Before you read on: if your pet has eaten raw or frozen-raw food and is showing any of the symptoms below, contact your vet immediately.

By Morgan Reyes

The Short Answer

Cooking to 165°F kills H5N1 in pet food. Freezing does not. That single distinction is the reason raw and frozen-raw diets carry a real, current, confirmed risk that heat-processed food doesn't, and it's the detail most "just cook it" coverage of this topic leaves out.

What's actually happened: the recalls, dated and named

FDA's own CVM Update confirms the most serious case directly. A cat was euthanized after whole-genome sequencing found the H5N1 in the cat and in specific lots of RAWR Raw Cat Food Chicken Eats (lots CCS 25 093 and CCS 25 077) traced to "a common source of contamination." FDA's own lab work identified the strain as genotype B3.13, the same lineage responsible for the broader 2024-2025 dairy-cattle and poultry outbreak.

Wild Coast Raw, based in Olympia, WA, recalled its Boneless Free Range Chicken Formula on March 1, 2025, across specific lot numbers, over possible H5N1 contamination.

Here's the correction most coverage of this topic gets wrong: not every recall in this category means the product was actually contaminated. Savage Pet's recall was precautionary, triggered by two separate cat illness cases. FDA's own record states plainly that confirmatory NVSL testing on the product came back negative, and "this recall has been completed and FDA has terminated this recall." Grouping Savage Pet with the two confirmed cases above would misstate what actually happened. It's a real, honest distinction worth knowing: a precautionary recall is a genuinely different thing from a confirmed-contamination one, even when both make the same headline.

Why raw specifically carries this risk, and the freezing nuance

The mechanism is straightforward, and it's the reason format matters more than almost anything else in this specific risk. The CDC states directly that "the proper handling and cooking of poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165°F kills bacteria and viruses, including H5N1 bird flu viruses." A USDA/ARS controlled study went further, inoculating ground beef with a very high H5N1 load and finding no detectable virus after cooking to 145°F or 160°F; even cooking to a rare 120°F "substantially inactivated" it.

Freezing does not do the same thing, and that's the detail worth sitting with. A 2025 peer-reviewed review (Sykes et al., Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine) states this directly, and specifically recommends veterinarians provide owners "handouts that identify appropriate alternatives, such as commercial heat-processed foods or home-cooked diets" precisely because freezing alone doesn't solve the problem. That matters because "raw" in practice very often means frozen raw, not fresh raw, and a framing that only tells you to worry about unfrozen product would miss most of what's actually on shelves.

Why cats specifically are vulnerable is also mechanistic, not incidental. The same review explains cats carry both α-2,3-Gal and α-2,6-Gal sialic acid receptors, the molecular docking points influenza viruses use to infect cells, which makes cats a plausible host for this particular virus in a way that isn't true of every species. Reported cat mortality in affected cases runs 50 to 70 percent.

Symptoms to watch for, and what to do

Watch for lethargy, loss of appetite, fever, difficulty breathing, and neurological signs including seizures, tremors, or loss of coordination. Given the 50-70% mortality rate in reported cases, any of these symptoms following raw or frozen-raw food consumption is a call-your-vet-now situation, not a wait-and-see one.

Check whether your specific product is affected. This site's own recall-tracking guide covers the actual mechanisms for staying current, including FDA's free email subscription for animal food recalls, so you're not relying on checking a page manually after the fact.

The general raw-feeding evidence, briefly

The H5N1 risk above is specific and current; the broader raw-feeding evidence debate is older and separate from it. That wider question, nutrient completeness, bacterial contamination risk generally, and the evidence for and against raw diets as a category, is a larger topic than this guide's current-safety focus and is covered honestly rather than glossed over here: raw feeding carries real, ongoing food-safety tradeoffs beyond this specific virus, and choosing a format is a genuinely separate decision from the immediate H5N1 question this guide addresses.

Bottom line: cooking to 165°F kills H5N1 in pet food; freezing does not, which is the central reason raw and frozen-raw diets carry a real, current, confirmed risk. Of the three most-discussed 2025 recalls, RAWR was confirmed by genetic sequencing to match an infected, euthanized cat; Wild Coast Raw was recalled over possible contamination; Savage Pet's recall was precautionary and the product tested negative on confirmation, a distinction worth keeping straight. Watch for lethargy, appetite loss, fever, breathing difficulty, and neurological signs, and treat any of them as an immediate-vet situation given the reported mortality rate.

FAQ

Is raw cat or dog food safe right now, with bird flu going around?

Raw and frozen-raw food carry a real, confirmed H5N1 risk that cooked food doesn't; freezing does not inactivate the virus. See the full mechanism above.

Were all the recent raw pet food recalls confirmed to contain bird flu?

No. RAWR was confirmed by genetic sequencing; Savage Pet's recall was precautionary and the product tested negative. See the full recall breakdown above.

What are the symptoms of H5N1 in a cat, and what should I do?

Lethargy, appetite loss, fever, breathing difficulty, and neurological signs; treat any of these as an immediate-vet situation given the reported 50-70% mortality rate.

Keep reading

• Pet Food Recalls: How to Find Out Fast, and What to Do. The actual mechanisms for staying current on the next recall.

A Note on Scope

This guide summarizes published recall records and peer-reviewed research on H5N1 in raw pet food. It is not veterinary advice. If your pet is showing any symptoms described above, contact your vet immediately.

Sources

• FDA, CVM Update on RAWR Raw Cat Food Chicken Eats. Fetched via web.archive.org 30 July 2026 (fda.gov hard-blocks direct fetch in this research environment). Source for the genetic-match/euthanasia claim and lot numbers.
• FDA, Wild Coast Raw recall notice. Fetched via web.archive.org 30 July 2026.
• FDA, Savage Pet recall notice. Fetched via web.archive.org 30 July 2026. Source for the negative-test/terminated-recall correction.
• Sykes, et al., "Companion animals and H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza: cause for concern?", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 263(11), 2025. Fetched directly 30 July 2026. Source for cat mortality rate, the sialic-acid-receptor mechanism, and the freezing-does-not-inactivate-the-virus finding.
• CDC, H5N1 low-risk-to-public guidance. Fetched via web.archive.org 30 July 2026. Source for the 165°F cooking statement.
• USDA APHIS/ARS meat-safety research. Fetched via web.archive.org 30 July 2026. Source for the controlled cooking-temperature study.
• USDA APHIS domestic-cat H5N1 detections dataset, archived 7 August 2025. Source for the year-over-year detection counts.