Hello. This is my first ever post on this forum so I'm very new to this so please bare with me.

I have two bengal cats from the same litter both 6 months old now. One male, named Ninja and one female, named Yolandi.

When I received the cats at 13 weeks old they were on a diet of canned royal canin and royal canin dry food. They seemed quite happy with this but after a while I kept hearing about the benefits of raw diets for bengals. So a couple weeks ago, armed with no knowledge I started to feed them either cooked chicken or tuna in the morning and leave kibble down for the rest of the day. Whilst I was doing this I started looking online about what I should actually be feeding them as I had the feeling that chicken and tuna surely couldnt give them everything they need despite the fact that they both went crazy for chicken!

I quickly came across this site and found some raw meat recipes but being that Im vegetarian the idea of chopping and mincing meat didnt really appeal to me, so I found a site that sells it pre-made (http://www.naturalinstinct.com) and placed an order. So now armed with a little bit of knowledge and the right type of food I set about the transition. But heres where Im confused. Ive read both on this site and others two conflicting statements. Ive read that you shouldnt feed raw meat and kibble to a cat in the same day as they digest them differently and that can cause them problems, but ive also read that if your transitioning there diet that you should slowly replace one spoonful of kibble with a spoonful of raw meat until there completely on raw.

I only come to you for advice now as my male bengal, Ninja, has today both loose stools and been sick and is also refusing to eat anything. My other bengal Yoalndi also threw up yesterday but im convinced it was just because she ate way too fast as her behaviour and appetite didnt change at all. They've both been eating raw for a week now. Ive been putting 30 grams of raw meat down in the morning, and another 30 grams in the evening for each cat, with a small handful of kibble down a couple times during the day. The reasoning behind these weights was that I was told you should feed 6 month old cats 4% of there body weight. My cats are between 3 and 4 kg so that would be between 120-160grams a day. So 60 grams of raw and the rest made up in kibble. Is this correct or should I be moving even slower? Or is there an a better alternative all together to transfer over.

If anyone has any advice on what im doing wrong, and how I should actually go about transitioning it would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advanced and additional thanks to all the wonderful information already on this site.

That's a really good question! I always recommend a slow transition so tummy upset doesn't occur. I have never had a kitty have problems eating kibble and raw in the same day and I do it relatively often!

There is a general process that comes with transitioning to raw. However it is somewhat dependent on how your kitten/cat reacts.

As you mention your kittens were on wet & dry, the first step would be to eliminate the dry.

Once on wet food only, after a week or two (time really is dependent on checking stools for issues) you can slowly start to mix in raw, gradually decreasing the wet, still checking for issues with stools.

For kittens/cats on dry only, it's usually recommended that you switch to wet to get them used to the different texture of food. However, if prepared to do so, you could try them with a small chunk/slither of raw chicken first, and see if they eat it, or present two different bowls, one with wet, one with raw chicken, and leave them down for 30-45 min and see what's left. If you find your kitten/cat will take to raw without wet, then you can save yourself the whole step of transitioning to wet, then again to raw.

Our four boys went from dry only, to natures menu, to natural instinct, to home made raw chunks. Now they won't even touch natural instinct.

In your position I'd try to phase out the 'kibble' and increase the raw. If you can feed 3-4 meals a day even better, kittens are encouraged to eat as often as they want while growing, for that reason the 3-5% of weight 'rule' is more of a 'guideline' until they get to 18 months - 2 years old, then it becomes more of a rule.

Another note, is on raw, you'll see their bodyweight change faster, if for example they begin to look 'podgy' you can reduce their daily food weight by say 50g and you'll see the difference within 7-10 days, if the weight keeps dropping below their recommended, add 10-15g for another 7-10 days, until it levels out. This general process should help you keep your furries at a good weight, without too much hassle.

Lastly, try not to worry about them starving during the day, and feeling like you 'need' to leave kibble down. They maybe more hungry later in the day, but you can feed them slightly more.

A quick routine for our four, approximately;

7am - 60g each
4pm - 125g each
9pm - 60g each

@ 8.5 months old, Titan is 5.3kg, Vega is 4.7kg, Sirius & Nyx are 4.3kg