The Making of a Raw Fed Kitten with Darwin’s Natural Pet Food

I knew that I wanted Cupcake to be a raw fed kitten. I wanted her to have balanced, species-appropriate nutrition, so when the folks at Darwin’s Natural Pet Food gave us a chance to sample their premium raw cat food, I thought it was a great way to get Cupcake started on a raw diet.

Black and white tuxedo kitten with box of Darwin frozen raw cat food

Receiving Darwin’s Raw Cat Food By Mail

Darwin’s is a mail-order company, and one of my concerns was making sure the food arrived still frozen. Everyone knows that Florida is hot in the summers. On top of that, when I’m not home, food is delivered to my porch, which gets the full afternoon sun.

So I was really pleased to find that the box was lined on all sides with thick Styrofoam to insulate it. I was even happier to discover that there was still dry ice left inside, working hard to keep the food cold. As a result, the food was still frozen. Win!

black and white tuxedo kitten unboxing Darwin frozen raw cat food

The cat food is packaged really conveniently. Four vacuum sealed 1/2 lb amounts are attached to a perforated plastic sheet. That means each one holds 2 lb. That makes it easy to tell at a glance how much food you have on hand.

black and white tuxedo kitten looks at Darwin frozen raw cat food in packaging

What’s super convenient is that each 1/2 lb portion fits nicely into a 1 cup storage container. That allows me to thaw a portion overnight in the fridge in its original packaging. Once it’s thawed, it’s easy to store it safely while Cupcake eats it over the next couple days.

Darwin frozen raw cat food and bowl

Transitioning to Darwin’s Raw Cat Food

Starting Cupcake eating Darwin’s wasn’t hard. Kittens usually are happy to try new foods. She had a little bit of Darwin’s raw food on the side with her canned food meal, and slowly the amount of canned food became less at meals and the amount of raw became larger. Success! A healthy, happy, raw-fed kitten.

I don’t even like being in the kitchen to make my own meals, so having Cupcake eating raw cat food without my having to make it was great. I loved having my little obligate carnivore kitten eating a diet from a company I trusted to use the best ingredients to make a wholesome food for her. And the convenience of their grab-and-thaw packaging was just awesome. Happy, healthy Cupcake, and happy me, too.

black and white tuxedo kitten looks into freezer containing Darwin frozen raw cat food

Cupcake’s Setback

Then something happened that is the reason this review didn’t happen months ago. We ran out of our sample of Darwin’s raw cat food. This would never have happened if we had been enrolled in the Drawin’s home delivery program, since it is set up to ship to you on a schedule. But since Cupcake ate eating large, growing-kitten portions, we ran out of our sample more quickly than I expected.

This was when we discovered Cupcake wouldn’t eat any other raw food. She rejected the homemade raw I prepare for Newton for his unusual urinary pH needs. Then she rejected raw made another cat food company. Since a growing kitten has to eat something, I let her go back to eating canned food.

blackand white tuxedo kitten reaches under Darwin frozen raw cat food

I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet, though. I ordered some more Darwin’s food. The second transition didn’t go as easily as the first.

Cupcake would avoid the raw food paired with the canned food on her plate. When I put some raw food on top of the canned, she would eat through it, pushing it to the back of the bowl with her nose. She ended up wearing more on her face than she ate.

When Cupcake started eating some of the raw food again, we found she wasn’t keeping her meals down, which was puzzling. I finally tried giving her a full raw meal, and that stayed down. Her stomach apparently didn’t like meals mixing both raw and cooked ingredients! It turned out the biggest barrier to getting Cupcake eating raw food was her human being overcautious in transitioning her.

black and white tuxedo kitten eats Darwin Naturals food

So Cupcake is a happy, rambunctious raw-fed kitten again, and she loves her Darwin’s raw cat food meals. She knows they come from the refrigerator, and she comes running when you open the fridge to see whether you’re bringing out food for her.

How to Try Darwin’s Natural Raw Cat Food

If you want to try Darwin’s Natural Pet Products premium raw cat food for your cat, they offer a great trial offer for their food. You can get 10 lbs of their premium raw cat food for the price of shipping. It’s a great way to try raw food for your cat with very little financial commitment.

