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 [log in to unmask]