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Received first order of Natural Instinct Cat Food

lisajane8482
Posts: 1,186 Forumite
So pretty much as title says.
I ordered the four different flavours (Chicken & Beef, Chicken & Lamb, Venison and Wild Game Bird) for Gizmo to try. I did um and ah at first about the venison but since he’s liked all the raw meats I have tried him on so far I thought what the heck, may as well give it a go. He’s been loving the chicken wings I’ve been giving him twice a week and runs in the kitchen every time he hears the fridge open (even when he’s been fast asleep upstairs, guess his radar lugs do have their advantages). We bought Sainsbury’s own brand pouches on Wednesday as we ran out of the Sheba and he’s been eating 5 pouches a day of that.
I’m going to part defrost a tub overnight in the fridge (as suggested by paddypaws on my previous thread) to split in to daily meals and try him on it tomorrow. Anyway finally getting around to my questions....
Should I just change him straight over (I do think he would eat it as he loves his raw food) or should I introduce it gradually over say 5-7 days? And should I just try one flavour for now or give him a variety?
TIA
I ordered the four different flavours (Chicken & Beef, Chicken & Lamb, Venison and Wild Game Bird) for Gizmo to try. I did um and ah at first about the venison but since he’s liked all the raw meats I have tried him on so far I thought what the heck, may as well give it a go. He’s been loving the chicken wings I’ve been giving him twice a week and runs in the kitchen every time he hears the fridge open (even when he’s been fast asleep upstairs, guess his radar lugs do have their advantages). We bought Sainsbury’s own brand pouches on Wednesday as we ran out of the Sheba and he’s been eating 5 pouches a day of that.
I’m going to part defrost a tub overnight in the fridge (as suggested by paddypaws on my previous thread) to split in to daily meals and try him on it tomorrow. Anyway finally getting around to my questions....
Should I just change him straight over (I do think he would eat it as he loves his raw food) or should I introduce it gradually over say 5-7 days? And should I just try one flavour for now or give him a variety?
TIA
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Comments
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My personal opinion is that the theory of gradually changing foods over can be ignored when the change is to raw.
I would probably defrost/portion/feed one flavour tub at a time though just so you can spot any issues.
remember he will poop a LOT less on raw so try not to worry if he seems to be constipated (unless of course he is straining but not passing stool)
cant wait to hear how he does.
oh, and 5 pouches of food....wow!0 -
paddypaws101 wrote: »oh, and 5 pouches of food....wow!
I know :eek: the amount he eats sometimes he should be huge instead of weedy looking.
Thanks for the advice I really can't wait to try him with it. I'm defrosting the chicken and beef to try him on. I'll update with how or goes0 -
I have just started moving my two 5 month old kittens onto raw food. Luckily a local pet shop stocks Natural Instinct, so I bought the four different varieties there. I also ordered a trial box of Honeys raw food, which arrives fresh in little 250g plastic covered sausages, ready to go into the freezer. http://www.honeysrealcatfood.com/ This brand was suggested by my vet who was really delighted when I mentioned that I was going to be feeding them raw. She reckons that a big change is going to happen about feeding cats and dogs because people are now getting the information about nutrition that previously they didn't know about.
They first tried the NI Chicken & Beef, and they ate it quite readily. At this point I thought I was onto an easy winner. A 500 g tub lasted them 2 days, with a few sachets of usual cat food in-between. I would have gone completely over to raw without particularly worrying about doing it gradually, but I have lots of sachets, and teenage sons who forget that they are meant to feed the cats the stuff in the fridge rather than the sachets in the cupboard.
Next I defrosted the Game Bird which the boy kitten ate reluctantly, but the girl turned her nose up at it completely. At this point the Honey's order arrived, so I tried them on the Honey's Beef. They absolutely loved this; the biggest success so far.
Right now they are on the NI Venison and they Don't Like It At All. This has been solved very easily by mixing in a third of a tiny tin of Encore in with each serving, and then they wolf it down. I know that at this age they want and need to eat a lot, and in a sense this makes it all much easier!
It doesn't bother me if they turn their nose up at any given flavour - they will almost certainly decide it is the Best Thing in the World in a couple of month's time, and whatever they rave about today will go out of favour tomorrow. Cats are contrary wotsits! The important thing is that they get variety - I have always fed my cats randomly on every brand and type of cat food. I still remember my parent's cats who would only eat one flavour of one brand.
