An essential for your library - Michelle Bernard's groundbreaking book: "Raising Cats Naturally"






A "must read" book by Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins: "Your Cat - Simple Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life"

Frequently Asked Questions

Please review the categories below to see if whatever question you have is already answered. I find that about 95 percent of the email inquiries I get from people are on issues that are already covered here or elsewhere in the site. I like to help people whenever I can, but please realize that my time is limited for doing this and one of the reasons for the FAQs is to make sure you have what you need to know here on the website.

If you have a cat that is very ill or are dealing with special medical circumstances, please remember that I am not a veterinarian and cannot and will not answer complicated health questions or recommend for or against a specific form of treatment for your animal. It would be irresponsible of me and I am not comfortable doing that.

There are some good vets out there that, for a consultation fee, can help guide you if you're really struggling with your cat's health condition and want some good advice about diet.

FAQ Quick links:

Persuading your cat to eat the food.

My cat won't eat this food; what should I do?

Give up.
(I'm kidding.)

There are so many different factors involved in how quickly and enthusiastically a cat will accept a new diet. If you're still leaving dry food out all and allowing her to "free-feed" off that, then you're not letting hunger work in your favor. You're not doing your cat any favors by feeding dry food.

Sometimes it's best to switch your cat first to a quality canned food, and then start sneaking very small amounts of the raw food into that food and slowly increasing the amount over time until the transition is complete. Get the dry food OUT of your house. Your cat can probably smell it and will hold out stubbornly if she knows it's there.

Devoted kibble addicts often have a difficult time accepting the new food, so you have to employ some tough love, and gather your own patience while honing your feline manipulation skills to get your cat eating healthier food.

Don't be in too much of a rush to get your cat switched over. I hear an awful lot of stories of people who give up when their cats don't instantly take to the new food. Remember -- the idea is to make the transition. Not to make it overnight. Proceed steadily in the right direction, slipping small amounts of the new food in with canned. Don't rush things. I transitioned my cats over a period of three weeks. Other people with more cats or older animals took two months or even longer to fully get their crew on all raw. Take the time you need and don't hurry.

Should I switch my cat to this food "cold turkey?

That's a tough one to deal with in a few sentences that give a one-size-fits-all answer. Frankly, the speed at which you should switch your cat will depend a great deal on your cat's age, temperament, health, and the diet she has been eating up to this point. If your cat has only eaten dry food previously, I strongly urge you to ease her off the dry food and get her eating regular meals of a quality canned food slowly first. The next step is to sneak in small amounts of the raw food mix in over time.


There really is no easy answer here, but as a general rule of thumb, I suggest to people that unless they have a very young cat or kitten, it's best to go slowly. Take at least a week to ten days to fully transition an adult cat, and that's presuming the cat is at least already off of all dry food. Raw food is very different from commercial food in many ways, and it's best to give your adult cat's digestive system a bit of time to slowly adapt to the new food. Kittens? They're magnificent at devouring raw food in remarkable quantities and switching them over is usually fast and relatively painless.

I have certainly known people who switched their adult cats "cold turkey" and their cats did just beautifully, seemed oh-so-grateful to finally have real food to eat, and showed no sign of anything different other than overall better well-being, "miraculously" improved stools, and satisfaction with their new food. But I have also seen instances of people whose cats took to the new food with gusto initially and then either vomited the food or had a day or two of digestive problems. In these cases, it's clear the transition was made much too quickly.

Don't shock your cat's system. Ease her at an appropriate speed on to a healthier diet.

"Try to see the situation from your cat's perspective. If she's been eating meat-flavored cereal for years she may not instantly take to a diet with a totally different texture and flavor at first. Be patient and manipulative."

Think it through and try to "see" the situation from your cat's perspective. If you have a fully grown cat that has been eating nothing but meat-flavored cereal (dry food) for several years, suddenly expecting her to be able to enjoy and easily digest a much richer food based on animal proteins--as opposed to all those plant-based proteins and carbohydrates--is unrealistic. And it can be a shock to the cat's system. Remember, you don't want to shock your cat's system. You want to ease her at an appropriate speed on to a healthier diet.

Use common sense when switching your cat over to a new food. Don't expect her to transition to an entirely new way of eating in one or two meals. That said, don't give up too soon either. The single biggest mistake I see people make time and again is to say that their cat "won't touch" the new food and then panic and fill up the bowl with dry food. Then, shock of shocks, kitty won't be hungry when the next raw meal is offered.

You need to strike a healthy balance that treats your cat's system gently enough to safely transition her over to better food. I don't believe in starving cats into submission when it comes to eating. For a cat that's been on a high-carbohydrate diet, the risk of a cat getting hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) from going for too long without any food is just too high for my tastes. That's why I recommend switching first to canned and then slipping the raw food into that. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times: You have got to get the dry kibble out of your house.

Remember to use whatever combination of the following works and makes the most sense for you and your cat: a reasonable amount of hunger, manipulation and trickery, and plenty of patience.

How about if I soak the dry food in water until it's completely soft to change the texture and then add raw to that to trick my cat into eating the new food?

Please, please don't do that. Please. Dry food, when moistened, is essentially transformed into bacterial soup.  The bacteria load is extremely high in dry food. Add water to the mix, and you've just created an ideal environment for fungi and bacteria to multiply. When you moisten dry food, for example, you make it possible to quickly grow fungi in the food resulting in vomitoxin, aflatoxin, and mycotoxin production. Vomitoxin is a toxic substance produced by mold that can (and has) contaminated wheat used in dry pet foods resulting in serious illness and even death.

My cat is addicted to dry food and refuses to eat anything else. What do I do?

I'll repeat here some of the advice that's on my page on feline obesity.

If you have a devoted and stubborn dry food addict on your hands, the first thing to do is to stop free-feeding kibble. This is absolutely essential. First, you must get your cat off of dry food. If your goal is to eventually feed raw food, then once your cat is on canned food, you can start slipping in small amounts of the raw food into the canned and then slowly increasing the amount of raw and decreasing the canned. Be patient. Be very patient.

Having food available 24/7 is NOT a good idea for any cat, and if your cat has constant access to that food, you'll have a very hard time getting her weaned onto a healthier, low-carbohydrate, moist, high-protein canned food. One way to approach this is to offer two or three meals a day of a very small amount of dry food (perhaps 1/8 to 1/4 of a cup) and, after 30 minutes, take up the food she hasn't eaten. Then do not give in if she pleads for a between-meal snack. You want your cat to get accustomed to eating on a schedule this way--at mealtimes.

