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Does anyone have experience with cats (or other animals) on raw diets? My cat eats dry food now but I'm seriously considering switching him to a raw diet. It would have to be the preprepared frozen kind as I don't have the time to make it myself. Advice?

Prepared frozen is about as good as dry food. It losses a lot of the good stuff being frozen. A good raw diet wool include everything an animal needs but also mimic a "wild" diet with the bone and fat and everything intact.

I've seen frozen food that advertises as being composed exclusively of meat, organs, and bones though. I imagine that'd be better than dry food that's full of carbs they don't need?

Well my cats enjoy hard, moist and sometimes raw protein. Not every cat will take, out my six cats I have only one cat who WILL turn her nose up at moist and tease for hard. Meanwhile, her mom likes egg yolk and hamburger meat raw. But to be fair she'd eat anything. Im pretty sure that if I tried putting them on a strictly raw diet I'd have some hungry chubbies. If its a weight concern, there's a science diet dry cat food they're little yellow triangles our cats lost weight on it and didnt hate it. As for coat shinies my old fart had egg yolk(cooked) and yes milk ever since she started living with us when she was a kit. She has the shiniest and most waterproof coat I have ever seen on a feline. o-o I've bathed her on occasions.

The best part of the bone is the marrow. Freezing drys that out. I'm not saying it's bad. It is still good but I recommend picking a food you can get easily and then researching it. Look for reviews, complaints, recalls, detailed ingredients, where these ingredients come from. =]

Don't forget raw is extremely high in protein and if not watched closely you cat will gain tons of weight.

Flicka, my cat eats everything so I'm not too worried about him switching over. He prefers wet food to dry so I think he'd really like the raw. It's not a weight or coat issue, or any other issue for that matter that made me think about switching. I'm more concerned with overall how healthy a diet I can give him. I'm just not a fan of all the carbohydrates in dry food, even the grain free kind. I figure if I'm gonna take him off dry food I may as well go raw rather than to canned. Might as well go all the way, you know?

Thanks to both of you for the advice! I need all the help I can get!

Raw is so much better for your cat then canned food. No one should feed that to their pets -gag-

Canned food is better than dry and raw is better than canned, but with this in mind. Your cats need taurine to function. Taurine is most present in items such as beef hearts and organs. Getting my cats to eat these was a chore and I had them eating most meat. You will need to buy supplements and know the weight of your pets to know how much to feed them. Start your animals on chicken wings, like the cut, not the leg-wing mix that people call chicken wings. The bones are so fine in them that your pets can eat them without having developed the strong jaws and tongue that they will need to develop for larger cuts of meat and large bones. Feed them chicken hearts as first organs. Most pets like them. Cats also LOVE rabbit, but won't be able to manage to bones early on. Viola, organs, bones and meat for the beginner kitty. Sprinkle it with powdered kibbles, parm cheese or even cheesies if your pet won't eat the raw meat. Cut it up for them (don' cut chicken wings) in the earlier stages until they learn to tear meat with their teeth(takes a few months, in my experience) For the life of me, I couldn't get my cats to eat raw fish, although my dog ate whole raw fish and loved it. So much for cats loving fish, but yours might! Keep in mind that your pet will not get the illnesses we get from eating raw meat. Cats can eat carrion, humans can't eat meat that hasn't been cooked. We're vastly different in that respect.

Sadly I have no insight on a raw diet, but before I even got my cat I did research into foods with the help of someone who takes care of animals daily, and the foods i'm on now i'm fairly satisfied with. I would never think of feeding her Whiskas or Felix or any of that commercial garbage.

I feed my cat Porta 21 dry food (made sure to look for taurine!), and almo nature wet food each day, Pandora loves both of them (the wet food comes in a wide range of flavours and what few ingredients there are are listed). The vet agreed what we feed her is good food and she's healthy so as long as she's happy with it I am too ^^ Just hope we can acquire this food or better once we move back to the UK. (Have heard good things about Applaws so may try that if can find it)