FTC Disclosure: We received this product for free in exchange for our honest opinion. The opinions in this review are my own and not influenced by any outsider. Sponsored posts always reflect our honest opinions and feature products we use ourselves and love.

Shop ’til you Drop

On the weekends, after she goes to the coffee shop to see her friends, Cupcake often does a little shopping. Sometimes she lets me carry her, but more often, she likes to ride on top of her carrier.

black and white tuxedo kitten rides her sleepypod carrier in pet store

She asks to stop various places around the store so can can get a better look at things. She especially likes to test the floor model cat trees. This one even had a feather toy attached to it. Fancy!

black and white tuxedo kitten looks at feather toy in pet store

There’s a lot to see in the pet store. Some of it is really exciting, like the hamsters and birds.

black and white tuxedo kitten looks at birds in pet store

Some of it is exciting in a different way. While Cupcake is allowed out of her shopping basket whenever she wants, she isn’t allowed to visit the display of looose cat litter.

black and white tuxedo kitten looks at cat litter in the pet store

If the humans take too long shopping around inside the store, Cupcake even fits in a nap before the cash register. This is how you shop to you drop, isn’t it?

black and white tuxedo kitten sleeps atop her carrier in pet store

Cupcake: Are you done now? Can we go home?

black and white tuxedo kitten lays atop carrier

Helping Repair the Screens

Our window screens were in bad shape. Really bad shape.

Newton: I could fit through that hole, for sure.

orange tabby cat looks at hole in window screen

The holes didn’t get there on their own. The neighborhood sand hill cranes like to peck at the windows, and once they make a small hole in the screen, they grab it and pull it out to make the hole even bigger. This resulted in some uncomfortably hot days in our house after hurricane Irma.

sand hill cranes

I decided to learn to fix them. It has been so hot outside that it wasn’t feasible to work on them there, so I threw a sheet down on the floor to use as a work space. Somebody thought I was just trying to play with her.

Cupcake: Did you need this stretched out? Let me help!

black and white tuxedo kitten bites excess screen

Cupcake: I’ll hold it down. You apply the tape.

Cupcake: I said apply tape, not touch my tail!

black and white tuxedo kitten lays on screen

Cupcake: Who says this is scrap? This is the good stuff!

black and white tuxedo kitten plays with scrap screen material

Even with all of the help, I managed to finish all but one screen. Now we just need cooler weather to come along so we can open those windows more often and not just in an emergency.

Calling the Tooth Fairy

As I mentioned in my previous post, the night before hurricane Irma was due, after the veterinarians and even the nearby veterinary emergency center had closed for the storm, Cupcake started acting strangely. She would play as normal, but whenever she wasn’t distracted, she would make funny faces and paw her own mouth.

Since she eats raw food that includes ground bone, my first thought was she had a bone chip between her teeth. There wasn’t going to be any professional help figuring this out, so I had to take a look myself.

Cupcake: I don’t want to open up!

blakc and white tuxedo kitten resists opening mouth

After some false starts since Cupcake really, really didn’t want to open up, we spotted blood all around the base of one of her premolars. That got us in the right general area to try to figure out what was going on.

cat mouth interior with bloody gum

The next step was to try to get a better look at that tooth to see if there was a piece of ground bone stuck next to it. Before we could do that, Cupcake shook her way free of the unwelcome attention.

Then she spit something onto the ground. On closer inspection, it was her tooth!

cat tooth

Cats start to lose their primary teeth around 1 weeks, and they finish with their adult teeth around week 24. Cupcake is right around 24 weeks, so this should be the last of premolars to fall out.

cat teeth schedule held by orange tabby cat

Cupcake stopped pawing at her mouth and obviously felt better as soon as the loose tooth was out of her mouth, so there want’s any need for her to go to the vet after all. All’s well that ends well, and we won’t forget about kitten baby teeth again!

Have you ever seen your kitty’s baby teeth fall out?

Research and further reading: DVM 360: Tooth eruption andexfoliation in dogs and cats