You MUST stop free-feeding dry food!

Next, after you've established set meal times for a few days or a week, begin setting out meals of ONLY good canned food. If your cat refuses to touch it, take up the food and try again a few hours later.

Yes, it takes some patience to get a cat off of dry food and onto something healthier, but think how much time it would take if your cat develops diabetes or some other disease and you're forced to spend time, money, and energy coping with that.

"You must stop free-feeding dry food, or this will never work."

If, after 18 hours or so, your cat still has refused canned food, then offer them a tiny bit of dry food--about a tablespoon. At this point, you may have to try serving another kind of canned food to see if she'll try that. Another trick is to generously sprinkle some of the crushed dry food onto a quarter cup of the canned food and offer that and then, over a period of two to three days, start using less and less of the crushed kibble and more and more of the canned. You will be the best judge of how quickly to do this, based on how your cat is adapting.

Another trick is to dip some of the dry food into the 'juice' of canned food to begin to accustom her taste buds to the taste of the better food.

You want to get your cat moved on to a good, preferably grainless, canned food as quickly as possible, but you do not want to starve her into submission and risk hepatic lipidosis by permitting her to go without any food whatsoever for longer than 18 to 24 hours. If you have an overweight cat, then you must be exceptionally careful. It's not safe to let an overweight cat go longer than 24 hours without food. Hepatic lipidosis becomes a serious concern once an overweight cat has gone without food for 48 hours.

What are some acceptable bribes to use to get my cat started eating the food?

Some of the Wysong supplements are apparently very tasty to cats. In small amounts on top of the food, I've found that Wysong Dentatreat can help fussy cats get started.

If your cat likes cooked meats, put a small amount on top of the raw food.

Parmesan cheese works well for getting some cats to dig in.

A very small amount of the juice from canned tuna in water can work. But please use this sparingly and remember that your cat should never eat tuna for long period of time, as it can rob the cat's stores of Vitamin E and cause a painful condition called steatitis. Don't use this as a first resort.

If you must (although this is certainly not a first choice), grind your cat's favorite dry food in a clean coffee mill and sprinkle a small amount on top of the raw food. Decrease the amount of dry food you use this way as quickly as you can.

A sprinkling of "liver flakes" that you can purchase at some pet food stores is also a very tempting way to persuade your cat to dig in.

With all these ideas, bear in mind that some cats instantly take to raw with little or no fuss. Younger cats, especially, seem to adapt very quickly to the new food. Even some older cats eat the food with no protest and seem relieved that you've finally figured out how to feed them fresh, real food that is much closer to what Mother Nature intended than anything you serve out of a can or a bag.

Finally, bear in mind that some cats do better trying to eat a new food if you try feeding them in a new place that's quiet, private, and away from other cats in the household.

The ingredients in the diet: finding them and why they're there.

I can't find dulse. Should I just double the kelp?

No. They are not interchangeable. Dulse contains calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, iodine, manganese, copper, chromium, zinc, and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, C and E. Dulse from the northern Atlantic is high in protein, iron, B-12, chlorophyll, enzymes. Kelp on the other hand, is a more concentrated source of iodine, and also contains a bit of calcium, magnesium, and vitamins D, E, and K.

Remember, if you're using high-quality, free-range meats or fresh game, you skip the addition of kelp AND dulse in the recipe. See my supplies page for more information on kelp and dulse.

I can only find chicken liver, but I want to serve turkey or rabbit. What do I do?

Use chicken liver (preferably from free-range chickens) for your batches. I wouldn't suggest trying beef liver as a substitute, as it seems to be extremely rich and causes some cats to vomit.

If you buy whole rabbit, usually the amount of liver that comes with the meat is the amount you need.

Some raw diets for cats include vegetables, so why don't you use them?

In short, because we're feeding carnivores. That said, there are lots of different ways to prepare raw diets. I advocate keeping anything out of the diet that is not species-appropriate. I also work with many people who have cats with inflammatory bowel disease, and as I often note, these cats are the feline equivalent to the "canary in a coal mine," being the first to exhibit problems when anything that is not appropriate to their species is in the diet.

Some people add pumpkin, squash, and other vegetables as a fiber source. That's fine if your cat is okay with it. I simply prefer to rely on psyllium husk powder as a non-carbohydrate fiber source and keep the diet simple and as close to mother nature's diet for cats as I can.


I certainly don't have the monopoly on the only correct or acceptable way of feeding raw to cats. This site merely reflects what I've found works best and what it is that I've come to understand is a way of feeding cats that makes good sense.

I'm confused about glandular supplements--what should I buy?

You're looking for a supplement that contains actual glands--not a supplement that contains herbs or plants designed simply to enhance glandular health in humans, which may contain herbs or other plants. In other words, the ingredient list on what you buy should say things like "thyroid, thymus, adrenal etc." and not contain ginseng or other herbs. For example, click here to see what I use.

What kind of B-complex vitamin do you use?

I like using the Country Life brand "Action B-50 caps". This and similar brands widely available in health food and good grocery stores, including Whole Foods Market, and can also be ordered online from the Vitamin Shoppe.

Can I substitute cod liver oil for salmon oil?

Salmon oil is in the recipe to provide a rich and bioavailable source of Essential Fatty Acids and cod liver oil is not a substitute. For more on this, see my supplies page.

How about fish? Can I make this diet using fish? After all, my cat loves fish. Can I feed fish please, Anne?

In my view? There are just too many arguments against feeding fish regularly to make it a safe, healthy choice as a staple of a cat's diet.

As a treat once in a great while? Maybe. If you must. But know a few things first.

There are a number of problems--some well established facts and others that are somewhat open to question--that make feeding fish regularly, whether raw or cooked, pretty gosh darn inadvisable. At least from the digging I've done. The problems stem from both what's in fish and what's not in fish.

So far, I count eight distinct 'strikes' against the idea of feeding fish, raw or cooked, to cats.

Strike One: Low calcium levels.

Whole fish, even with bone, is far too low in calcium for a cat. Remember: if you're making homemade cat food, one of the most important things to get right is the ratio of calcium to phosphorus. You have some wiggle room here, but not much. A whole ground fish would be low in calcium. And while the high phosphorus is not good for any cat, elevated phosphorus levels are something you most definitely wouldn't want to feed a cat that is suffering from any kind of kidney problem.

Strike Two: Thiamin destruction.

Raw fish contains high amounts of an enzyme called thiaminase--an enzyme that destroys Vitamin B-1 (thiamin). A thiamin-deficient diet can lead to neurological problems and seizures in cats. No good.

