Gatsby, Ben, Betty, Trish,

The holisticat site and listerve can be accessed through their home page at
www.holisticat.com

They have lots of recipes and information on vaccines in their archives.
It's a fairly comprehensive site.

I used to vaccinate my cats yearly, thinking this was the responsible thing
to do.  Now I see how much damage it did to my cats, I even saw it at the
time, only I didnt know that was the cause.  I think that yearly shots are
way over vaccinating.  I have a couple of mixed feelings about vaccinating
kittens depending on the type of vaccination, company, method, cat's
lifestyle, etc.  Expecially if you have an indoor cat.  I think it:s
probably not necessary at all, but lets say that if you did vaccinate once,
definitely consider it good for life.  Of course this may be illegal
depending on where you live.

As a minimum, never vaccinate a cat that is exhibiting any kind of illness,
allergy, nervous problem, etc.

BARF is popular among holisticat subscribers.  So is feline future--they
have a recipe I basically followed at first, it is easy to make.  They are
at www.felinefuture.com  Other similar recipes are in the archives at
holisticats site.

To start, you can cut a few little pieces of raw chicken (white meat
probably would be preferred) and mix it into the cat:s existing food.  Say
1/4 the first week, 1/3 the second, 1/2...until it's 100 percent.  A
balanced recipe of whole ground bird (feathers optional!) is best in the
end, but this would be a start.

Give a raw chicken leg or wing as a treat every once in a while and watch
them turn into a lion!  Really cats chew stuff off of bones naturally.  And
it cleans their teeth, naturally.

You must remove any uneaten food within 1 hour of serving.  This is hard to
do at first if you are used to leaving out food all day. You will think they
started to hate you maybe and take it personally, but it really is necessary
in making the smooth transition to a completely raw diet, and also for
optimum health.

Most people recommend chicken or turkey.  I have also used beef, which my
cats like.  It seems many Paleo listers would have a lot of luck with rabbit
or venison as well.  From what I know, pork is not so good because the fat
molecules are too large or something...but probably the holisticatters would
benefit very much from some knowledgeable paleolisters when it comes to this
topic.  Many of the holisticatters are....vegitarians!

Gradually, over about 3 mos, I switched my cats.  They went through some
stages of rejection but I persisted.  I changed immediately to only feeding
twice a day and removing the food after 45 min or so.

Now, when I try to give a little canned or dry food they turn their nose up.
Thank goodness.  I succeeded.  It took patience, but I can never express how
happy I am with that one precious best thing I ever did for my them. My
overweight cat has lost a couple of pounds, too, almost where he should be.

Feel free also to mail me off list if you prefer, I hope you can try it and
see!

Judith
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