I have to mention the litter tray aspect of all this...! The difference in the quantity and er, quality of deposits is extraordinary. With the raw, they do one or at most 2 small poos in 24 hours. There is no smell at all. One day in the middle of all this, I was away overnight, and the cats were fed sachets of kitten food and given a bowl of Royal Canin kitten kibble (a freebie from the breeder) by my OH who 'forgot' the raw in the fridge. They practically filled the litter trays with numerous, huge and smelly poos. It can only be that 'normal' cat food (and particularly cat biscuits) is full of stuff that cannot be digested properly.
I am intending to keep them on a raw diet. It makes utter sense to me that a cat is designed to eat this way, not eat cooked slurry with a ridiculously high proportion of grain and carbohydrate that a cat's digestion was not designed to cope with and which their bodies have no use for.
Anyway tomorrow they are going to be trying Honey's chicken...0 -
Quick report on Honey's chicken - they love it!
I will be trying Natural Instinct Chicken and Lamb next, and hoping they like it as NI is a fair bit cheaper...0 -
Tried Gitmo on the chicken and beef and he turned his nose up at it so I've been mixing it in with a pouch of wet food. He's ate it that way so I'm going to try reducing the amount of pouch and increasing the amount of raw gradually. On the plus side he has ate it all and seems full instead of constantly scrounging for food, first time I've ate my tea in peace for a very long time.0
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Lisajane8482 - yes! You have hit the nail on the head about them not nagging for food all the time! I had noticed this without really taking it in, if you see what I mean. I had sort of put it down to the fact that mine are past their greatest growth spurt, but of course they are not at all.
Even my last elderly cat nagged for food more than these two do at the moment.
I wonder if this is because raw food is high protein, which also makes humans less likely to want to eat between meals, or if it is the absence of excessive carbohydrate causing blood glucose spikes and slumps? I might need to do some research...0 -
So far so good on the Natural Instinct Chicken and Lamb. They were given a sachet of cat food this afternoon by my son before I got home from work, and they barely touched it. They wolfed down the NI I gave them when I got in.
Has anyone here tried Nutriment? Two pet shops here apparently stock it, so I might give that one a try as well.0 -
Well it seems we may finally have a break through. I've been mixing in pouch food with the raw and have been increasing the amount of raw and reducing the amount of wet. This morning I put around 25 grams of raw and two teaspoons of wet and he gobbled it all down so after I left for work DH was going to give him some more. Told him to split what was in the container I had defrosted over night in to 3 (approx 33 grams per portion) and to mix in 2 teaspoons of pouch. He put the raw in the bowl and before he’d even had chance to move to get the pouch Gizmo was in there eating it. I’m over the moon and hopefully this isn’t a one off and he can now just go completely raw fed. I’ve started to part defrost a Chicken and Lamb to divide up and try him on. So proud of my little fella, now if I could only convince Salem to go raw....
Haffiana, I originally tried to order Nutriment but I had a problem as it wouldn’t accept my payment details for some reason. I did email them but it was getting close to the 2pm cut off for next day delivery so I ordered from NI instead. I would like to try the Nutriment as I have read some reviews that it is slightly better quality than NI (not sure how true) but there is only the beef and the chicken that Gizmo would eat where as from NI there, hopefully, is a choice of 4 so he would have a more varied diet.
I was also considering possibly trying Gizmo on day old chicks as they seem to be quite popular with raw feeders on the Cats Completely Raw and Proud facebook page(https://www.facebook.com/groups/CatCrap/), trying to find a local supplier where I can pick a few up from before buying in bulk online as it is apparently a load cheaper. The FB page is really helpful, I joined after PaddyPaws posted a link on another thread.0 -
5 pouches a day? Chuff me that must be a big cat (lion)0
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5 pouches a day? Chuff me that must be a big cat (lion)
He’s just under 4kg in weight and a slender little fella, I have no idea where he was putting it. I always worry that he looks like he doesn’t get fed properly as our other cat is a big cat (6kg) and looks huge compared to him. I’m guessing it’s down to the fact he’s constantly on the go, if he’s a wake he’s either running randomly from room to room, chasing Salem or his bouncy balls or playing fetch, plus he poops for England.
This is the little fella:
Fighting with Salem:0
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