Strike Three: Urinary tract problems.

Fish, with its high magnesium content, can contribute to a type of urinary tract problem in cats.

Strike Four: Addiction.

Heaven knows, cats absolutely adore the taste of fish. Anyone who's ever opened up a can of fish within a 12-city-block radius of any hungry feline knows that. But you can quickly end up with a 'fish addict' on your hands. And the last thing you need is a cat on a hunger strike refusing to eat anything but an inferior fish diet.

Strike Five: Heavy metals.

There is a great deal of persuasive research suggesting that predatory fish (those at the very top of the food chain and the same ones often found in pet food or used as 'treats' for cats) have extremely high levels of heavy metals such as mercury--in addition to pesticides and other toxins. A 2004 study published in Acta Neuropatholgica discovered neurological disturbances in young kittens fed daily with tuna containing the US FDA-approved level of mercury (0.5 ppm).

Strike Six: Possible link to hyperthyroidism.

A US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study in 2007 revealed a possible disturbing link between feline hyperthyroidism and the chemicals in fire retardants--that mimic thyroid hormones--and cats' consumption of canned food with fish. In the study, cats eating canned fish were exposed to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) at levels five times higher than cats eating poultry or beef canned foods.

Strike Seven: Vitamin E depletion.

Felines love tuna, but eating it long term can deplete a cat's stores of vitamin E and create conditions that lead to an extraordinarily painful condition called steatitis, with symptoms such as hypersensitivity to touch and loss of appetite. Huuuuuge bummer for the cat and for you. You'll find tuna in lots of cat foods for the very reason that it's tasty to cats and draws them to the food. But it has nothing to do with healthy, safe, or necessary nutrition for cats.

Strike Eight? Allergenic.

Fish are allergenic. To my mind, it just makes little sense to feed something that is more likely to create a allergic reaction than something that isn't.

Dr. Jean Hofve wisely advises against feeding fish and suggests that it be reserved as a very occasional and special treat--certainly no more than once a week.

If you're determined to give your cat a treat once in awhile, go for something like small bits of dehydrated chicken liver or freeze-dried chicken hearts. But skip the fish. If you must give treats, make it from something that had fur or feathers, not fins. It's just much kinder to and safer for your carnivore.

I thought this diet was attempting to reverse engineer a cat's natural prey. There are no Vitamin E or salmon oil capsules in a mouse, so what's the deal?

Darn it, you got me!

Seriously, you're correct that this diet is an attempt to create a mouse. But because there are usually limits to what we have to work with to accomplish that, we have to find ingredients and supplements to make up for nutrients that are lost by virtue of the fact that we're not serving fresh, whole prey and are instead buying meat, processing it (i.e., cutting it up, exposing a good deal of its surface area to air), and--for the sake of convenience and sanity--storing it. And in storing or freezing anything, you're going to lose some nutrients.

Remember too that even if you're buying a whole chicken carcass, you're still not serving a truly WHOLE carcass. The brains and eyes of a cat's prey, for example, supply a perfectly balanced ratio of Essential Fatty Acids. Because most people aren't going be serving brains and eyes (unless you've stumbled onto an awfully resourceful and accommodating butcher), we need to do the best we can to make up for it and, hence, the salmon oil.

The Vitamin E is there to slow down oxidation of the meat which inevitably occurs once it's cut up or ground. Psyllium supplies soluble and insoluble fiber, such as might be found partly digested and in small amounts in the stomach of a cat's prey, without adding carbohydrates. Extra Taurine is there to make up for what may get lost as a result of prolonged storage or freezing of muscle or organ meat. The Winn Feline Foundation conducted an important study of raw rabbit diets for cats and learned that despite the high levels of Taurine in rabbit meat, cats fed this diet suffered from serious Taurine deficiencies. The study posited that it was possible that the bacteria in the carcass of ground rabbits or in the intestines of the cat broke down some of the Taurine. Whatever the reason, because Taurine is such a critical amino acid for cats--both for their digestion as well as their heart function--adding extra to a cat's raw diet is very wise.

Taurine is absolutely essential when it comes to steering clear of heart muscle failure in cats (dilated cardiomyopathy), and is also important in preventing feline central retinal degeneration which can cause blindness in cats.

Finally, commercially raised meats are simply not as high in many of the nutrients of free-range, naturally-raised animals that are fed a truly species-appropriate diet. Kelp and dulse are a decent substitute for essential nutrients such as potassium, iron, and magnesium that may be in short supply in the bones of commercially raised meats. These two ingredients are, I think, even more essential if you're not using real bone but are instead using an isolated calcium source to 'make up' for missing bone. You can never truly 'make up' completely for the real thing, however.

Similarly, egg yolks are added to the recipe that I use because they supply such a truly "perfect protein" and are a very nice polish to the diet, particularly if that diet is prepared using something other than perfectly fresh, species-appropriate-fed meat.

Obviously, feeding live mice, other rodents, or small birds that came from their natural environment is by far the best food for our carnivores. Since most of us aren't going to feed live, fresh prey, we are left in our kitchens to reverse engineer what they would get in that environment.

What is the nutritional breakdown of this diet?

Please visit this link for more information on what I know about how this diet, made with real bones, breaks down.

How much food to feed your cats and how often to feed it.

How much of the raw diet should I feed my cat?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Often, cats first switched to raw will eat voraciously for a few weeks when they're first transitioned and then they level off. As a very rough guide, start with feeding about ½ cup to ¾ cup of food per cat per day, split among two or three meals.

Bear in mind that the weather, your cat's activity level, and mood all affect appetite. I find that when the weather gets cold, for example, my little female can easily eat almost twice as much as my bigger cat.

Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is to put out as much food as your cat wants for 30 minutes, then take away what they don't eat. Very quickly you'll learn what the right amount is for your cat.

"Don't make serving size too complicated. If your cat is fat, feed less. If your cat is skinny, feed more."

Don't make this part too complicated. I pull my hair out a little when I get emails asking for precise amounts to feed based on a cat's weight. I don't know how much your cat should eat. So try the amount suggested above and judge from there. If your cat is overweight, see my page on obesity. If your cat is too skinny, feed more. After seven years on this diet, the weight of both my cats has remained steady and healthy. I don't measure out or weigh what I feed at every meal -- I eyeball it. If they're really hungry, they'll ask for more food and usually get it. If they don't eat the same amount one day as they did the previous, I just take it up. They know what they need. And because this diet isn't laden with grains, I don't have to worry about obesity.

