A raw diet for cats, also known as raw meat-based diet (RMBD) or the BARF diet, involves feeding cats uncooked, unprocessed food, primarily consisting of raw meat, organs and bones. It aims to mimic the diet of wild cats by providing animal protein and fat, essential nutrients and avoiding processed ingredients like grains.

Some of our kittens will go home eating raw. Here is a little tutorial so you can continue making their food at home.

Supplies:

• Grinder (Preferably one that can grind small bones)

• Freezer safe Tubs 8 oz

• Scale

• Cutting board

• Knife

• Bowls

I use and recommend the Weston #22 Grinder. You can find it here.

Any grinder is better than no grinder so if your grinder cannot handle bone then another option you have is to find a local butcher and see if they would be able to help. You can also use bone meal. There is a Bone Meal Brand called NOW that you can find on Amazon and use.

It is very important to know that RAW diet needs to be complete and balanced, especially in kittens. It needs to consist of 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% organ. Chicken thighs are one of the less expensive meat options but also, I find one of the best. It has meat that is rich in taurine, fat that is essential to cats, and bone that you can use in your recipe. I also like to use chicken hearts as it gives the extra taurine as well as a muscle meat and chicken liver as it’s one of the milder livers. I add in egg yolks and sardines in tomato sauce. Make sure the sardines are not in oil or that the tomato sauce is flavored.

I am going to explain my process of buying and measuring. Get two big packs of chicken thighs with skin and bone as well as two packs of chicken hearts and two tubs of chicken livers. You will also need 7 eggs and sardines in tomato sauce. One 15 oz tin should do it. If it is a little less than .95 lb this is okay.

Once you have all of your items begin to cut and measure your chicken. You are going to debone and place the bones aside to measure later or toss out if you are using bone meal. Cut up the chicken with skin to grind later. Follow this recipe.

9.44 lbs Chicken Thigh with Skin

2 lbs Chicken Hearts

1.43 lbs Chicken Liver

1.43 lbs Bone (OR 11 tablespoons of NOW Bone Meal)

.95 lbs sardines

7 egg yolks

Keep in mind using the bone meal instead of the ground bones will make your mix a little thicker. Add about a cup of water to the mix to help loosen it up. Once you measure out each item you want to grind everything and mix together. Grind the chicken meat and skin, hearts, liver, bone and sardines. Add the egg yolk before you begin. Blend it as well as you can together like you are mixing a meat loaf and then place in some 8 oz freezer safe tubs.

How to Feed:

Do not keep a thawed-out tub in the fridge longer than three days. It really starts to go bad longer than this. If you have frozen your meat in some 8 oz tubs this shouldn’t be an issue. Cats need to eat 3-5% of their body weight daily. For an 8 lb cat you are looking at .24-.4lbs of raw a day. A kitten will be eating about that much as well as they are growing and should be given as much as they can eat in one sitting. RAW food can be kept out for 12 hours. What I like to do is feed my cats in the morning. Sometimes they gobble it up right away and sometimes they eat some and come back to it later. This is perfectly fine. It may dry up on top but underneath its still soft and they will eat it. Then at bed time I give them their dinner and leave it out all night. You are looking at about 1/3 a cup each meal.

I have not always fed my cats RAW. It has been a journey. I am very much still learning. Feeding RAW was not even on my radar until I got Ziggy in the beginning of 2024. He was two years old and was being fed a commercial raw food. He was a big, beautiful boy and you could tell right away the weight difference as well as the quality of his coat which was all thanks to his diet. I immediately dove into the world of RAW. I joined Facebook groups, bought a meat grinder attachment to my kitchen aid and began making him food. The homemade RAW was not only a better quality but fresh and a fraction of the cost. I tried to introduce RAW to the rest of my Persians over the course of a year with absolutely zero luck until May of 2025. I went down the cat food rabbit hole. I was trying to find a decent dry food. One without dyes, one that had zero grains that the cats would actually eat. One that had all the qualities of RAW without the side effects of dry food. There just wasn’t one. Not a single dry food fit the bill. I decided to remove all of the dry food and make a real effort into making the switch. To be fair I had very little resistance once the dry was removed. Before then when I would try to have both, I would get bouts of tummy upsets. RAW and dry food just do not mix.

I have on occasion fed a few kittens raw here and there. Sometimes I would have a baby who was small and needed the extra boost. Maybe they needed the nutrients or just was not taking to any of the dry as fast as their siblings. It always made such a difference. I knew not a lot of new homes would appreciate or be dedicated to making homemade raw. Nor would they buy it and continue it. Some people just think its gross. They do not want to work with meat. They are intimidated by the process or they like the convenience of dry food. But the benefits are so very worth it. I want to encourage everyone to make the transition or continue feeding your Persians RAW if they came home eating it. If you feel like you’re interested to continue but now quite ready to make your own, then I recommend Viva Raw. www.vivarawpets.com