Blue Ridge Beef Raw Food
We are a strong advocate for raw meat as part of your kitten/cat’s daily diet. We have fed raw meat to all of our cats and kittens for quite a while and love the musculature, coat texture, strong immune system and overall health we see in development.
There are many kinds of raw diets to consider. I realize this may be a new concept to some but below are several resources for investigation.
- Benefits of a Raw Diet for Cats – Feline Nutrition Foundation
- Feeding Raw: A Veterinarian’s View – The Conscious Cat
- Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life – by Elizabeth M. Hodgkins, D.V.M, Esq., author (paperback available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.)
- Raw Feeding Veterinary Society
Most raw diets are available in frozen form and can be ordered online as well as found in specialty pet food markets. Some products are ‘meat only’ and some are ‘complete diets.’ We have found it useful and economical to use a partial raw diet, meaning that we combine raw meat with canned food and vitamins.
The raw meat we use is from Blue Ridge Beef. This particular brand is used by many, many breeders and pet owners. We obtain it from a distributor in Chantilly, VA, called Best In Show Naturals. The main distributorship is co-located with the Blue Ridge Arsenal, 14725 K Flint Lee Road in Chantilly. But for convenience, they also make distribution stops at various places in Maryland, DC and VA throughout the month. For more information, I recommend their FAQS page and their Contact Us page. Oh, and the type of product we use and recommend for kittens is Kitten Grind – you’ll see it as one of their products.
Our ratio of raw meat to canned food is approximately half and half – half raw meat and half canned food. And for kittens, the part that is the canned food is usually a mixture of Fancy Feast Chicken Feast Classic mixed with Royal Canin Kitten Instinctive Thin Slices in Gravy.
In addition, we add a vitamin powder:
- DocRoy’s Daily Care Feline from Revival Animal Health
Why a vitamin? Well, it’s good insurance for your kitten/cat. All canned foods are processed and therefore lose some of their vitamin content. The addition of raw food content is very helpful and is boosted by the supplementation of vitamins, particular since the Kitten Grind is only the actual meat of the animal, not the organs and bones that would complete a natural diet as in the wild. The addition of the vitamins also helps ensure the kitten/cat is getting the Taurine they all need in their diet for healthy heart function. DocRoy’s Daily Care Feline is available exclusively on the Revival Animal Health website.