If you have a kitten, remember that she is a voracious little carnivore eating machine and will need not only to be fed MORE times each day, but will eat more food each day in total than an adult cat. I've never had a kitten on raw (but you can bet if I ever do get a kitten, I'll start him/her on this diet from the beginning), but all the people I do know who have fed raw to kittens say the little critters eat them out of house and home. Be prepared to make food often if you are lucky enough to live with a kitten.

How many times a day should I feed my adult cat?

Two or three times a day works well. I usually feed my own cats three times a day--once upon waking, again after I get home from work, and again before bedtime. On weekends, they generally extort at least one extra meal or two out of me. Okay, maybe even three. But that's just on rare weekends and because my cats have maintained steady weight for seven years eating this diet.

What about between-meal treats or snacks?

Honestly? I don't feed those, so I don't have a lot of suggestions. But if you're determined for your cat to have something like that now and again, look for dehydrated liver treats or another similar, cat-tasty, grain-free something. Don't go overboard on treats. Allow your cat's digestive system to get a rest between meals. It's not natural or healthy for a cat to have 24/7 access to food.

I have to work long hours and my cat could go up to 12 hours without food. Should I just leave some dry food out?

Heck no! A healthy cat can quite easily go a few extra hours without food. You'll come home to a hungry cat who will likely eat her meal with great gusto and gratitude. Remember, a cat in the wild isn't getting fed on a strict schedule. Giving the digestive system a rest without the cues of smelling food is a very, very healthy thing to do for your cat, though she may try and convey to you that this is not the case.

Things that seem different after changing your cat's diet.

Should I be concerned that my cat is drinking much less water since switching to the raw diet?

That's extremely common. It's especially noticeable in cats that were previously eating dry food. Cats were designed by Mother Nature to get their moisture WITH their food. And that's exactly what happens when you feed a good, balanced raw diet.

Since switching my cats to raw several years ago, I find it's a very rare thing to see either of my cats drink water.

You should, of course, still have fresh drinking water available for your cat at all times. I like to fill the water dishes with this bottled water.

My cat's stools are much smaller and lighter-colored than before.

That's common and is indeed desirable and what you should expect to see. If you're not feeding your cat all kinds of indigestible or species-inappropriate ingredients (vegetables, grains, etc.), then your cat is going to produce less waste. A lot less waste. You'll be astonished.

One of the more pleasant surprises from raw feeding is how dramatically reduced stool odor becomes when a cat is eating a raw, grainless, vegetable-free diet.

Talking to your vet, especially if s/he thinks you've gone off the deep end.

I'm intrigued with the apparent benefits of this diet, but when I mention it to my vet, s/he became upset and said I shouldn't do it.

While many vets are extraordinarily knowledgeable and gifted people, many of them have very little understanding of the basics of feline nutrition. Some have relied for years on advice or knowledge from the pet food industry and nutritional education has not been an integral part of their training. The genesis of this website was my open letter to vets which remains an impassioned plea to them to "try harder" on the issue of feline nutrition, a subject near and dear to my heart. Diet should not be an afterthought in considering what's best for an animal's health, and to my mind, the pet food industry's advice is simply not an acceptable substitute for your veterinarian's critical thinking on an issue that's so terribly important.

Try discussing the issue at a time when s/he isn't rushed, and offer to supply your vet with some unbiased information on feline nutrition to help explain that you've put some thought into the matter. And do put some thought into the matter first--don't just listen to one person's advice or give a cursory read to one or two websites on the issue. A very good place to start a discussion is by talking about the terrific JAVMA article on cats as carnivores that appeared in the December 1, 2002 edition of that professional journal. That article does not explicitly advocate raw diets, but it offers extraordinarily sound reasoning on why and how feeding cats ingredients such as grains can be very detrimental to a cat's health. Starting the conversation there is a good place to begin, as you may find common ground on which you can build.

If your vet hasn't sought out a copy of Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins book -- which, among things, is very supportive of a raw diet -- then suggest it to your vet. Or even better, spring for a copy and offer to donate it to the library in the vet clinic reception area.

Also, if you like, feel free to print off a copy of and share the "open letter to veterinary professionals" which is on my website. You'll have to judge if that's a good idea -- some vets will be (understandably) skeptical of anything written by a lay person. Their skepticism is not entirely unwarranted. I've seen some pretty appalling advice doled out on raw diets by lay people. But then again, I've seen some pretty dreadful advice doled out on raw diets and commercial diets by veterinarians.


Some vets are, quite understandably, concerned that even if they think a raw diet is a good idea, their clients will not make the diet properly and will put their cats at risk for nutritional deficiencies. In this case, they are absolutely correct: if a raw diet is not prepared correctly, it can be disastrous. Vets know that, but a big problem is that even if they theoretically support the idea of a raw diet, they aren't familiar enough with the basics of how to do it correctly to advise clients and default to suggesting a commercial diet.

People who leave out, for example, a calcium source in cat food or routinely ignore the basic principles involved in making and serving cat food correctly would be better off just feeding a quality canned diet. If you're not going to make it correctly, then you shouldn't make it.

But if you are going to make it correctly -- which is certainly not a difficult thing to do -- then calmly continue the discussion with your vet. Remember, many vets reflexively dismiss the idea of raw diets out of hand out of genuine concern about the potential to do it wrong. Sadly, still others are passing on "urban legends" and scare tactics that are found in literature supplied by the pet food industry. If you are absolutely determined to make this diet and your vet still objects, then you may want to find another vet.

If your vet raises concerns about bacteria, don't get defensive. Instead, it may be worth reminding him or her that a cat has a much faster gastrointestinal transit time than humans or even dogs and is therefore much less susceptible to "food poisoning." For more information on food safety issues, please read the next subject...

About the safety issues that often arise when people start considering feeding this diet.

Shouldn't I be worried about bacteria and parasites?

Yes, a little, so take sensible precautions. First of all, remember that cats are not humans and are not nearly as susceptible to the problems from eating raw meat that affect humans. A cat has a very fast gut transit time -- about 12 hours compared to 35 to 55 hours in humans -- which gives very little time for bacteria to multiply in the intestines. Don't forget: a cat is an obligate carnivore that was built by Mother Nature to eat raw meat.

That said, no food you feed your cat is without risk. You'll have to decide if the potential risks from feeding raw food outweigh the long term risks to your animal's well being from feeding commercial food. It's your decision.

You have a good deal more control of what is going into your cat and the quality of each individual ingredient when you prepare your cat's food yourself. Exercise that control responsibly. When possible, try to procure meats from free-range sources as the bacterial counts and the possibility for parasite contamination are considerably lower in meats from animals raised in better conditions. One of my favorite online essays on this subject is available here.

