Barf for my kittens???
 

Hello, I am new to this site.I am due to get two kittens in just over 2 weeks, and I am wanting to feed them a barf diet. I was wondering if anyone on here would be so kind as to offer some advice on how to gradually introduce it, and if i would have to blitz the meat up or if they could just eat mince meat, diced chicken, heart, liver, etc?
Thanks everyone. ESH

Hi, welcome to the board, and congratulations on your new kitties. That's great that you want to feed a raw diet! There are a couple of great links here for info on feeding raw:
[url]http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.catnutrition.org/foodmaking.php[/url]

I strongly advise following a recipe until you fully understand all the nutritional requirements of felines. Cats are very specific in their needs and it's crucial to get the correct proportions of nutrients, such as the calcium-phosphorus ratio. I'm not sure what you mean by "blitz the meat up", but it's not okay to just feed muscle or organ meat without adding a source of calcium.

As for transitioning, if they're young they should take to a raw diet quiet easily. You can slowly mix it in with whatever canned food they currently eat, gradually increasing the proportion. Or offer small tidbits of raw next to their kibble (:yuck:) if they aren't eating canned, again slowly decreasing the dry and increasing the raw.

Good luck!

Congrats on your new kittens! I'm sure they'll be tons of fun:). I would suggest taking some of the food that they were previously eating (kibble, wet?) and serving two meals a day, One of raw and the other of the kibble or wet. You can also buy some great pre-packaged raw food from a brand like arusha or red dog blue kat. Or make your own, one recipe that I follow and make for my cat is made up of chicken (from the grocery store), chicken liver or heart, flaxseed oil, and i also give her chicken necks to chew on to keep up her calcium levels. Make sure that if you feed kibble and raw your not mixing them together, they each have different digestion times (raw digests in 2-3 hours, whereas kibble digests in 10-12). Good luck!