Raw Meat Feeding for Cats

How much does it cost to feed a hybrid or wild cat and what do I feed them?

Raw Minced Meat is the bulk of what we feed our cats here at Stylisticat.

Our main supplier of food and most recommended supplier is Kiezebrink who supply food throughout the EU, with a base for us in the UK, located in England.

The average monthly costs will vary greatly on what you decide to feed her. You can buy luxurious treats such as prey (which is frozen) but provides loads of essential vitamins and minerals. This is not essential but we very much recommend it. You can buy food from Hills Science, Applaws or Pets At Home, whichever suits for a commercial diet.

Otherwise, we like to encourage you to stick with the raw food.

The easiest and cleanest one if you are slightly squeamish is Natural Food Instinct as it's supplied in a tub - check out http://www.naturalinstinct.com/raw-cat-food.  You do pay more for the fancy packaging even though it is exactly the same in terms of nutritional value as Kiezebrink minced meat found at: https://www.kiezebrink.co.uk/category/166-raw-cat-food

Our average kittens weigh around 6 to 8kg as an adult and so therefore she should have 2 - 3% of her bodyweight per day in meat. It will take around 2 years for her to be fully grown so initially she may be at only around 4 - 5kg by one year old. This means you would be looking at least 80g - 150g per day. These tubs are supplied in 500g quantities at £2.25 each. We can supply these to you at a discount if you buy in bulk direct from us. One tub can last you up to 3 days for an adult, so that's only a few pounds a week.

 Your vet can regularly weigh your Savannah (we recommend you weigh your Savannah every 3 months for the first 2 years just to ensure you are meeting her dietary requirements for growth) but you can do this at home on a set of scales. You can weigh yourself and then hold the cat and stand back on the scales for an indication of weight. We have a set of baby scales which we use for accurate weights of the cats. 

As a kitten we advise that you feed her:
120g - 200g per day of meat for between 2 - 3 kg. 
180g - 260g per day of meat for between 3 - 4 kg. 
250g - 320g per day of meat for between 4 - 5 kg. 
300g - 380g per day of meat for between 5 - 6 kg. 
350g - 440g 6 - 7kg 
400g - 500g 7 - 8kg 
450 - 590g 8 - 9kg 
500g - 700g 9 - 10kg

The average domestic cats kitten period is till 12 months old however you are purchasing a very special breed, one that grows for a longer period. Due to this, we advise you feed the kitten ratios for 2 years. Once your Savannah cat reaches 6kg, we ask that you take her for a check up to ensure that the size of your cat is being complemented by her diet and not starting to become overweight. Her build should be slender, agile and showing muscular definition and easy to play with, not round and lethargic.

The diet required will depend on the lifestyle she has i.e. how active she is. You will hopefully encourage her to play at night with you, even with a feather stick or a laser pen, with plenty of encouragement through your voice. This is part of the bonding process, she learn to love your voice because you show her love and affection. Your hybrid will shower you with affection and trust in return. This doesn't always mean on the lap type in affection but she will show you affection in other ways, namely, following you around and wanting to be where you are. You will become this cats world. Her one and only.

Does raw meat meet a cat's nutritional requirements?

Raw meat is NOT complete however many different breeders have different ideas about whether to use supplements or not.

According to Kiezebrink;
"Kiezebrink raw cat foods are inspired by nature itself and in particular the forefather of our trusty felid companions: the wild cat. Kiezebrink sources the best fresh ingredients available:  No cheap fillers like rice are added to our raw mince diets. Products are frozen immediately after production so that the naturally present vitamins are retained. By varying your cat's diet with the extensive variety of raw meats, minces and whole prey items we offer, you're giving your cat a wide range of nutrients which can be utilised where required. No artificial vitamins or minerals are added to any of our products, since the ingredients we use naturally contain the right balance of vitamins and minerals. There are no vitamin supplements in nature after all."

A Raw meat diet should still be 'balanced' just like the way balance a plate of food in our own diets. The bowl should contain not just a scoop of minced meat but also organs and bone in the mix.

There are 3 ways of supplying your cat with a raw diet and these are grinding, frankenprey and whole prey. The first 2 are based on the 80 / 10 / 5 / 5 rule per week – that’s 80%-87% meat, fat, skin, sinew, connective tissue and heart, 5%-10% edible bone, 3%-5% liver, and 5% other secreting organ. This rule has been followed for decades by raw feeders. Small animals such as mice are roughly 5% bone and 4% liver, rabbits are less than 10% bone with less than 4% liver. Birds have a lower bone and organ content, so these numbers seem to be a rough average of the typical feline prey percentages.

Minced meat or using a home butchers grinder and self-grinding is the most well-known and popular method of raw feeding. It could be said that is actually just as bad as a commercial diet or even worse as is so far from a “natural” diet because the meats, organs, bones, etc. are all ground together. The fact that they are ground together means that the meat then offers little to no chewing challenge to a cat and, due to the nutrient breakdown which occurs in the process of mincing, the meat then requires supplementation, contrary to the advice of Kiezebrink's website quoted above. As soon as you remove parts from whole prey or alter it from it's natural state, just like our own food, the nutritional value falls dramatically. Do you see now there are mixed pieces of advice from both sides of the fence?

Minced food in it's form can look and feel just like canned food which makes for an easier raw transition. There's not many people that can say, "my cat eats anything" as cats are notoriously picky and some take weeks, months, or even years to recognize whole prey or frankenprey as food, or accept the work required to chew through them. Be careful if you intend to move an older cat with missing teeth onto raw. In these cases, appropriately supplemented ground diets provide the incredible nutritional benefits of eating a species-appropriate diet (if not the dental and psychological benefits) and are a good interim step.

The key to making raw feeding a nutritional balance is variety

We intend to have the blood values carried out regularly on our cats to ensure the cats have their nutritional needs met.

It is not advisable to feed your cats on one type of meat. Many of the suppliers offer meat in for example 20 pack of minced chicken and bone. This is not good nutrition for your cats and could even make them ill. The reason for this?

Variety ensures nutritional balance as well as keeping the animals interested in their food. A chicken and bone minced packet can only supply the same type of nutrients day in, day out. If you think about it, the nutrients received from each different prey animal will vary greatly, just like turkey breast is lower fat than chicken breast in our human diets. As we know chicken is high in fat it vcan be great for the cats, but it is also advisable to give them rabbit which is very low fat. We also feed our cats quail but as a treat and this is because quail are high in copper. By offering a wider diet, you are giving the cats more of a realistic diet that would receive in the wild. I would be very careful about just feeding your cats chicken breast for example as it is high in niacin and low in other aspects of a cats nutritional needs.
We give our cats:
Duck, Chicken, Beef, Quail, Pheasant, Venison, Rabbit, Lamb, Kangaroo and Fish but not much fish! Liver, kidney and other organs can be sourced from any animal and do not need to “match” the meat products; it’s fine to feed beef chunks, chicken liver and lamb heart in a single meal. You can buy minced organ meat from KZ too and this makes things easier although it works out more expensive than buying the 1kg whole hearts, livers etc.

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Am I even better with organic?

Organic where you can is always better. It is an unnecessary expense for your cats in our opinion.

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