Raw Food Forums

This is in response to a question asked on another thread, simply, how much should I feed my cats?
For me personally, it is kind of a trial and error/cause and effect thing - observe your animals behaviour and see what amount of food suits them. Of course, a majority of animals, when given the opportunity to eat whenever they want, will do so to the extent that they become overweight and unhealthy - obviously not the option we're looking for.I have recently stopped giving my beautiful Ruhsa any food in the morning, because her digestive system really isn't geared to eat twice a day. She is a very VERY talkative girl all the time and now she gets pretty vocal in the morning demanding food. But I ignore her and after a while she stops. Interestingly, she doesn't want to eat anymore at night than she did previously, suggesting to me that her wanting food in the morning is habitual, not actually hunger. She was about 11 months old when she came home from the shelter in April and has still been growing but I think that has just about stopped now so I don't want to over feed her. She is very active though, so I'm constantly aware that her needs may change simply based on how much she has run around on any given day.

Australian vet Ian Billinghurst has written three books (or is it four?  :shrug:) on feeding your animals the BARF diet, your local library should have at least one of them - he recommends a certain percentage of bodyweight be fed to the animal each week, although off the top of my head I can't remember what it is. This is primarily for dogs though... there is also a book called 'The Healthy Cat' by Madeline Wright which I have never read but is apparently good.
Finally, the following recommendations for BARF diets come from the website of Perth's Homeopathic vet Dr Clare Middle, http://www.claremiddle.com/ (http://www.claremiddle.com/):

Sample Balanced Diet for a Dog

30%-70% raw meat and raw bones
10% fish or 1g-6g fish oil
5% eggs, cheese, low fat yoghurt
5% offal or 1-5 teaspns cod liver oil weekly
10%-50% veges and fruit
Premix powder, dose on packet OR
1 teaspoon kelp/30kg body weight
1 tablespoon flax oil/30kg body weight
   
Sample Balanced Diet for a Cat

85% raw meat and raw bones
5% or more fish
500g fish oil
5% offal or 1 teaspoon cod liver oil weekly
5% veges/fruit
Premix powder , dose on packet, OR
1 pinch kelp
1 teaspoon flax oil

I did, however, recently read an article in 'The Veterinarian' magazine, suggesting that fish is not really a natural food of dogs and cats and can be problematic, especially if the animal is prone to allergies.

This is great info thanks Freedom.

xoxox

Thanks Freedom

My little cats are very vocal all the time, and I used to be worried that they didn't have enough, now I think they just like to talk.. as they are getting a bit big now- I think I will slowly reduce their food. I'll have to check out the library for that book.

Any info on fish freedom I killed Bella's 1st 4. Now we have gold fish but they just run away scared when I feed them and they dont eat it till a lot later.

Silly fish