Zero is super hungry today. Every time I walk into the kitchen he starts making crazy meowing noises and rolling on the floor. He was able to tear his 2oz of gizzards to shreds this morning. I still plan on giving him 6oz of food today (as opposed to the 4oz he started on) but I want to break it up into three meals I'd be able to feed him on a day where no one is home--once before work, once around 5pm, and once before bed.

I feel like I must be starving him, but his weight is thus far perfect.

I wish I had better answers!

Got him a turkey neck yesterday at the fancy grocery. Threw it in the freezer because I didn't want to figure out how to calculate the meat/bone ratio along with the rest of his meals yet.

Right now he's taking a nap. I've got gifts to wrap. Wonder how he'll behave at my parents'...

A week or so ago my boyfriend Dan called to me from the kitchen--"Hey Sam, can I feed Zero these raw chicken trimmings?" Fear gripped my heart. "No!" I shouted. "He can't eat raw chicken, he'll get sick!" But as soon as the words came out of my mouth I wondered where they really came from. Why couldn't my cat eat raw meat? How different was he from the tigers in the zoo getting raw steaks thrown at them? I headed to the internet for answers.

Looks like there is little difference. In fact, Prisoner Zero and all of his kitty friends are obligate carnivores. That expensive Blue Buffalo kitten kibble I'd purchased him, full of "healthy whole grains and veggies" was doing little more than contributing to what would become a carb-addicted, overweight, possibly sick cat. I had almost been fooled--twice! My first kitten had fallen prey to the nuggets of doom and, although very nervous about the landscape of a raw diet, I was determined to do better with Zero.

Dan and I are still in the beginning stages of feeding our Zero a raw diet much like the one nature intended. We are working from the frankenprey model of raw feeding, working towards a weekly 80/10/10 spread (meat/bone/organ). Bones are coming to him in the form of baked eggshell powder at the moment, which took me about 20 minutes to grind up in a glass bowl with a wooden spoon. Dan felt pretty triumphant when throwing them in the food processor worked just as well (I had dismissed this method, as I didn't think the blades would get it fine enough).

So far our baby has eaten chicken breast, gizzards, heart, and beef liver. Having trouble finding in-meat bones he might be able to handle at this age (5mo). He loves it all but gets very picky about his cuts of chicken if they aren't incredibly fresh. And the little vampire loves to drink liver juice. We're feeding him 4 oz a day (based on ~3% of an adult cat's weight) but I think he must be underfed because he won't stop begging for food as if he's starving. I'm having trouble finding good resources for just how much is appropriate but it looks like he's sitting more comfortably at 6oz a day at this point. Will have to keep searching.

I re-purposed a daily planner to keep track of all his meals down to the times he eats them, but I also wanted to set up a blog where I could ramble a bit about the process. So, that's where all this came from! I hope to document when I was able to upgrade him to bones, if we were able to sustain the raw diet on our tight budget, and maybe even help some others who are transitioning their cats to a raw diet once I become a little more experienced and educated on the topic.

Talk to you next time!