Does anyone feed a natural, no-grain or raw diet? I've been researching feeds lately and trying different stuff with my ancient Russian Blue that gets pickier every day and doesn't drink enough water, and I am intrigued by these diets. I did pick up some Wellness grain-free wet food and everyone (even the most picky eaters) loved it. I just wondered if anyone has seen any significant positive or negative results from these sort of diets?

I'm not sure I am ready to take the plunge for making my own raw yet- but looking at the prices versus number of cats for frozen if these types of diets are worth it I may give it a try.

We have several raw-diet enthusiasts here.

Enthusiast??? Hmm, I figured I was more like a fanatic!

I've fed various raw diets for 15 or so years with great results. I've had nothing but positive results, once I get the cat to eat it. (Convincing older cats that hamburger is actually eatable can be the biggest hurdle.) Over the years, most of my cats came to me with one problem or another -- liver failure, diabetes, starvation, IBD -- and all have gotten over their "incurable" problem. I firmly believe that the raw food is the key to their return to health, since I normally use very little Western vet medicine. Kidney problems are the major exception.

The cost of homemade food is about like buying premium canned foods. The frozen raw food is nice but it's extremely expensive and (control freak here) you can't control what is in it. See, one of the advantages of raw is that you do control what is in it, so when you cat can't eat beef products in any form, you make it with non-beef products.

If you want to try it, I can give you a link to a grain-free raw food recipe that I've used for the last 5-7 years.

In any case, you've made a great step in going grain-free. Cats are carnivores, not herbivores! You probably will see some improvement from this change.

I combine raw with traditional dry. My kitties get sirloin which I grind in a food processor with beef and chicken livers (they won't eat it without the liver!). I sprinkle this bloody mess with Call of the Wild supplement (look it up online). Each kitty gets a healthy fistful twice a day.

But they always have dry food available. I use Iams in the orange bag mixed with Royal Canin. My babies are chunky with great hair coats. Except for that little bit of blood staining on the chin from the liver!

Thank you. I "rescued" a few breeding cats from a breeder that passed away. She fed them all generic grocery store brands. I switched them to Purina ProPlan, but two still have loose stool issues, and their coats just don't shine like my others. My old Russian blue girl was also losing weight no matter what I feed her (she's 16), but shes still active- scratching, wandering around, hopping up on everything, etc. The vet checked everything out out on my old girl and the new ones, and said that fecals and all were fine, blood counts, etc. She said diet was the key (she recommends the ProPlan), which led my research to this route.

Is there any raw diet options that will not require me to spend hours a day fixing food? I have four kids, so I need something that I can either make in advance and freeze, or toss together in a few minutes while dinner is cooking, etc.

Hours? It takes me about 15 minutes to mix up a batch based on 1 lb ground and 1/2 lb chunk. This should make about 10-15 servings, I think. (I just make and serve and never bothered to figure out how long it lasts!) Once you have the recipe memorized and have all the ingredients on hand, it really is quite quick. And if you get really organized, you can spend your weekend making food and then freezing portions.

Gempaw said something about feedling liver daily. This is not the best thing to do. Liver has a high level of Vit A which is an oil soluble vitamin. This means the body can overdose on it if fed liver in enough quantity or for long periods. Additionally, the liver's function is to filter out toxins, which, again, can accumulate if fed liver constantly. Now, some cats can get away with liver daily, and others can't. It is an excellent food to feed occassionally -- I just cringe at the daily part.

Can you share your recipe? The ones I found online were talking about 3-4 different kinds of meat, hearts, livers, bones, all these added vitamins, it looked very confusing!

If I tell you, I'll have to kill you. (Way too many spy movies lately.)

The recipe I follow is based on this one: http://www.blakkatz.com/recipes.pdf If calls for heart and liver, but I use the substitutions since one cat can't eat liver, one cat can't eat heart, and hubby's dogs won't eat liver anything. I use ground egg shells (1.5 tsp) in place of the bone meal. Then I add extra supplements for individual cats and their problems. (Yes, I sometimes feel like I'm running a kitchen at a cat hospital, but then again, I am. ) While it looks confusing, it's not -- one capsule of this, one of that, 1 tsp each of this stuff, and mix. It's a lot easier than the ones with cooked grains!

As for beef liver only with beef muscle meat, well, that would be nice, but it won't harm your cat if you don't do this. If you say cheap dry food is a 1 and this raw recipe is a 10, mixing the meat species moves the recipe to about 9.8. So, we are really splitting hairs.