Our animals are truly part of our family. The cats, as well as the dogs, give us companionship and enjoyment. Since we are the ones responsible for their feeding and their care, we want to do what is best for their health and happiness. This includes flea protection and the litter used in their litter boxes, as well as what they eat.

None of my animals have commercial flea products applied to them. I keep fleas off the natural way with apple cider vinegar or lemon juice.

So they don’t inhale the dust from commercial cat litters or have any other ill effects from it, I use sawdust (given to me at no cost) from a local sawmill for their litter.

What is in commercial cat food already prepared for our cats to eat? Things that you wouldn’t dream of feeding your feline companion are used to make their food - things such as road kill, rancid grains, sheep guts, cow brains, chicken heads. Yuck! Not only do those not sound good, they are not nutritious, they just need to be disposed of. A profit can be made from disposing of them if sold to pet food companies. Read the list of ingredients on your bag of cat food. You will notice that there are a lot of byproducts - beef byproducts, chicken byproducts, even pet byproducts (though these are not normally mentioned in the list of ingredients). Byproducts are what is left over after the meat has been stripped from the bone, so there is little to no meat in any byproducts. Chicken by products, for example, include head, feet, intestines and noses.

If dry commercial cat food is made of such disgusting stuff, then why do our cats eat it? What makes it appealing to them? The end product is sprayed with animal fat and other flavor enhancers.

Cats are not made to digest grains and/or vegetables. They are strictly carnivores and made to digest meat, not carbohydrates (commercial cat food is full of carbohydrates). The average dry cat food contains up to 50% carbohydrates. In the wild, your cat’s diet would only have 3-5% carbohydrates, not 50%. Would you feed a cow or goat a meat-based diet? No, because they are made to eat vegetables and grains. Then why feed a natural carnivore carbohydrates? Feeding them carbohydrates lead to a myriad of health problems, including obesity and diabetes.

Domestic cats are simply small versions of bigger cats, like lions and tigers. Can you see lions and tigers being satisfied with eating what most domestic cats are fed? No, they are satisfied only with catching and eating raw meat. I know when my cats go outdoors they catch mice, chipmunks, and other assorted creatures, but I don’t expect them to live off of what they are able to catch outdoors. I provide them a diet of raw meat to eat when indoors, along with raw milk and water to drink.

For years, I fed my cats the same way most everyone else feeds theirs. I bought bags of dry food. Sometimes, I would treat them to some canned food. And I thought I was doing a great job with them. Some of them developed stomach problems and would throw up - a lot. The stomach problems increased until they would throw up every time they partook of the dry food. Soon they seemed to be throwing up more than they were consuming. My vet sold me pills that remedied this problem for a while, but it always came back. My cats had to be given medication to keep their food down. Not fun!

Then I did some research on cat food. Much to my surprise, I discovered that cat food really isn’t what nature intended for felines to eat. Nature intended for them to eat raw meat. Felines love nothing more than to hunt and catch their food! I couldn’t provide food for them to catch, so I did the next best thing. I provided the raw meat for them. They didn’t adjust to this easily, I mean, they were used to eating hard cat food. It didn’t happen overnight. It took months, but they did adjust to eating raw food.

What raw foods do I feed them? I have fed them raw burger, steak, fish, mackerel and salmon with the bones, chicken and chicken livers. After we brought home the cow to put in the freezer last year, they also ate parts of the pancreas, spleen and kidneys. They are so spoiled now that I doubt they would eat hard cat food if it was offered to them. They absolutely love it when I first bring home the raw milk and take some of the cream off the top and give to them.

Since their food is raw, it isn’t just left sitting out for them to eat whenever they so desire. I put food out for them 3 to 4 times a day. They are usually sitting around the food bowls waiting. My husband says they believe they are using mind control to tell me to put food and milk in their bowls. Who knows? Maybe they believe they control me, but I don’t put food down for them until it is time to do so.

My cats are extremely healthy and happy. No more throwing up, except for the occasional hairball. I don’t know who is happier about that, me or the cats.