before but Dudley is so much more excited over his food now.


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## tessybear (May 1, 2011)

Mine are fed mostly on raw chicken wings, raw fish and tripe. They also get fruit, veggies, eggs and yoghurt too. They have liver treats which I make. They have Naturediet occasionally which goes well with a raw diet as unlike other foods it doesn't affect their stomachs.


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## Grove (Oct 17, 2012)

RuthMill said:


> In relation to animal fat, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Animal fat is natural and it's not the fat causing the problems. Thankfully, we are finally getting to a stage where people are beginning to realise that the "low fat revolution" has contributed to our obesity and health problems. Sadly processing food to reduce the amount of fat, automatically increases the amount of sugar, artificial flavourings etc. including Trans fats, ie artificial fats which are the harmful fats which cause the problems. I am not going off on a rantogram, as I have done previously about fats and sugar  but as long as you're not feeding overly processed food with added trans fats (veg/sunflower oils), carbs and sugar; animal fat in the form of meat, bones etc as the fat source will not cause problems and has actually been shown to improve heart health. My motto is cut out the unnatural or the stuff that must be processed to death to make it edible.


I agree with you on the whole about people's attitude to low fat foods

But this seemed to me like quite a large amount of fat on the bone 

Gandhi is not well today, he has diarrhoea and doesn't want to eat and is staying close and a bit quiet  I'm hoping the fat hasn't triggered him to be unwell. He hasn't eaten anything else unusual that we know of. Could it be simply the change of something raw as opposed to because it was too fatty?


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## RuthMill (Jun 30, 2012)

Grove said:


> I agree with you on the whole about people's attitude to low fat foods
> 
> But this seemed to me like quite a large amount of fat on the bone
> 
> Gandhi is not well today, he has diarrhoea and doesn't want to eat and is staying close and a bit quiet  I'm hoping the fat hasn't triggered him to be unwell. He hasn't eaten anything else unusual that we know of. Could it be simply the change of something raw as opposed to because it was too fatty?


What sort of bone was it? I've never really seen a fatty bone, muscular yes but not fatty.


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## RuthMill (Jun 30, 2012)

Oh sorry, have just read venison marrow bone. The venison, marrow and bone was maybe rich, but I'm not convinced, though it's probably not something you should give for a long period of time. What else are you feeding?


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## Grove (Oct 17, 2012)

It was a beef bone from the butchers

I'm guessing it was fat because it was whiteish..

Maybe it was just because it was something new 

If I did switch to raw, would it be gradual or all at once?


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## RuthMill (Jun 30, 2012)

We just did it all at once. Absolutely no problems. 

Perhaps the beef was just too rich.


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## Lexi&Beemer (May 5, 2013)

My two don't eat beef. It's too rich for them. It's hard in the beginning but chicken I thin ideas easiest. Also I'm not sure what they marrow bone is but make sure it's not weight bearing. I do neck, chicken backs, duck, basically the poultry ones as those bones are soft enough for them to chew. You could also try tripe. It's a complete food that is the right calcium to potassium ratio. 


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## Hollysefton (Sep 28, 2013)

There's a really good raw feeding group on Facebook called raw feeding rebels, very supportive and have extensive files with tons of info. I feed Nutriment all different flavours and he has bones from the butchers to clean his teeth and wings. I would start with one flavour (chicken probably) and then once he's good with that try others slowly. Processed foods and raw foods digest at different rates (raws much quicker) so I would feed raw and dried at the same time x


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