Don't leave the raw food sitting out for hours at a time. Offer your cat her food and after 30 minutes, dispose of anything that is left behind.

Take the same precautions handling raw meat for your cats as you would for yourself and your family. Clean all surfaces that touched raw food thoroughly. Wash your hands after preparing or serving the meals to your cats. Don't let small children have access to your cat's raw food.

Wash your hands thoroughly after cleaning the litter box. And remember, it's not just cats that eat raw food who can pass Salmonella through their feces. That said, I have never seen any data to suggest that cats on raw food have more Salmonella in their feces than cats on canned or dry food. Salmonellae has been found in commercial pet food too. Moreover, in August 2002, the Journal of the American Veterinary Association published an article noting that a good number of healthy dogs and cats carry Salmonella, but this does not necessarily equate to any clinical disease. That article noted that the "prevalence of isolation of Salmonella from feces of healthy dogs is reported to be between one and 36 percent, and from healthy cats between one and 18 percent."

And please: don't eat any of the raw cat food yourself.

The Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) published an article in its November-December 2003 issue on Salmonella in two cats fed a raw-meat diet. If you read the article closely, you'll see that both cats were unhealthy and, from my reading, were apparently not terribly well cared for. One was an unneutered (!?!) 14 year-old male with matted hair, lymphoplasmacytic infiltrates within the lamina propria (the connective tissue located just under the epithelial cells), mild pneumonia, and an ulcerated tongue. This cat had a history of weight loss, soft stools, and anorexia. Another was a recently vaccinated kitten with severe pneumonia, a severe nasal discharge, and bilateral corneal opacity. The kitten's lungs were mottled. Finally, the article notes that both cats originated in the same multiple-cat household and the affected animals may have had an altered immune status or environmental stress. The older cat also had a Bordetella infection "incurring additional immunological and physiological stress with compromise to local pulmonary defense mechanisms."

What we don't know is: where the beef used to feed these cats came from; whether it was beef that was intended for human consumption (or one of those lower-quality, pre-packaged "BARF diets" that make me very nervous); how the caregiver prepared and served the beef; and whether the caregiver was careful about not letting the raw meat sit out for hours or even days on end. The article notes that the referring veterinarian told the client to discontinue feeding a raw beef-based diet to her cats. If I were the veterinarian, I'd certainly recommend the same thing. Something is clearly terribly wrong with the food being served in that household.

So, how concerned should we be about what this very interesting article says? If two healthy and otherwise well-cared for cats -- that we knew were served a properly and safely prepared balanced diet consisting of fresh meat from a reputable source intended for human consumption -- were stricken down by Salmonella and died, then indeed we should be extremely concerned. However, a careful reading of the article suggests that the cats were neither healthy nor well-cared for. Nor do we know whether the meat came from a reputable source. Consequently, because we don't have answers to such key questions, these unfortunate incidents do not constitute a blanket indictment of all raw diets. I'm disappointed to report that this article has already been badly misused and misrepresented for just that purpose--with one veterinary site even implying it was a broad-based "study" of the issue of raw food and Salmonella in cats.

I urge a close reading of the AAHA article -- and very strongly suggest that you don't rely on second- or third-hand interpretations of what it says. Don't run away from the issue of parasites and bacteria in cat food. Understand the issue, respect it, and make informed choices on the meats you select and how you serve the food.

That same article notes that healthy adult cats "appear to have high immunological resistance to the development of clinical salmonellosis." In one study, the article notes, "experimental infection of healthy cats required inoculation of infectious organisms in numbers far exceeding those likely encountered in natural infection." Translated into less scientific language, this means that it's very difficult for cats to succumb to Salmonella poisoning.

Finally, remember that the US Centers for Disease Control reports that in human cases of food-borne salmonellosis between 1973 and 1984, contaminated beef accounted for the majority of cases at 19 percent. Behind that was turkey (nine percent), pork (seven percent), and poultry (five percent). Another CDC study published in December 2004 concluded that healthy house cats are generally safe with regard to excretion of Salmonella in the environment.

I'll say it again: If you're going to feed a raw, home-prepared diet, you MUST do it correctly. No cheating and using cheap sources of meat unfit for human consumption. Don't even think about using the raw meat that is routinely fed at greyhound race tracks (which is taken from rendering plants and thus has already been deemed unfit for human consumption). No leaving raw food out for hours or days at a time.

And never forget that there is risk with anything you feed. Respect those risks and take steps to minimize them.

The bacterial count on dry food can be very high and the danger of toxic levels of aflatoxin contaminating dry cat food is always present. In December 2005, for example, various US news media outlets reported that one of the nation's largest pet food producers recalled products in 22 states after receiving reports that the food caused death and illness. At least 17 dogs died from the contaminated food, which was found to contain an overgrowth of a toxic substance produced by fungus that grows on grains (including corn) called aflatoxin. This was not the first time that aflatoxin poisoning in pet food made the news and companion animals died as a result, but it is the most recent and vivid example of the folly of believing that dry food is somehow safe and 'sterile.

Many dry pet foods are drenched in fatty flavor enhancers that provide an extremely hospitable environment for the growth of bacteria and fungus. And those bags of food are generally stored at room temperature and go unconsumed for weeks or months. As one vet friend recently observed, it's almost laughable at how quick many vets are to warn clients about the risk of feeding fresh meats that are stored in freezers but don't think twice about selling bags of potentially contaminated dry food with no admonition about the real dangers associated with deadly bacterial overgrowth on those products.

It's difficult for me to not get very discouraged by all the effort and energy that many vets and pet food companies put into scaring off clients and consumers from feeding a raw diet, essentially whitewashing real evidence that dry food can kill (sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly) and turning a collective blind eye to the long-term dangers of feeding dry cereals to carnivores. The misinformation and strawman arguments used by advocates of feeding dry food is repeated so often on pet food industry websites and from under-informed vets and veterinary technicians and receptionists in vet clinics that many people take it as truth. But repeating lies over and over doesn't make them true. Soon, myths and a deliberate twisting of the truth comes to dominate the lexicon, and many people who might otherwise consider feeding a healthier diet to their cats are scared off, without the opportunity to weigh the hard facts and evidence first.

