Is Your Cat Addicted to Roo?
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me their cat is raw fed, and then when I asked a few more questions... they revealed the diet was plain roo... welI... would be sipping cocktails on a beach somewhere counting my cash.
Somewhere along the way, plain kangaroo seems to have earned this reputation as the raw feeding answer. Especially in breeder circles, it gets recommended over and over again. New owners hear it from breeders, owners hear it from other owners, and before long “feed roo” starts sounding like solid nutritional advice simply because it is repeated so often.
But plain roo is not a balanced diet.
It is just muscle meat. And muscle meat alone, no matter how “clean” or “natural” it sounds, does not provide everything a cat needs. It does not have the right calcium to phosphorus balance, it is missing key nutrients, and it is not complete. So when someone says they are feeding raw, but what they really mean is they are feeding plain roo, those two things are not the same.
That is not balanced raw feeding. That is an incomplete diet.
And roo has another problem too. It is perhaps the leanest of proteins and should never be fed as a stand alone protein, even in a balanced diet. It is simply too lean to carry the whole diet on its own.
Even when a diet is properly supplemented, relying on roo alone as the only protein source is still not ideal because cats need more than just amino acids and added nutrients on paper. They need an appropriate overall nutritional profile, and that includes enough animal fat.
Fat is not some optional extra. It matters. Roo is often treated like it is the gold standard because it is lean, but lean does not automatically mean better for cats. That is human diet culture creeping into feline nutrition, and cats are not tiny people in fur coats.
Then there is the fact that many cats become very addicted to roo.
Some absolutely love it. They can get very fixed on it and start refusing other foods, which only adds to the myth that roo must be the perfect food. But a cat being obsessed with something does not make it nutritionally complete. It just means it is tasty to them. Those are not the same thing.
So now you have an unbalanced meat that is too lean, often overused, and sometimes difficult to move cats away from once they get hooked on it. That does not make it evil. It just means it is not the miracle answer it is often made out to be.
Roo can absolutely have a place in feline nutrition. It can be useful as a novel protein. It can be helpful in the right context. It can be included in a properly balanced diet. But plain roo in a bowl is not a complete feeding plan, and roo as the only protein in the diet is not ideal either.
This is one of those areas where raw feeding can sound right without actually being right.
Feeding raw is not just about handing over a bowl of meat. It is about balance. Proper minerals. Proper vitamins. Enough fat. Enough variety where appropriate. A diet that is actually designed to support the cat, not just fill the bowl.
So when someone says their cat is raw fed, I always think it is worth asking one more question.
Balanced raw?
Or just roo?
Or just roo?