Raw Diet Without Any Chicken?

Softmeows

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My cat has digestion issues and chicken allergy (raw, chicken organs and anything chicken in commercial foods). What can I put in her raw food? Seems that most raw food advocates use chicken or poultry and their organs as the main protein, but my cat itches like crazy after anything with chicken.
 

lisahe

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Our cats love pork, which we feed to them in commercial raw and home-cooked foods.
 
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Softmeows

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yes it looks like she is ok with pork, but I have read that even lean pork should not be the ongoing basis of protein but more of an an add on? How about organs and bones that can be used instead of poultry?
 

darg

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Can he tolerate Turkey? There isn't necessarily a cross intolerance between Turkey and Chicken although there could be and it's not unusual, depending on the individual cat. My IBD cat doesn't tolerate chicken but he is fine with Turkey. I make his homemade with turkey thighs. I use freeze dried turkey liver as the liver source as I cannot source fresh turkey liver locally.
 

Azazel

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Rabbit is a popular one if you have access to a good supplier. Turkey is also very good. You can rotate some red meats into it too.
 

daftcat75

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Rabbit is a popular one if you have access to a good supplier. Turkey is also very good. You can rotate some red meats into it too.
I wish my Krista liked red meats. There are so many exotics out there in the burger section: elk, wild boar, venison, and lamb, to name a few.

She doesn't have a chicken allergy but it does flare up her IBD. But turkey is different enough that she doesn't have an issue with turkey. Or duck.
 

lisahe

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I'm not sure what sort of recipe (or model? maybe you feed prey model?) you're using, Softmeows Softmeows , and I use premixes for my homemade food so don't have a lot in the way of answers to your question about organs and bone.

I can say, though, that lots of people use eggshell instead of bone -- A Azazel , I think you do, right? -- and that in addition to turkey liver, there's always beef liver, which is pretty readily available. A butcher shop might be able to help you with other organs.

I've never heard/read anything saying that it's not good to feed much pork so am very curious to know who advises that way... and why. If fat's the concern, pork products seem to vary a lot but at least it's easy to remove most/a lot of it from pork chops. And pork tenderloin (which our cats especially love because it's the most expensive!) is usually pretty low in fat.

Our cats have also liked lamb, which we used to feed them in certain canned food, but I've never looked hard enough to find affordable cuts that would be suitable for cat food.
 

Azazel

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Yeah, you can substitute eggshell calcium for bone or use the 80-10-10 rule (80% meat, 10% organs, 10% bones).

This page has more helpful info and explains how you can substitute the chicken recipe with other meats: feline-nutrition.org
 
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Softmeows

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I also posted my turkey recipe with eggshell here, and am hoping others will post their recipes too: Post Your Recipes! (with Pics!)
Thank you, I tried lean turkey today and she immediately had a liquid and very stinky diarrhea :( I think it is the entire poultry thing. She did not have this reaction to pork.
 

Azazel

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How immediate was the diarrhea? I ask because usually food doesn’t move through the digestive tract so fast that it would be immediate. What had he ate within the 2 days before the diarrhea occurred? Maybe it was the pork? Was he itchy after the turkey too? An allergic reaction like itching would be immediate.
 

Tobermory

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I've never heard/read anything saying that it's not good to feed much pork so am very curious to know who advises that way... and why. If fat's the concern, pork products seem to vary a lot but at least it's easy to remove most/a lot of it from pork chops. And pork tenderloin (which our cats especially love because it's the most expensive!) is usually pretty low in fat.
I wasn't feeding pork, either, because I had heard/read that it was best to stick to proteins that a cat might naturally find in the wild. But I've just searched my two main sources of information--catinfo.org and feline-nutrition-org--and all I can find is the following sentence from a page at the latter site: "Most people try to feed meat that is close to what cats would naturally be eating, so meat such as beef, which can cause allergic reactions in some cats, lamb and pork are used less often."

But I wanted more variety than just chicken and turkey, so I started feeding pork with EZ Complete a few months ago, and my cats like it. I know that the EZC website talks in positive terms about using pork.
 
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Azazel

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The only other thing I heard about pork was that it could be more susceptible to parasites. Not sure if that’s true though.
 

Tobermory

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The only other thing I heard about pork was that it could be more susceptible to parasites. Not sure if that’s true though.
FWIW, here's what Laurie of EZ Complete (who used to be active on this forum and wrote the "resources" posts) has on the EZC website:
 

lisahe

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I wasn't feeding pork, either, because I had heard/read that it was best to stick to proteins that a cat might naturally find in the wild. But I've just searched my two main sources of information--catinfor.org and feline-nutrition-org--and all I can find is the following sentence from a page at the latter site: "Most people try to feed meat that is close to what cats would naturally be eating, so meat such as beef, which can cause allergic reactions in some cats, lamb and pork are used less often."

But I wanted more variety than just chicken and turkey, so I started feeding pork with EZ Complete a few months ago, and my cats like it. I know that the EZC website talks in positive terms about using pork.
Thank you for posting this, Tobermory! The line I bolded is a bit like our vet's general advice on proteins, with beef and fish being her two biggest "NO" proteins because they tend to be inflammatory. We do feed some foods that have small amounts of beef and fish but chicken, pork, and turkey are, by far, the primary proteins here.

And yes, you're right that the EZ Complete founders are pretty pro-pork.

I contacted Primal about pork before I started feeding their food and they sent me information similar to EZ's. Trichinosis is pretty rare these days and I think they said they freeze the meat before using it anyway. (I can look up that message if anyone's interested.) I only make cooked food so I'm not concerned about trichinosis and raw meat.

The CDC also has basic information on trichinosis here, if anyone's interested..
 

kittyluv387

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I wish my Krista liked red meats. There are so many exotics out there in the burger section: elk, wild boar, venison, and lamb, to name a few.

She doesn't have a chicken allergy but it does flare up her IBD. But turkey is different enough that she doesn't have an issue with turkey. Or duck.
Rabbit is a white meat.

Edit: Oops sorry you were probably not referring to the rabbit. Need to stop speed reading lol.
 
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daftcat75

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Rabbit is a white meat.
Right. And Krista likes rabbit. But my point was that if she enjoyed red meats, I could easily source those from the frozen section of the supermarket. I can't do the same with rabbit, duck, or turkey. Turkey burgers in the frozen section are always seasoned.
 

kittyluv387

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Right. And Krista likes rabbit. But my point was that if she enjoyed red meats, I could easily source those from the frozen section of the supermarket. I can't do the same with rabbit, duck, or turkey. Turkey burgers in the frozen section are always seasoned.
Red meat is a bit iffy anyways. Some cats do well on it but not all. Not really natural for them to hunt cows and pigs. My one girl throws up even with a little bit of red meat.
 

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I feed from hare today. Juliette is allergic to chicken, turkey and fish. She primarily eats rabbit mixed with some beef. I did feed her pork some with no issues. She did better stomach wise on rabbit with beef. Part of the reason I don’t do pork now is it’s consistency mixing it. She likes beef better. I look at how their health changes going to raw. If a protein works I try not to over stress.
 
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