Monday, October 11, 2010
Two Weeks
What incredible progress. It’s been just a day over two weeks and every single cat is eating raw. Even Shadow. In fact, I used to feed Shadow, Rani and Serenity their own bowls away from the other four for different reasons.
Rani because she and the others, (except Serenity), have issues. So Rani eats in peace on the table.
Serenity because she is older and needs little, tiny pieces as she learns to chew not scoop and get her jaw muscles built up.
Shadow because it was the only way to get her to eat.
Now? Shadow, Casper, DST, Blondie and Morticia all eat on the towels I lay down on the floor. I put down 5 bowls of food there and they go from bowl to bowl, eating away. I will also, at times, put down a plate of chicken with bone. Most of them are still getting the hang of that but all 5 of them have at some point chomped on bone so this is very good.
Rani still eats on the table, next to me on the lap top and she knows how to chomp a bone. She doesn’t always have interest in eating a chicken leg or wing but when she does, she does a fine job of it.
Serenity is still working on the chewing. I discovered one day, when I saw she wasn’t getting enough to eat, that she doesn’t know how to pick the food up with her mouth like the other cats do. What she’s been doing all her life, because the dry food kibble pieces were so small, is scooping the pieces up with her tongue and then chewing them. Course, it doesn’t take much effort to crumble a kibble piece so her jaw muscles need to be stronger so she can eat bigger pieces. Therefore, I have to make a special bowl for her that has tiny, tiny cut up pieces of meat. And, most of the time, I have to put herring or sardine on top to get her in to it. But, she is eating raw, not dry food, not canned.
In fact, tonight I sent the dogs with a rescue worker who is taking them to get spayed/neutered tomorrow morning and gave her the unopened bag of dry dog food, unopened bag of dry cat food and two boxes of canned cat food that were unused. My animals will no longer need them so let them go to a rescue to help out with saving other animals.
I kept four cans of canned food just in case but I think I may not need them.
So, dinner time goes a whole hell of a lot faster around here these days. I have most of the meats already cut up and bagged in freezer bags. I pull a bag out of the chest freezer the night or two before, thaw them out, load up the bowls and place them in front of the cats. For chicken wings and legs, I have put 7 in each bag and I every other day or so, put them on a paper plate in the middle of the bowls and let them decide if they want to eat them or not. I usually put those down first so that while I’m getting the bowls ready, the cats are gnawing on bone. (Rani gets a wing or leg in her bowl and at this point, I don’t give any to Serenity. I may have to grind them for her.) And with the dogs, since I feed them in their crates, I’ve discovered I don’t need to use their bowls anymore. Their food only stayed in their bowls for a second before they would drag it out of there so what is the point of messing up the bowls and having to wash them every night?
What used to take about an hour and a half, (getting things ready, ensuring every one was eating, moving a cat to a bowl, moving a bowl to a cat, finding something that the cat would eat, blah, blah, blah and then giving the dogs their food in bowls and then washing everything), now takes about half an hour from opening the fridge to start to picking up empty bowls, washing them, washing the freezer bags to re-use and disinfecting the crate trays when the dogs are finished.
One thing that people say is that raw feeding is less expensive than buying dry food.
No. It’s not. It’s way more expensive even with good deals. The only way it would be cheaper is if you can find meat for free. There are ways to do that but you cannot count on it. I do not know what people mean when they say it’s cheaper. Maybe if you only have one dog or one cat it is but not with this many animals, it most certainly is not. It doesn’t have to be horribly expensive but I’m spending about $100 more per month on the animals’ food than I did with dry food bags from the grocery store. And since they are all basically the same crap with different labels, paying $35 for a “high end” bag of cat food as compared to say, $15 for a bag of Friskies, you’re really just throwing your money away. But raw feeding is not going to be cheaper if you have several animals to feed. That is one argument I hear for raw all the time and that is one argument I’d like to dispel because it is not true in many cases.
That does not mean that feeding raw should be dismissed as there are several benefits to doing so but I like to be truthful here and don’t want anyone who is interested about switching to think they are going to save money on food. You more than likely will not. You will probably save money on vet bills down the road but not on food. Unless you are lucky and find a haul of free meat somewhere. (For example, I have a co-worker who hunts and should he bag Bambi, I’ve been promised parts he doesn’t use, for free. But, again, this cannot be counted on because maybe he sucks as a hunter.) Some people have butcher friends, farmer friends, rancher friends, chef friends and that helps. A lot. Some people will take freezer burned meat off of others hands. Some will post ads for raw, unwanted meat. I haven’t done that yet because frankly, I do not trust the people in this town. I absolutely do not at all. It’s sad to say but I’ve seen how these people act and I’m looking forward to the day that I have the money saved up that I want saved up to get the hell out of here.
I like Florida, just not this city. Hell, even going one hour north, everything changes but that’s another post for another day.
Anyway, I’m quite surprised how quickly the cats adapted to this raw diet and I am hoping that those of you who have written me showing interest in switching will have the same luck if you do. But I do want you to keep in mind, it will probably end up costing more. If you go in to it knowing everything, you’ll stand a much better chance of sticking with it.
(Also, it gets a little addicting and I actually like watching the animals eat now. It sounds silly but it’s fun to watch them eat their raw foods so greedily.)
Oh and I also discovered the other day that pork is a big, big hit. I had purchased a pork shoulder roast thing...still had the skin on it....blech, and cut away the meat to get to the bone part. There was a joint/socket in there so it took some work to get those bones apart to feed the dogs, (and there’s still plenty of meat left on those bones for the dogs). I cut away a LOT of meat. By the time I got to this pork shoulder roast thing, I was tired of cutting up meat so I opted to just cut it in to basic chunks, not bite sized, and would cut them the day I fed them. I filled up almost 10 bags with just the pork and that is all for the cats.
The other day I decided to give it to the cats just to see if they would eat it. I got their bowls out, started cutting and would put some in to a bowl, put that bowl on the towel and then go back to cutting bite sized pieces for the next bowl. When it was ready, I would turn to put it down and see that the first bowl was empty. I could not fill these bowls up fast enough for the cats. I had more pork in the bag than I was going to use for that one meal but they were gulping it down so fast that I ended up giving them all of it. Holy Crap they love pork! GOOD to know!
So I think with the cats, I’m going to stick to mainly chicken, pork and some of the less expensive fish. They can have salmon and fresh tilapia on special occasions but not all the time like they’ve been getting. I cannot afford that. I have to find something else relatively cheap but good to feed them but I’m pleased about the pork and chicken because that can be bought fairly inexpensively. I can also get them beef hearts, chicken gizzards, livers and hearts, cow kidney all for very cheap. (That is one good thing about Miami...these people eat the weirdest fucking shit that I would never put in to my mouth but it makes shopping for the animals really easy. I do not have to go out of my way to find this stuff, all of it can be found in my local Publix.) All the chicken, pork and organs are pretty cheap. Skinless/boneless chicken of course is not and they will get that from time to time...most of the fish is not inexpensive but I will try to find ways around that. I live in fricken Florida, you’d think I could find some damn fish for free around here.
I’m still discovering what else I can feed them. Pretty much it’s everything the dogs can eat except in smaller quantities. But the bones, I think, should not be beef or pork bones. I think only chicken and maybe some turkey bones. Otherwise, I think they might be too hard for the cats’ teeth. I’m still learning about that though.
Anyway, I hope that helps those who are interested and hope that your cats will switch over as easily as mine did if you decide to go for it.
