Or, as I love to call it: Frankenprey
Sure, I went to the stores, scoured towns around me for butcher counters with more than muscle meat. I needed liver and kidneys, hearts and brains. Any other parts-is-parts parts that I could find. I can honestly say I have never handled things like sweetbreads before now (no, I found out, that does NOT refer to those yummy King's Hawaiian rolls).
I would sit at the table for hours, up to my elbows in parts and blood. Ahh, good times.
Bones were a tough issue for me. I had no grinder and the bones that come in things we humans eat are pretty big for a cat. I added calcium in the form of eggshells (cleaned, ground eggshell,may be found in bird supply shops). Cut everything up into portions and plopped bits into recyclable baggies and then froze them all. Each meal, I would thaw one complete frankenprey bag. Each bag holding 2%-4% of my cat's adult body weight in cut up stuff, which is about a single step up from ground meat. You see, the more surface area of the meat you have exposed to air, the more quickly it's decaying. Bacteria digs in and multiplies, precious taurine is lost. And freezer burn threatens if you try to work in bulk and store ahead. Plan on 90 days as a good "use by" date for raw frozen meats - especially if the meat has, wait for it.... more surface areas exposed. Gah, you can't win!
That gets old fast....by the way. Well, it did for me. It was also a little unnerving. Who was I to recreate prey out of leftover parts? Was I staying true to the proportions nature prescribes? What if they need something else, will I recognize that?
Somewhere along the line, a few people in raw feeding groups or bulletin boards mentioned giving their cats the occasional mouse. After watching a video of one lady's kitty tossing his mouse around like a toy until he finally got ready to eat it I was a little turned off. I mean, I'm not all "girly" about that stuff. I am, after all, a farmer's granddaughter. I've kept red tailed boas before and they certainly ate mice (...rats, guinea pigs...). It seemed within the realm of what I could tolerate.
I knew I'd want to work on that whole "playing with your food" thing, though. Definitely.
Here, I hope to share with you my experiences in locating resources, moving my cats to whole raw prey, and learning to maintain that diet for them. I hope to impart the details and tips I've developed and continue to develop, and hope to hear from others with success in this diet who can share their techniques and grow this base of knowledge.
I'm sure that some are cringing at the idea of whole raw prey. sounds gruesome, I know. But if you're concerned that somehow feeding mice and chicks and other cleanly-sourced small prey to your cat is unnatural, inappropriate or risky, to you I say: Relax - mother nature wrote this diet herself.
