We received this question from our FB page and I thought I’d post my suggestions here for the benefit of everyone and also, perhaps other more qualified caregivers can offer more suggestions too.
The question: Please advise – How much pre gram you’re feeding raw diet to each cat per day. I find it is a bit costly, but all my strays like them and i want them to be on a healthy diet. I’m on a bit of a budget though pls share how you manage. Tq
Thank you for your question and your interest in feeding your cats a raw diet. I would need to qualify first and foremost that I’m not a cat nutritionist and am therefore not qualified to give any advice. What I am sharing is just my own barefoot experiential knowledge. Kindly check with a cat nutritionist for expert advice.
From what I’ve read, you can feed active growing cats/kittens 6% of their weight in food and sedentary elderly cats about 2% of their weight. So, it’s between 2% – 6% based on their activity and growth level. I used to weigh the food too, but I don’t do that anymore now.
Yes, it is rather costly to give them commercial raw food, so one option is to make your own. But if like me, you don’t intend to make your own, what I do is to check the ingredients of each food that I purchase and supplement them accordingly with chicken meat (breast or thigh), chicken gizzards (if they are willing to eat – Gerald and Creamy love these and the Monsters are okay too, but not the delicate Blondies) and chicken liver (not daily because of the high content of Vitamin A).
By adding on raw chicken parts on your own, you save a bit on the cost of feeding purely commercial raw food.
From Google, chicken breast meat is 31% protein, chicken liver is 29% protein and chicken gizzards is 18% protein. Using these percentages, add accordingly. Whatever it is, in my unqualified opinion, giving them real meat is quality protein as it’s not ultra-processed.
I hope this provides some ideas for you.
Yesterday’s photo – polishing up their food. I’m so grateful that the Monsters are not choosy eaters. Their meals consist of Coco&Joe’s, Cubgrub and raw chicken meat (breast meat daily and liver only occasionally). I give them gizzards too.
Protein rotation is advisable too, so our cats get chicken, quail, turkey, rabbit, duck and cooked fish.