B.A.R.F. Diet

Sounds gross....Makes sense.

A few weeks ago I was reading about my cats online and thinking about their diet. I stumbles upon the site below. Reading it I realized that it made TOTAL sense. People tend to think of their pets as people...and feed them accordingly. The result is cats being fed grain-based diets that are NOTHING like what they would naturally eat in the wild.

I know...I know...cute little Meowbert and Marcus are NOT wild cats, but let's think about this. The cat as we know it arose approximately 20 million years ago. We humans didnt begin domesticating them until about 8000 years ago. Commercial cat food was only made available in the last 50 years or so. My point, you ask?

Cats are, by nature, obligate carnivores. Their natural prey is made up solely of small animals. Occasionally they eat some plant matter...but for the most part it's little critters. The term Obligate carnivore means they HAVE to eat this diet. Their bodies have evolved over 20 million years to run most efficiently on this diet. Period.

In comes the BARF diet. BARF stands for Bones And Raw Food....or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food. Basically it consists of raw ground muscle, organs and bone from appropriate food animals. We usually use chicken because it's readily available and cheap....but other sources are rabbit, turkey, duck, etc. The muscle meat, organs, bones etc are fed through a meat grinder and out comes a product that looks similar to raw hamburger. (scary thought huh? hehe)

We started feeding the BARF a couple weeks ago and the difference is amazing. Our animals are happier and healthier. The results were visible within hours of feeding them for the first time. Their tempraments have changed, their coats are softer and their eyes look brighter. We will never feed commercial cat food again.

Please visit the sites below for more information.

http://cats.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/rawfooddiet_2.htm

http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/animals.htm