The best source of information on raw feeding, in our humble opinion, is the Australian Raw Fed Cats facebook group. Here you will find a treasure trove of information and extremely responsive support on how to feed your cat properly, to give them the best chance for a long and healthy life.

This Facebook group is administered by Raw Meow, a Perth-based business selling a variety of raw food options. While the group is administered by this business, a large variety of other healthy food brands are often discussed and recommended, ensuring there is something for all budgets and tastebuds. Raw Meow have a huge library of information on their own website too, which is well worth the time to read.

“Complete” foods are those are are fully balanced and suitable for everyday feeding. All foods under the Complete category in our search tool meet the AAFCO requirements of a nutritionally complete and balanced meal.

“Incomplete” foods are those that don’t contain everything a cat needs nutritionally, and are intended to be fed alongside (or as an ingredient in) a complete meal. These are usually things such as treats, toppers and other supplemental foods.

If you are making your own DIY raw food, such as by using a meal completer product like Raw Meow Mix, you must adequately prepare the fresh meat for raw consumption. But fear not – it’s very easy to do.

Meat, including human-grade meat, can harbour parasites. The best way to eliminate them is by storing them in very low temperatures – in essence, freezing the meat prior to feeding.

Most raw feeders will purchase their meats and soon thereafter create a batch of raw food for their cat. That food is then divided into daily portions and placed into the freezer to begin the process of killing any harmful bacteria, before being thawed again as needed for serving.

As a rule of thumb, farmed meats require a minimum of 3 days in the freezer before consumption, whilst wild-caught/game meats require a minimum of 3 weeks in the freezer. There are exceptions to this rule, such as pork, which although is a farmed animal, requires at least 3 weeks in the freezer to ensure Trichinella is eliminated (even though Trichinella has not so far been found in Australian pork).

A few other meat types, such as goat or emu, can fall under both the farmed or wild-caught categories. If you are unsure as to the source of the meat, it’s best to err on the side of caution and freeze them for at least 3 weeks.

Furthermore, any bones you may feed, such as necks and wing tips, or organs such heart, giblets/gizzards, tongue etc, must be frozen for the same timelines as above, depending on which animal the bone or organ is from.

Refer to this post from the Australian Raw Fed Cats facebook group for a full list of meats and their recommended freezing times.

They’re actually, surprisingly, no more expensive than most other food types. In fact, dehydrated foods are often cheaper than many wet foods.

Certain products require you to either add water to them at home (such as bone broth & freeze dried foods), or feed them in much smaller portions due to them not containing much/any water (such as air dried foods).

For example, if your cat normally eats a 60g meal of wet food (which typically contains around 75% water), the nutritionally and calorically equivalent amount of air dried or freeze dried food that you would feed your cat would be around 15g (though this can vary depending on the food manufacturer, so be sure to always check the feeding guide on the packaging).

Therefore, wet food would seem a lot cheaper if you only compared them by the product weight. But once you factor in the missing water and serving size differences, it comes out much more even.

That’s why our search tool will show you both the actual and the equivalent weights.

In our search results, the Equivalent cost per 100g and Equivalent Total weight values next to dehydrated food types show the cost per 100g and the total weight of food you could make from the product after you add the manufacturer’s recommended amount of water, or factor in the reduced portion sizes that you would need to feed your cat when compared to foods that already contain water. This way you can fairly compare wet and dehydrated foods.

When sorting by price, our tool compares dehydrated foods to wet foods by using the equivalent weight, so that you can fairly compare them.

Depsite the popular notion that cats eat fish, it is actually not a natural food source for them. Fish can be problematic for many cats for three main reasons:

• In modern times, fish is unfortunately a very contaminated food source more often than not. You can read more about fish contaminants here.
• Fish is inflammatory – a bit like sugar is for humans. This can lead to sometimes severe and life-threatening health problems. For example, fish is considered by many to be one potential cause of urinary blockages (FLUTD), predominantly in male cats. Many cat parents report that removing fish from the diet has greatly improved or resolved this issue entirely.
• Due to the strong smell, cats love fish. This can lead to cats favouring this food source and rejecting others – leading to an unbalanced diet and a frustrating amount of food wastage.

We strongly recommend only feeding fish to your cat in very small amounts (if at all) such as a topper on their regular food to help entice fussy eaters. We also recommend sticking to oily fish types only, such as salmon or sardines.

It’s often more likely that your cat doesn’t trust their new food, rather than just not like it. Transitioning cats to a new type of food usually needs to be done slowly. Simply add a little of the new food to the side of their regular meal. Then, over time, increase the portion size of the new food, while decreasing the amount of their old food, until you’ve fully swapped over. This process could take days, weeks or even months – it all depends on the individual cat.

You can further entice them by using a topper. A topper is usually a freeze dried treat that can be crumbled over their meals. Many cat owners add topper on a permanent basis, to make meals more exciting. Rotating through various types of topper will add variety at meal time, and your cats will thank you for it! Pretty much any of the Treat/Topper options in our search tool will do the trick, but a common favourite is freeze dried chicken breast.

Another great option for fussy eaters is to add a little Bone Broth to their meals. You’ll find a few bone broth options in our search tool also.

For further reading, you can find a comprehensive guide on transitioning your cat to a raw diet here.

All of the options in our food search tool will tell you if a food is appropriate for a kitten or an adult cat. Most options are suitable for all life stages, but some brands have dedicated options for kittens and cats.

But when does a kitten become a cat?

Generally, a cat is a kitten until they reach one year of age. If they are a large breed, such as Maine Coon, British Shorthair or Ragdoll, they will need to remain on kitten-appropriate options until two years of age.

No. We decided not to factor in auto-delivery/subscription pricing. Ideally, cat owners should be regularly mixing it up between different brands and flavours, and not reordering the same item on repeat.

And while it might still make sense to have some key components of your cat’s diet reordered regularly, we felt that the search tool would become too cluttered with multiple prices for different ordering methods.

Finally, if a store is offering the cheapest once-off order price, they’ll likely also be offering the cheapest auto-delivery/subscription price too.