Good afternoon everyone,

I recently became the owner of 2 bengals (brother and sister)! Came across this site frequently during my research on the breed and thought I should become a part of the community.

The male bengal is called Diego and he was very small when we got him (he's caught up now), so I think he was the runt of the litter. He did, of course, make up for his size by being extremely adventurous. When we opened the door on the carrier in our house, I think he achieved Mach III while investigating the room! He's very rough while playing (using teeth and claws) but is otherwise pretty well behaved.

The female is called Phoebe and is far more conservative. However, when she has scoped the room out, she is even more confident than Diego and has the better muscles for climbing/jumping up things, people included! She is also pretty well behaved.

We were told by the breeder that they were fed pouches and raw food. When we got them, they had pouches only, but quickly realised this was causing them both upset stomachs. We switched to pouches in the morning, raw chicken breast/thigh in the evening which has improved the situation but not resolved it. We received an order from Raw To Go yesterday (very helpful and friendly!) to switch back to a raw-only diet but it hasn't met much success today. First meal (Pheasant) was reluctantly eaten and the "Choice Chunks" at noon were flat out refused! I think the straight switch was an optimistic, but bad move and will be re-introducing it in a more gentle method (treats, then partial mix with meals until fully back to raw).

Other than this, the only issue is Phoebe seems to regularly pee on our bed (the bedroom is their "safe room"). It happened the first day and didn't happen for a few weeks after that, but came to be a regular occurrence since it started again (3 occurrences so far). The only thing it seems to correlate with is spending more time in our living room. We've since added a litter box to the living room to see if that helps and brought a waterproof mattress cover in case it doesn't!

I will post some photos of them later on today and look forward to meeting you all!

Hi and welcome to the forum Your kitties sound like great little personalities!

In regard to the upset tummies I would recommend getting them tested for parasites especially TF before trying to switch diets as it can be quite common in Bengals, TF needs a PCR test that is sent of to a lab for diagnosis so you will probably have to specifically request that the vet includes this for you and doesn't just test for gardia etc.

A raw diet can be great but I would advise you to add taurine powder to their meals if you are planning to use only food from Raw to Go as they don't add it to their mixes and taurine is essential for cats to maintain a healthy heart.

Do you know if your kittens were raised in the home and had full access to all areas of the house? Inappropriate peeing can sometimes be due to being unfamiliar with soft furniture such as duvets and cushions which can feel similar to litter to kittens who have not come across them before. Alternatively it could be due to stress or a UTI, if your vet rules out an infection you could try a feliway diffuser and make sure that you thoroughly wash anywhere that has been weed on with an enzyme cleaner such as urine off to get rid of all of the smell. The ideal number of litter boxes is one more than the number of cats so in your case you should have 3 litter boxes available at all times. If she is over 4 months old it may even be due to her entering maturity, some Bengals can start callingas early as 4-5 months and the girls can spray as well as boys!

Please post lots of photos, we love pictures here!

I think Jenda said it all...

So i will say 'Hello' and

Your kittens are very cute and have the 'worried bengal' look mastered perfectly... My Max does this almost all the time

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Lollo

We came back this evening from getting them some food and litter to find that they had unscrewed the pull-switch pendant for the light switch in our bedroom and took it somewhere. We still haven't found it... 3 hours later.

Personality indeed!

NOTE: The pendant is far too big for them to eat, so we're not worried about them choking on it or anything like that.

Hi, they are gorgeous!

My two kittens both began suffering from diarrhoea and have tested positive for TF. It is taking a long time all in all, to get the test results then having to wait for the treatment to arrive. In the meantime my vet suggested Canikur (it is a dietary supplement for dogs but you can crumble up small amounts into the cats' food). It is really helping to make them more solid while we await the treatment. Very pleased about this as they were getting quite bad.

Good luck, hope they are ok!

I feed raw. None of mine would eat raw to go. They like Woldsway. Different cats like different types I guess also they wouldn't touch pheasant when I tried it it does smell really strong. Try chicken, I think they'll take to that better. Mine prefer the one I make myself.

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