cats and raw feeding

Our cats sadly would not eat raw food, but our German shepards have been fed raw food for years and love it !

The diet for a cat, in the wild, would be raw meat.
Domestic cats still eat raw meat if they catch and devour a rodent or a bird. Not necessarily healthy, but a natural diet.
Our two cats will rarely touch raw chicken, liver; or ham.
They prefer the many varieties of "crunchie" food, or foil packet food.
Apparently, the latter is taste tested, each day, by humans, so it should,be safe!

It’s irrelevant now for us because our last cat died the year before Covid arrived. I really missed having a cat during the lockdowns. We had made the decision not to have more cats as we were travelling a lot and having to leave them. Then Covid came.

Not sure about cats. but our dog is raw fed and it's perfectly safe as long as you use your common sense and follow the rules regarding cross-contamination. As Granny|Laine says above, if you are using proper hygiene rules, raw feeding is fine.

Our tabby girl is eighteen and a half and is doing well on a BARF diet (biologically appropriate raw food) She has a degree of renal failure as would be expected at her age, but since starting this diet a couple of years ago her renal function hasn't deteriorated and our vet is quite happy with it. But its not enough to give a bit of chicken breast or beef, it won't give the cat what it needs. I make a mixture of ground beef, minced turkey, chicken hearts (good source of taurine) chicken liver, ground eggshell (acts as a phosphate binder to protect kidneys) some raw egg and omega 3 fish oil. It is prepared fresh then frozen in portions enough for one day. Strict hygiene precautions as I would with our own food.

Raw chicken should not be on sale if it is infected with samonella!

Eating a certain amount of raw meat that is certified for human consumption should do cats no harm. It has certainly never affected the longevity of my cats.

The shorter lifespan of wild cats is presumably due to a variety of causes - parasites in the food they hunt and kill, the fact that they are not innoculated against the diseases that careful cat owners protect their cats against and predators - man and his beloved car amongst them.

We never fed our cats raw food as I considered there were possible health concerns as already mentioned. Raw chicken for example often contains salmonella. I realise that wild cats eat raw food but then they don’t live as long do they? Domestic cats are just that, domestic. So we fed them pouches and a bit of dried food. We also gave them fresh chicken or meat, but it was cooked first.

I agree with Charleygirl feed as directed by your neighbour.

I've had cats my whole life, losing my last boy just a few weeks ago and have never given them raw food, or our dogs either but each to their own. There seems to be an equal divide between vets as to what they recommend diet wise.

When my cat was alive she was never fed raw food except for the type she brought in herself!

As it is your daughter's cat I would not change anything but I do not agree with it, especially as raw chicken carries salmonella. Have a word with your daughter when she returns.

We used to feed cats liver and heart but now it's all packet food.

My daughter feeds her three raw food only, we fed them last week while she was away, her friend, who breeds Bengal cats does the same.
I know nothing else as we don’t have pets.