Okay here goes.  I am looking for some opinions and suggestions. Especially from those of you who have or know of persian cats!   I have 2 seven year old purebred persians, one male, one female, not related.  I adopted them around 6 months.  You could say I rescued them, I did not buy them.  They have been raised on cheap dry Whiskas for 5 years then I learned that corn as the main ingredient was not good so I switched to Purina Cat Chow! ( which has chicken by-products)  They also got Pounce treats  and Purina Luv treats daily (I broke them up into smaller pcs and they would stand up to get them)  I am absolutely disgusted with myself at the lack of knowledge I had about what I was feeding them.  Please dont berate me.  I have beaten myself up enough.   Heres the thing.  I have been researching and researching everything about what is the best things to feed my family. Most boughten food, even the expensive stuff has some unnecessary questionable stuff in it.   I have decided clearly that I would like them to be on raw food! I have my fair share of questions yet about that, however from what I have been reading on here, there are lots of resources at my fingertips.    My problem and questions are, how the heck do I get from dry cheap junk to raw?  How long is a reasonable time to take to do this?  You see my cats will not eat any human food, never have, they could care less.  They dont care about canned salmon  or tuna or anything raw!  My female in the past had ate a smidgen of tuna with mayonaise , it has to be white and creamy!  ( This was out of my sandwich) They also will only lick canned food. They dont eat it!   Is it because of there flat faces and it is difficult for them?   I find that it is quite a big deal when they drink water.  It has to be in a large container and fresh and etc. etc. I have gotten them to eat a few gobbs if its on my finger and I feed it like a treat.    Sense the recall I have stopped all treats and as of yesterday no more Cat Chow.  I started by mixing the Cat Chow with Summitt dry from Petcurian.  It had corn gluten meal in it however but it was affordable and way better than what they were on. Now I want them off that too.  Soooo I started with this grain free Orijan from championpetfoods.com which my female has decided she likes.  My male absolutely is having none of it.  Furthermore he is losing weight cause he hates the other stuff (Summitt with Cat Chow) and he wont eat the grain free even if I pretend its a treat. I also tryed a new dry from Eagle Pack Holistic Select  Chicken Meal and Rice, my male will eat a bit of that if he is starved.   I have been trying to feed them wet food. Felidine and Eagle Pack and Merrick brands from the health food pet store.  They only lick at it.  It took 3 days for 2 cats that weigh over 12 lbs each to eat one 5.5 oz can.  I offered it morning and night, took all food away in between , made sure they were real hungry.  What can I do?  I bought some stuff to make homemade the other day but am thinking now, it might be months before I can teach and retrain them to eat it. What do you guys think?  I really think it has something to do with the fact they have these flat faces and maybe different jaws, etc.  They kind of lick up there dry food on the bottom of there tongues,  thats why I think the shape has to be just so.  How the heck can I get them to raw???  and how long will it take?  I want them on it today!! I think I am going about it way too fast probably but because of the food scare I want them off commercial food asap.  My male friends think I am nuts.  They say just put out what you want them to eat, and they will eat it when they are hungry enough.  Period.  I am bewildered.     

Marimanu,

Not sure if your reply was meant for me but I received it.  I do not feed my cats ANY treats anymore.  Nor do I feed the junk cat food. I am presently at the stage of one cat it is a high quality grain free dry, Orijan, from championpetfoods.com  and the other is eating a bit of Eagle Pack Holisist Select Chicken and Rice.  I have been trying to get them to eat wet food as well and all they do is lick it.  These were reccomendedby the owner of the health food store for pets I visited who is a friend of a friend.  MY goal is to  get my cats on raw.  Its not about getting the stuff.  Its about getting them to eat it. I am going to buy the felinefuture when I can get the cats to that stage.    and thanks for confirming I am on the right track as the other website with info I will try is catnutrition.org   My experience has been that they are very fussy, and are refusing to eat the wet food, even when very hungry.  My questions are not WHAT to feed, its how to get them to eat.  And also if anyone else has had problems with persians and there eating perhaps because of the shape of there faces?  I bought some chicken hearts and livers the other day and gave them each a pc to try.  No way!  I am sure they have been addicted to the dry food, however I am wondering if the fact they are persians could be making it that much more difficult for me to convert them?  Thanks again for confirming that I am choosing a raw food way that I am comfortable with. 

Lil Bears Momma,
Hey thanks for the advice.  I was reading over your earlier posts on this thread this morning.  I will check out those yahoo groups.  I also read a link from Amy, It gave me a lot of info and mainly that it takes time!  3 months is not unusual I guess.  I had read way back when about how to get started switching, such as no free feeding, regular meal time, which I chose 2 times a day, then gradually mix in some new with the old and so on.  Thats how I got them off the Cat Chow.  It took about 2 weeks or more.  They still do not really like the better quality dry I am feeding but will eat it eventually.  It is getting it to the canned stage, then to the homemade, then raw. I used to be a chef, so I know all about cooking properly and safely, and in fact I enjoy learning new things and trying them out so I am not concerned about the work involved. I must have spent the entire month of April researching out about what kind of raw diet I wanted them to be on! I was very scared to try it, but now I think it is a no brainer.  So fingers crossed that my babies can get there without getting sick on any of this stuff they are still on.  OH and I am so so sorry about the loss of your cat. I lost my 12 years old Westie dog a few years ago to acute renal failure.  My vet had him on the prescription diet lamb and rice becuase he was having allergy problems, next thing you know they are tellling me he has renal problems, never had any before the food switch. Hindsight tells me that it could very well have been the food. Spent thousands and went without for myself, for over 3 years to no avail.  Hardest thing to date I have ever had to go thru and I have only the deepest empathy and sympathy for any pet parent who loses there loved one.    Because of this recall and the internet I have learned so much about animal nutrition. So  I hope my present family will live a long healthy life because of me not dispite me.   

Any ideas on how to get a cat to start eating a raw diet? I'm not too familiar with essential vitamins/minerals for cats, other than taurine.

I want to begin feeding my Ragdoll mix -- Sophie -- a raw diet (at least part time), but whenever I offer any meat to her (other than the Sheba real chicken and duck canned) she covers it with the nearest blanket or toy -- anything she can find -- and walks away, disgusted. I just switched her over to Innova Evo dry, but would like to find a fresh alternative to her canned food. I had her on Katz-N-Flocken for a little bit (half a bag's worth), but she didn't like it, and I want to get my dogs off Solid Gold as well, since I've heard  on Itchmo that it's made at the Diamond Food plant.

Thanks, Kaffe. I hadn't thought of trying that with her, but maybe if the kibble's not available all the time, she'll be more inclined to try the healthy stuff when I offer it to her. I usually just leave a bowl of kibble around and supplement with the canned stuff.

I'm glad to know that you're making progress -- it's a good start! It's great to see so many people on these boards switching to raw or other homemade diets. In other countries, people would never feed the junk kibble that is so common in the U.S.; in Holland, they feed fresh tripe.

Thanks again, and good luck getting your cats off the kibble addiction.

Hi everybody,

Well, still no luck in getting Sophie to eat raw food -- she won't touch it. I even offered some canned salmon (human grade) to her, but she just sniffed it and walked away...good news is the dogs were thrilled to eat her share. LOL. I've tried taking away her kibble while I offer meat to her, but she's still not interested, and soon I cave and just give her kibble back. I even put a bit of the canned food she likes on top of the raw meat, but she shows no interest.

Blah.....