I certainly had trepidations about feeding raw meat to my cats. I was terrified of Escherichia coli, Salmonella, you name it. At that time, I had only begun researching the issues related to feeding raw, and I found a very discouraging polarization that was unhelpful in making decisions: there were the "raw folks" who seemed annoyed if you even asked questions about parasites and Salmonella. They seemed overly defensive and annoyed at anyone even raising the issue. At the other end of the spectrum were the selected individuals in the veterinary community and the pet food industry with their grave warnings about all the risks associated with raw feeding.

"In all the years I've been doing this, I've yet to hear of anyone having an animal or a human become ill from properly feeding raw from good meat sources to cats. On the other hand, I hear about an awful lot of sick animals eating commercial, overprocessed food."

Permit me a soapbox moment here: I know so very many cats these days are susceptible to infections, chronic (and expensive) urinary tract woes, skin allergies, vomiting, diarrhea, IBD, and so on. There are so many animals with very weak or compromised immune systems. What I've come around to in my own thinking is that we help to create weak cats. We overvaccinate them, we blindly follow nutritional advice from vets who are not necessarily well informed on nutrition from unbiased sources, we feed steady diets to carnivores of meat-flavored cereal laced with toxic preservatives, and we jump to immediately suppress all symptoms with drugs like prednisolone when they're sick. But if we can find a way to minimize whatever has the potential to weaken the immune system, then it stands to reason that cats will be in better shape to fight off the bad stuff thrown at them. For my money, nothing beats feeding a cat the diet that nature intended for them to eat--raw meat, bones, and organs. To be sure, feeding a balanced raw diet is not the answer to everything. However, I think you get an awful lot of bang for your buck feeding this way.

Diet, after all, really is the brick and mortar of health.

I came to learn that raw feeders as a group are not, in fact, dismissive of or cavalier about the issues of parasites and bacteria. Much of the defensiveness I encountered early on -- and incorrectly presumed was a result of people simply ignoring a potential problem -- was was borne of their frustration with individuals writing off all raw feeding as some wacky, dangerous, and fringe-element fad. Feeding cats a balanced raw diet is not a fad. It's common sense.

For what it's worth, in all the years I've been doing this, I'm struck that I've yet to hear of anyone having an animal or a human become ill from properly feeding raw from good meat sources to cats. I'm not saying it hasn't happened somewhere. I do, however, worry about the cats who could benefit SO quickly and easily from being fed a properly prepared raw-meat based diet but who won't ever get the chance because someone who is misinformed dismisses raw feeding out of hand for reasons that are not well thought out.

Make your decision on whether to feed raw based on sound science and informed reason. Not on fear.

I've heard that animals can choke on bones. How safe is it to feed bone?

Feeding cooked bones is never a good idea. They can splinter and cause serious damage. Raw bones are much softer. I advocate grinding all bones in a meat grinder, since most of us are unable to feed whole prey animals that are the same small size as a cat would hunt, kill, and eat (such as mice or birds).

It's an excellent idea to make raw cat food using real bone as your calcium source (versus bonemeal or some other isolated calcium source) because if you're grinding a whole carcass, you're guaranteed to get the all-important calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in a cat's diet right.

Finally, remember that bone is more than calcium. Fresh, raw bone also contains many important trace minerals that are difficult to duplicate using synthetic supplements. This is one of my favorite essays on the myth that we can substitute what mother nature supplies with supplements.

What about toxoplasmosis?

The risk of contracting toxoplasmosis is misunderstood and frequently overblown. I'm not saying that it isn't a serious concern for women who are exposed for the first time during pregnancy, but let's look at the facts:

Do the math here: in order to get infected from your cats' feces, the following would all have to be true: You were never previously infected with toxoplasmosis AND your cat would have had to have been exposed to her very first infection and shed the oocysts in her feces AND that shedding of oocysts would have had to occur within a specific ten to 14 day time frame AND you would have had to not clean the litter box for 24-48 hours AND you would have had to ingest some of the infected feces.

See why I say that the risk of toxoplasmosis is frequently misunderstood and overblown?

Believe me, I don't take the dangers of this condition lightly. It can be a very serious concern for certain people. But admonitions from some medical doctors to "get rid of your cat" without explaining the nature of the risk and the steps that can be taken to avoid or mitigate it do not tell the whole story.

Given the above, paying attention to hygiene and getting a handle on your vulnerability to toxoplasmosis makes good sense. If you're in a high-risk population, get yourself tested to determine whether you've already been exposed. Wash your hands and clean under your fingernails thoroughly after handling raw meat. or cleaning the litter box--this alone goes a long way to alleviating the risks of contracting toxoplasmosis. Wear rubber gloves when gardening and when cleaning the litter box. And clean the litter box at least twice a day.

Should fear of avian flu keep me from serving poultry?

Information--not fear--is the best guide for decisionmaking. You'll have to decide for yourself what makes sense, but since so many site visitors have been asking me this question, I'll tell you my thinking.

I will continue to use poultry products in the cat food that I make. I would probably think twice about it if I were a bird handler in Asia with a seriously compromised immune system. Much of the angst over avian flu strikes me as shoddy science that is being reinforced by continual sensationalist repetition by the media. But just as I don't rely on the pet food industry to 'teach' me what I should and shouldn't feed my cats, I don't rely on ill-informed media personalities to decide what the risk is from feeding poultry.

Remember, most of the people who have acquired the infection were bird handlers in continuous contact with sick birds. And as I've said before, no food is without risk. No food. So you're left to weigh the risks of anything you feed against the potential benefits from feeding it. Your calculation may not be the same as mine. All I suggest is that you make your decision based on facts, not fear.

If you're just too nervous to handle poultry or serve it to your cat, then consider using rabbit as the primary food for your cats.

Making changes to the diet, especially when it comes to asking me about making those changes and what to do and not do.

I want to make the diet using different ingredients, so can you help me?

Not very much. I have enormous faith in the balance of this diet and it has served me well for quite a few years. If I didn't already think the recipe was about as perfect as I could manage, I wouldn't use it. I do tinker myself sometimes with ingredients--adding more psyllium and water during "hairball season," for example--but as much as I would like to help everyone who has an idea to start using, say, dried eggshells as a calcium source instead of bonemeal in the "without bone" recipe, I simply don't have the time to do it. It takes time to properly calculate what's needed to correct calcium-to- phosphorus ratio if someone wants to use another calcium source, and I am not convinced that using calcium sources other than what I've suggested is a good idea in the first place.

