How to Switch to Raw Cat Food
Transition to Raw Food
for kittens older than 6 months and adult cats
For cats that has been fed with dry kibble
STEP 1
First, stop FREE feeding the dry kibble which means don’t leave your dry kibble all day available to your cat.STEP 2
Set up 2-3 meals a day eg. Morning, afternoon and night time. You want to associate with your cats with this routine regular mealtimes. Cats will learn the new routine easily. Every time you leave the meal out for only 30mins, you then collect it back after that. This is to ensure your cat get used to its feeding times. By doing that, your cat may get hungry but that’s fine. Just make sure your cat does eat every day.STEP 3
Once they get used to the feeding time, they will come to you each time you feed your cat. This is the time where you introduce some canned food. Some cats may refuse or not interested to eat canned food at the beginning. Thus I reckon you can give canned food in the afternoon and dry in the morning and night time. This is to ensure your cat does eat every day and to prevent hepatic lipidosis in cats. Keep feeding in the pattern until your cat eat the canned food. Another tip is to put your canned food on top of the dry kibble, whole or crushed a little. This encourages your cat to try something new.
TIPS
* For canned food, try pick the high quality one and avoid fish as the main ingredients as this may cause your cat addicted to it and not to try other brands. Fish should be fed as an occasional treat only.
* Remember not to soak the dry food in water to mimic the canned or raw because dry food has a high bacterial content and mold sometimes found in there if leave in the open air longer.
STEP 4
Once your cat get used to the canned food, increasing the amount of canned food and slowly remove the dry kibble in your feeding routines. After a few weeks, slowly introduce the raw diet like the way before for canned food from dry.
For cats that has been fed with dry and canned
Follow Step 1- Step 4
First, stop feeding all the dry food. Feed them a few weeks’ time to get used to canned diet, with same feeding routines, and then start the transition to the raw diet.
TIPS
Tips for cats to easily transition from canned to raw is to add some warm water and serve the raw diet at room temperature. Another way is to put the raw diet next to the canned diet or mix up a bit. This is to get them used to the smell of the food and only slowly associating that smell into their meals.