Has anybody had success with a raw diet for a cat? I'm feeling like I really don't understand how her body works, and it's so sad when I know she's hurting and I don't know what to do.
This is what I've done so far:
I've been feeding my 9 year old kitty raw food for a couple of years, and it's been quite a journey. When I lived in a house where other cats ate wet and dry food, it was very hard to keep her from eating it too. She was very overweight and possibly diabetic from a lifetime of canned food and kibble. I restricted her portions and fed her chicken livers blenderized with ground turkey and chicken meat. She lost weight and is now normal sized (under her 2-3 inch coat). It's only been the last 6 months or so since we moved that I can feed her 100% raw. Lately I've been giving her just pastured organs cut up--pork livers, hearts, and kidneys. Recently she's been acting very unusual--waking up at odd hours, meowing excessively, walking around crying as though she is in pain.
She has a very small abscess that has been dormant for months that seems to be acting up, my housemate showed me how to keep it soft and drain it. She has runny eyes ("normal" for her) and a runny nose. She also appears to be constipated: I mean 5-7 days at a time, no poop in the litter box. She doesn't relieve herself outside.
It's incredibly frustrating because she can't talk to me and tell me what she needs. So, I decided to go with whatever she wants. She doesn't want a lot of meat, either organs or fish. She goes outside and nibbles on the grass. She wants to be on my lap all the time, even when I sit down to eat. This is how I discovered that she is craving milk like nobody's business, so now she's drinking raw milk every day. I did a little research and gave her an egg yolk, which she devoured and then finally made a little tiny poop. But after that she didn't want any more egg yolk--just milk. Yesterday she also ate a quarter of a biscuit (even a raw foodie needs a home-baked biscuit once and a while! Raw honey and raw butter on them, mmm mm!) and some time afterwards she finally had a sizeable bowel movement.
After some listening to her, and to my instincts, and looking at Pottenger's study, I've started giving her raw milk, quality cod liver oil, and raw meats (pastured organs and wild fish meat, fish with scales/fins/bones at least once a week) with the occasional biscuit. If you have any advice or experience with RAF cats, I would really, really appreciate hearing it!
