Tiny Little Victories

As a result of all the cat-food recalling, I've been making moves toward getting the kitties on a new diet. After a lot (a LOT) of research, my eventual goal is to get them onto a diet of whole ground chicken, turkey, and rabbit, with bones and organs, and some whole chunks of meaty bones. The ground portions would be supplemented with assorted vitamins and trace mineral supplements...The only question, after all that research, is the most elementary one:

Would they eat it?

Preparatory to this experiment, we'd offered all three cats some raw turkey necks; only Cassidy and Snick would touch them. Cass was the most-enthused about the idea; he spent hours ripping and tearing and nibbling and gnawing. Snick took a few bites, then got finicky--apparently he only likes scrupulously-fresh meat, not anything that's been in the fridge more than a couple of hours. Since I intend to freeze the homemade food, the jury is still out as far as how he's gonna take that.

The one I was most worried about was Badcat. He's about 6, old enough to be set in his ways, and as an added problem he's got some dental issues that need a trip to the vet soon. He's the least-adventurous and most-neurotic of all the kitties, and I figured he'd be the worst to convert to anything new--especially when he left the turkey-neck completely alone, giving it a disdainful and thoroughly cat-like glare as he walked away.

One of the websites I've read (http://www.felinefuture.com) says to try finicky cats first on a mix of pureed cooked chicken and raw egg yolk; he says most cats will eat this without complaint. So today, when I stopped at the store, I picked up some chicken breasts (It's now official--the cats are eating better than we are!) with an eye to trying them on this early preparation before going into the purchasing of ground rabbit meat.

On a whim, though, I thought "maybe I'll skip the cooking part of this, and see if Badcat will eat the chicken raw." So I cut half a chicken breast into little nibble-sized bits, and offered one to BadCat.

He responded with a hearty SLURP, reminiscent of a toddler's first encounter with spaghetti-noodles, and gave me an eager look.

I went back into the kitchen and picked up another nibble. This one was a little larger, and required a moment or two of licking and nosing-around before the SLURP was repeated. And then there was much paw-licking, and contented sofa-snoozing, and all the general signs of a cat who may, after all, not be as finicky about all this as I thought he was going to be.

There will be a short wait before I can ascertain whether the other two will be as tractable; they're currently asleep in Tim's room, in a cat-human nap pile. What a way to spend a Sunday!!