Raw

I was having an interesting discussion yesterday about a raw food diet. Raw feeding does interest me. It's closest to a cat's natural diet, and, amongst other benefits, it's supposed to be very good for teeth. As four of five of my cats have gingivitis to some degree, anything that might help with that is an attractive proposition... if my cats would oblige, that is! I can't remember if it was within the lifetime of this blog, but when we were four cats, a long time before Lucy, I did try the cats on raw food. It was a disaster, they would not touch the stuff, got hungry and cross and basically I wasted my money. All in all not one of my most successful ventures.


Yesterday though, my friend said why not try Indigo again? Pregnancy and nursing will often change a cat's outlook to food, the hunger is more intense, the desire for densely calorific foods greater. Could she relent, and try the raw? And then I thought well, even if she doesn't it would be interesting to see what the kittens made of it, after all they are hardwired to eat flesh and at this age haven't been conditioned out of it. My friend kindly gave me a tub of chicken and beef to try at home and off we went.


Fast forward to teatime yesterday, and I put down a plate of the newly defrosted mince. Indigo took one look at it and retired to the sofa giving me glares that quite clearly said 'I am a princess and That Is Not What I Eat'. Fair enough! The kittens, however, they were rather more enthusiastic. NOM NOM NOM said Leo and Desmond, filling their tummies full, and even Nicholas, who has so far held out against the abomination of solid food in all its nefarious forms, had a sniff. Just a sniff, mind you, but our Nicky is very much about the milk, so a sniff is good!


So I call that a success, and as soon as I can scare up a bit of money, I shall be making an order.  Now, I should make it clear that I DO NOT INTEND TO FEED RAW EXCLUSIVELY because I am sensible of the fact that it isn't for everyone and these kittens will mostly be going to homes where cans and packets will be the order of the day, and I like my kittens to be used to eating several different things. In fact there are times when raw feeding would be unwise- if I am going out, for example, one shouldn't leave raw meat lying about for large amounts of time. I'm going to incorporate it in our practice here though, and who knows, if the kittens are eating it, maybe the adult Tonkies will follow suit one day?


Right, I should be writing an essay... offski!