You’ll need to include 70-80% muscle meat, 10-20% bone or a bone replacement like eggshell or bone meal powder, and 10% secreting organ (like liver, kidney, spleen, and brain. Secreting organs are a must-have in any balanced raw diet since they contain nutrients that are hard to come by in other types of meat). 🥩🍖🍳 Real bone is always best unless your pet has a medical reason not to eat it. 💪

The aim is to make sure the amount of meat and bone you give your pet is similar to what you’d find in a whole prey animal. If you’re using a part of the prey which has a lot of bone (like chicken backs) add more meat to even it out. But if you’re using something with less bone (like chicken breast) you should add more bone. You don’t need to worry about this for every meal, but in the long run, you want your pet’s diet to be similar to what they’d eat if they were in the wild! No extra supplements are needed either—raw meat, bone, and organs already have all the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids they need 👍

Click here for a simple recipe that you can make with ingredients from your supermarket or butcher!

Secreting organs should make up ~10% of your cat’s total food intake and the most important organ to include is liver. Kidney, spleen and brain can also be included in the mix. Don’t forget about heart, lungs, tripe and gizzards though – these are not secreting organs, so make sure to include them in the meat portion of your cat’s diet 🍖🥩

Kittens need to be fed several times per day and should be given as much food as they can eat in one meal. When they reach six months to a year old, you can start to feed them two meals per day, while keeping keep the amount of food the same.

Once they turn one, you can feed them one or two meals per day, aiming for anywhere between 3-5% of their body weight to maintain their current weight. If your cat is too heavy or too light, you can adjust their food intake accordingly.

Yes, you can refreeze raw meat or a batch of prepared raw, as long as you keep it cold throughout the process. Many people will partially defrost a large piece of meat and then refreeze it into smaller pieces for later. You can also do the same with prepared raw food, like when it comes in a large tube or block – just defrost it enough to slice it into serving sizes and refreeze! Keeping it cold is key to slowing bacteria growth, so refreezing is totally safe. 🧊

Raw fish is a big no-no for cats because it can contain thiamine which can destroy the essential vitamin thiamine and lead to a deficiency, as well as parasites that freezing won’t kill.

Fish should only make up a maximum of 10% of their diet, and it should be a small oily fish like tinned sardines or mackerel 🐟 If your cat isn’t a fan of fish, try a bit of salmon oil or krill oil for the omega-3 oils instead.

It might not be actual constipation as cats on raw have less frequent bowel movements than cats on commercial wet/dry food – sometimes only every 2-3 days!

Next, check you’re not feeding more than 10% bone. If there is more than 10% bone in your cat’s diet, try cutting back on bone, and adding a bit of water and fattier meats like pork shoulder to the mix. This should help get their bowels moving again 💩

Yeah, it’s totally normal! 💦 If you just switched to a raw food diet, it could be because the food contains more water, so they’re getting the hydration they need without drinking as much water.

Yes, kittens are ready to munch on bones once they’re weaned. It’s totally fine to feed bones to your cat as long as they’re raw and the right size. In fact, bones should make up 10% of your cat’s diet as it provides calcium and phosphorus, which are essential nutrients for cats 👍

Just watch out for cooked bones, as those can cause punctures to your cat’s gut. If you’re worried, start with a chicken carcass – the ribs, back and neck are perfect!

Cats are designed to eat small animals as they would in the wild every day, so yes, they can definitely handle whole bones! Their bodies are great at digesting raw meat and bone and their stomach acid is super strong. So, don’t worry about giving them whole bones – they’ll chomp them down into a more manageable size.

You can easily chop up chicken wings or necks at home with a cleaver and get a great source of bone 🔪 Just cut up the necks into discs, and wings into three sections, and you’re good to go! Just don’t smash the bones into really small pieces with a hammer or blender, as bone can splinter and cause punctures in your cat’s gut, and never feed cooked bones as those can splinter as well.

It’s always a good idea to supervise your cat when they’re eating whole bones so you can make sure they don’t choke – sometimes they start to swallow a piece and then decide halfway down that it’s too big so they will regurgitate it. It may look like they’re choking or vomiting but they’re just trying to make it smaller!

Alternatively, if your cat turns their nose up at raw bone, bone meal powder from NOW Foods can be used as a substitute for bone.

If your kitty has a medical reason to avoid bones, you can use eggshells, bone meal powder, or calcium carbonate as a bone replacement – just make sure you measure out the right amount 🤓

For every 1 pound of boneless meat, you’ll need about 3/4 tablespoons of bone meal powder or 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoons of crushed eggshell powder.

But remember, it’s always best to feed bones as they have way more nutrients in them, marrow and all. Bone > bone meal powder > crushed eggshell powder

While cats are designed to eat whole bones, some cats may avoid them for medical reasons – like chronic kidney disease, dental issues, gastrointestinal problems, and a history of pancreatitis can all affect a cat’s diet. But cats are naturally designed to eat bone, so it’s important to offer it to them. Bones can help clean their teeth and increase stomach acidity which can help digestion and even kill bacteria 🦴

Yep, you can feed your kitty raw eggs, yolk, and all! 🥚

Just remember that it’s important there are no shells in the mix unless they’re powdered and used as a substitute for bone.

Did your vet mention specifically what type of raw will lead to these issues? It is possible to feed an unbalanced raw diet (like only chicken wings, for every meal) that could lead to problems, but a balanced raw diet is the best thing a cat could eat.

Cats are meant to eat small prey like rodents & insects, not dry food from a bag. Many vets only get their info from kibble and canned food companies and don’t support raw because big pet food companies pay them to push their products 💰 Don’t worry about worms – all store-bought meat that is safe for humans is safe to feed. (Frozen game needs to be thawed for 3 weeks to kill any parasites)

Finding a new vet may be a good idea if you don’t agree with what they have to say about nutrition, or agree to disagree.

It’s really important to make sure your cat with CKD keeps eating. A lot of cats with kidney disease have trouble with their appetite and end up losing weight, so it’s important to keep them eating. The next is to ensure you’re feeding as little phosphorus as possible.

A raw diet is an especially good choice as it provides increased hydration (since it’s 60% water), high-quality protein for maintaining muscle mass and organ integrity, and reduced phosphorus (by using eggshell rather than bone and increasing fat content) – all without any fruits, grains, veggies, or other carbs.

To keep the phosphorus content of a raw CKD diet low, replace bone with eggshell, which will reduce the phosphorus from more than 2% to 0.8%. Additionally, choosing fatty cuts of meat will help reduce phosphorus while still providing quality protein. Click here for a sample recipe for cats with CKD.