The tinkering I do is really along the margins of the diet and certainly there may be times when you'll need to do the same. My only advice is to be certain that whatever adjustments you might make do not violate the key principles that you simply MUST get right--like making sure the calcium amounts are correct. If your cat prefers her meals more "soupy," than of course you can add a bit more water to the mix. If you're having a problem with hairballs, I think it's fine to add some extra psyllium and water. If your cat is under great stress, upping the amount of B-complex is probably a fine idea. You shouldn't mess with things that put your cat at risk for toxicity, such as by using too much of non-water soluble vitamins like A, D, or E. This is especially true if you're using synthetic vitamins.

"Please don't ask me to perform a wholesale re-engineering of this diet to suit each person's unique needs or preferences."

But beyond that, I simply cannot confidently perform a wholesale re-engineering of this diet to suit each person's unique needs. That said, I do try hard to help as many people as I can who send me questions via e-mail, because I know how much it meant to me to have guidance when I first tentatively dipped my toes in this raw food venture. But please don't ask me to completely reconstruct the diet and perform all the calculations for you to come up with a revised and correctly balanced recipe. I have a busy job and home life, and while keeping up with this website is a labor of love and I will do my very best to answer the questions you have on feeding this diet, I simply cannot reinvent the wheel. I also need some time to make cat food.

I advise anyone considering a raw diet to do as much of their own reading as possible on the issue, focusing heavily on information from unbiased sources. You can start with having a look at the information & resources. I suggest always asking yourself if a given raw diet recipe is truly species-appropriate or might just be an "adapted dog diet" recipe. And I strongly urge you to invest in a copy of Michelle Bernard's book, Raising Cats Naturally.

I don't have the corner on the only way of doing this right. This site simply reflects what I've come to believe is the most sound way I know of to safely prepare a truly balanced and healthy diet for cats. If I come on information that, after careful reading, persuades me beyond 'reasonable doubt' that the diet needs changing or adjustment, I'll change it. I try very hard to keep up with the latest work on feline nutrition from the veterinary journals and am in regular contact with people who have been feeding raw successfully for years.

I am a lay person. I'm not a professionally-trained nutritionist and certainly not a veterinarian. Ideally, you should work closely with your vet on any changes you want to make to your cat's diet. Unfortunately, not nearly enough vets are well-versed in feline nutrition to be of very much help, and many default to either reflexively dismissing raw diets or offering to sell you a bag of some prescription food. That said, if you find a vet that really knows small animal nutrition-- and is well-versed in cat nutrition? Jump for joy. If your vet tells you it's fine to feed only raw meat (with no bone or calcium), then run like the wind.

There are some amazing and free online tools that can help you if you have questions about the nutritional value of different ingredients that can go into food for cats. The online Nutritional Analysis Tools and System page is a magnificent resource for analyzing the content of individual meats, for example. Finally, if you can snag a copy of the (often pricey) but extremely useful veterinary text, Small Animal Clinical Nutrition, you'll have a very helpful resource at your fingertips. It's a pricey textbook if purchased new, but you can often get used copies for under $25.

The 'eeeeeew!' factor -- what if you're grossed out about making this diet or you're a vegetarian and the idea is appalling.

I'm a vegetarian and the idea of handling raw meat offends me and grosses me out.

Vegetarianism as a nutritional choice for humans is magnificent. Cats have no choice. We bring obligate carnivores into our lives and feeding them other animals is a necessity and a responsibility. A cat cannot survive long without eating other animals. The protein in a vegetable does not supply what a cat needs to live. There is plenty of room for debate on how to best feed a cat. But there is no debating that cats are obligate carnivores. Cats rely on nutrients in animal tissues to meet their specific nutritional requirements.

Plant tissue doesn't cut it. Period. It never has. It never will. It never CAN for carnivores.

I understand that it can be difficult to handle raw meat. Believe me, the first time I got an order of whole rabbits delivered to my door for making cat food I nearly wept and it was everything I had to get through chopping and grinding. But it got easier because I kept in mind that my carnivore friends would have the best shot at longer, healthier lives if I did it. And when I focused on what goes into the manufacturing of many commercially-prepared cans or bags of cat food, I realized that the raw material that went into them was infinitely more gross. Slaughterhouse waste, meat unfit for human consumption, toxic chemicals, questionable preservatives, animal entrails fermented into sprayable liquid mixtures with acid, and on and on. It didn't take long to face the fact that what I was assembling in my kitchen for my carnivores was certainly less offensive than almost anything I could scoop out of a bag or a can.

As Ann Martin discovered when she conducted her long, detailed, and thorough investigation into the pet food industry, "companion animals from clinics, pounds, and shelters can and are being rendered and used as sources of protein in pet food. Dead-stock removal operations play a major role in the pet food industry. Dead animals, road kill that cannot be buried at roadside, and in some cases, zoo animals, are picked up by these dead stock operations. When an animal dies in the field or is killed due to illness or disability, the dead stock operators pick them up and truck them to the receiving plant. There the dead animal is salvaged for meat or, depending on the state of decomposition, delivered to a rendering plant. At the receiving plants, the animals of value are skinned and viscera removed. Hides of cattle and calves are sold for tanning. The usable meat is removed from the carcass, and covered in charcoal to prevent it from being used for human consumption. Then the meat is frozen, and sold as animal food, which includes pet food."

So to my mind, supporting a place like Hare Today --a small family farm with plenty of pasture space, fresh air and sunshine for animals to roam, a policy of feeding animals that are not caged or fed lousy food, and that is committed to humane slaughtering practices--is infinitely more bearable to ponder than what's in most bags and cans of cat food. Remember, most of the commercial pet food industry is an extension of the food waste industry.

The Vegetarian Society cautions against feeding a vegetarian diet for cats, very correctly and responsibly pointing out that cats "require certain nutrients from meat that cannot be obtained in sufficient amounts from plant foods. These include taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A, and vitamin B12." And that's just the beginning.

I beg you: do not subject a carnivore to a vegetarian diet.

Non-cats. You know, like, dogs.

Hey, this raw feeding seems like it might be a great idea for dogs. Can I feed them this food?

Sure. But keep in mind that dogs have considerably more flexibility in their digestive system than cats, so there is quite a bit more wiggle room in preparing a dog's raw diet. If I had a dog, you can absolutely sure that I'd feed raw. And I'd go to this site to get started.

And so we're perfectly clear on this: We here at catnutrition.org love dogs too.

A lot.


Logistics and cost.

You've convinced me that raw feeding is a good idea, but I just don't have the time or supplies to do it. Is there a "next best" option?

Honestly, making your own cat food is NOT as time-consuming as you might think. I work a full-time job and have a very busy life, and have managed it for seven years. But I also realize that not everyone is going to be able or willing to put in the time required. Here are some next-best options to consider:

Wouldn't it be easier and better to just feed whole prey?

