The Raw and Holistic Pet Food Thread!

[RandomGemini]

Have you considered TikiCat cat food? I tried to feed it to Porter, but we found out pretty fast that Porter is intolerant of fish and almost all of the TikiCat foods contain some form of fish. TikiCat is what Jackson Galaxy recommends as his preferred diet and you can mail order the stuff from Amazon or Petflow by the case.

As far as cats being afraid of outside, I hear you. Porter is also a rescue. My daughter adopted him from the shelter last year. He hates one of my dogs, but not the other. We have no idea why. When we adopted him, Porter had an infected wound in his shoulder that the shelter's vet had been trying to heal. It was from a fight with another cat. He'd lived outside for so long that he has clipped ears from all the cat fights he's been in and we know Porter was a tough customer. Cats don't make it to his age outside unless they are.

Now, Porter will not willingly go outside now that he has experienced the life of a dedicated house cat. He wants nothing to do with it, so the key to keeping his weight down is a process called "catification." Jackson Galaxy, again. He's awesome. He just put a book out about his catification technique. What it is, in a nutshell is designing your interior living space so that your cats have the ability to climb more and burn more calories. It involves using cat trees and putting up shelves on the walls... That sort of thing. It's fun to do and it saves us from the stress of taking Porter out on lead.

[No-Pro-mwa]

I also supplement with cocoanut oil and fish oil. I am also making and giving them kefir milk, that's my new thing. I think that the Turtle and I are going to have to live with ear infections for the rest of her life.

I have even had to put her on prednisone every day. I finally cracked as I had tried every holistic thing I knew how to. She had broken out with hot spots on her body this summer. I think she has also developed environmental allergies. She is feeling so much better and running and hunting again like she use to so it is worth it.

I'll bet it is fun to make walk ways all over the house for the cats.

[Ferns Daddy]

I cook for Fern ( Chihuahua ) she gets rice, veggie mix then I can add chicken, lamb or beef to it, this way I know what she eats and how much, she never had any can or dry dog food, I just don't trust what these dog food co. say whats in the food.

[RandomGemini]

I know a lot of people that prefer to home cook for their dogs. My grandmother home cooks for her shi tzu. I have 2 Labradors. It's hard to cook for large breed dogs because they need so many calories though. I just don't trust myself to keep my kitchen clean enough to feed a raw diet and my vet wouldn't know what to do with me if I did feed raw. We don't have access to vets here who advocate raw feeding.

[Ferns Daddy]

The reason I don't do raw feeding it the there too many calories and fat in it for her got to keep her trim.

[No-Pro-mwa]

My dogs are all nice and trim. Dogs use fat as energy, that's how I got Maddie to lose all her weight so fast. When I got her from the shelter she was over weight and I put her on a raw died and the weight came off very fast.

I did have to put her and Richter back on some dog food as I was not getting enough meat to feed all 4 dogs raw completely.

I did also cook stuff up for them to mix with the dog food. I just can't put plain old kibble in a bowl even if it is a better food. The only raw thing I mix with kibble is an egg yolk.

As far as the clean thing, well I guess I don't worry about it as it's not any different than doing raw meat when I cook for us. I also am a believer in that if we are never around bad bacteria then we will not keep up our immunity.

I know my sister was talking about e coli one time around the vet and he said, You will never have a problem with it because you are around to much cow poo in your life kind of funny but it really does make sense to me.

[Ferns Daddy]

I got Fern from the shelter in 2010 she was a little over a year and has be badly abused and need lots of surgery then lots of special after care. her weight was a whole 2.5 lbs and couldn't keep food down for long, so when I got her I started to feed her a little rice 3 or 4 time a day until she got use to eating and would keep it down, she has hip trouble and when its damp its hard for her to walk so her weight is a problem so thats why I cook for her.
I don't worry to much about how clean thing are, when I'm not looking Ferns out trying to find bird seed to eat LOL and we all know how dirty it is when every thing is wet and muddy around a feeder she not a picky eater she will eat my hot peppers right out of the veggy garden.

[LovePhals]

Good you cook for your dog, they love eggs!

[RandomGemini]

From what I have read, it's hard to keep a Chihuahuas weight down. They apparently have bigger eyes than their stomachs and a lot of dog foods are not formulated correctly for their small bodies and particular metabolism. The foods I feed are high protein/moderate fat. They're designed for dogs that run all day, because they run off their calories, which is what Labradors do if you're keeping them occupied and control the food intake. With Chihuahuas though, they are so tiny, I'm not sure how you could burn enough calories to compensate for the fat in a prepared dog food. Feeding them home cooked for that breed makes a lot of sense now that I think about it.

[Ferns Daddy]

Your right about their eyes being bigger than their stomachs, the only time she wants to run is when the squirrels are out in the yard then she will spend her time chasing them off. She found a bunny in the back yard and didn't know if she should chase it or play with it, she gave up when the bunny didn't run from her no fun if they don't run away.