Maybe. It depends on your cat. And it depends on you. The whole prey model is another method of feeding raw to cats. As I've said, my way of preparing and feeding a raw diet is not the only way. There is certainly more than one way to construct a balanced diet. You can learn more about feeding whole prey -- which involves no grinding and instead serving a variety of whole, raw carcasses -- on several Yahoo egroups, including this one. I haven't been on egroups for awhile now--this website and its emails keeps me more than busy--but there are plenty of smart and supportive people out there with experience that I can't offer, and who have suggestions on how to switch even the most stubborn cats to a prey model diet. If this sounds like it's for you, then please do check out the group and learn more.

It's a terrific way to improve your cat's chances of having good oral health and is truly closer to what mother nature intended. If you are careful to source your meats from animals that are themselves fed properly (and unfortunately, many are not), then good ol' mother nature takes care of providing a perfect package of nutrition for your cat and you don't need to fuss with grinding or supplementing.

Unfortunately, the issue for many people, like me, is that since I did not start my cats out from kittenhood on raw, their willingness to devour whole prey is not very strong. Heck, I struggle with getting my cats to eat the chunks of raw meat that I cut up by hand. A kind site visitor recently suggested that it might be wise to start my cats again with chunks, but begin with smaller chunks that they will readily eat. Then slowly I could increase the size of the chunks. I may indeed try that.

I think we've created generations of feline hothouse orchids who have grown so accustomed to being served meals of soft food--and who, sadly (either because of bad genetic luck or years of eating low-grade diets) end up with terrible dental woes--that they are being pushed away from being the carnivores they are. And mother nature always rebels when we don't respect the nature of beings.

My point is this: those of us living with cats are living with carnivores. If I can persuade people to recognize that--and get them eating a raw meat based diet, I figure I've moved more cats in the direction that mother nature intended. If you can succeed in taking this further--and getting your carnivores to eat truly WHOLE foods--then go for it!

I'm very satisfied that my cats are getting an extremely balanced diet that--except for texture--mimics that which they'd catch, kill, and eat in the wild. But I don't--and you shouldn't--dismiss the importance of texture as a core component of what it means to move our cats toward a diet that truly imitates the whole eating experience mother nature designed them for. In my case, I have always been concerned about the bone size in many readily available whole carcasses such as chicken or rabbit. A cat that eats around the bone constantly isn't going to be getting enough calcium. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying I haven't yet mastered a way to do it with my cats that keeps me from spending all my time cajoling them to eat and fretting about whether they ate sufficient amounts of calcium that week.

Your cats' ability and flexibility to adjust to a whole prey model diet will depend on a number of variables--your cat's age, whether she has all her teeth, her adaptability, and your patience and time. But this is true of all raw diets. Once you take the step and decide to get your cat off of commercial foods that comes in bags or cans, there's some adjusting for everyone involved. There are some remarkable success stories of people who have taken the time to switch their cats to a whole prey diet. In my admittedly very limited experience, however, many cats who are switched to a raw diet arrive in less than ideal shape and simply getting them to switch over from a lousy dry diet to canned food takes effort. Then getting them from canned to raw can also take time and patience.

I can't answer specific questions about the whole prey model because I don't feed that way. If you're interested in this approach, I encourage you to do some additional digging and to connect with feeders who are experienced in this method. There is a wonderful and thorough website on the whole prey model that I urge you to look at if you're curious about this other method of feeding raw.

I am going away on a trip, so what do I do about feeding my cat?

I always recommend having a cat sitter come and look after animals when you're away. Be sure to teach your cat sitter how to prepare the food (warm the food in a baggie, don't leave large amounts out all day, and so on).

If you don't have a friend, relative, or neighbor you can trust to do the job, check out PetSitters International to help locate someone. In Canada, an excellent resource is here. My friend Lee, who runs a pet sitting service, has a section of her website that has some excellent tips on what to do before you go away on a trip and leave your animals in the care of a petsitter.

Also, check with your veterinarian's office to see if they have any recommendations and look at the bulletin boards that are up in many pet supply centers for possible leads on a cat sitter.

How often will I need to make cat food?

It depends, obviously, on how much your cat eats. A batch made from the recipe that I have on this site lasts my two cats just under two weeks, on average. During certain periods of the year they'll eat more and the batch won't last that long.

It's best to not make too much food in advance and leave it in storage for long. I prefer to make food about twice a month, sometimes making extra large batches if I know I'm going to be busy on weekends. If you can find a way to make fresh food more often than that? Even better.

How much does it cost to make this diet?

This is very hard to say, because so much depends on the price you pay for meat, which can vary dramatically. When I first started making batches with rabbit, I paid a staggering $5.99 a pound. Thankfully, I learned about Hare Today which supplies excellent fresh rabbit that costs less than half that price, including shipping on ice. (Hare Today is very convenient for people in the midwestern United States or on East Coast; a good West Coast source is Wholefoods4pets.)

Free-range/hormone-free/antibiotic-free meats definitely cost more than conventionally-raised meats, but you can often shave costs by locating other raw feeders and ordering in bulk. Yahoo e-groups has a quite a few groups devoted to regionally-based raw feeders who work together to buy meat in bulk and help source other ingredients. Run a search there on "BARF feeding" and your city, state, or region and see what you find. If you don't find one, perhaps consider setting one up yourself.

My rough estimate of how much it costs me to feed my cats is about $1.35 per day, per cat. Chicken and turkey cost less, rabbit and guinea fowl cost more. And remember, my costs might be higher because I'm fussy about using free-range/hormone-free/antibiotic-free meats. And this is only a rough calculation because the other ingredients in the diet--such as the Vitamins, psyllium, and other items--are only purchased once or twice a year and I sometimes get lucky and find items on sale or find online sellers with free shipping promotions.

The best estimates I've seen suggest that to feed a raw diet using the highest quality ingredients (i.e., top-shelf, free-range meats) costs roughly 30 to 50 percent more than feeding a high-quality canned food.

When looking at the cost of feeding a home-prepared diet, factor in the potential costs of not feeding a home-prepared diet. Personally, I view feeding a first-rate diet as money in the bank, as my cats don't spend time (or my money) going back and forth to the vet for digestive troubles, urinary tract woes, skin allergies, expensive diabetes maintenance, or other chronic health problems.

Finally, there is a very comforting peace of mind that comes from knowing that we're doing the best we can manage for these magnificent companions diet-wise, and improving their chances of steering clear of the chronic feline diseases that are so frightfully common these days.