Alnutrin Question -- How Much Liver?

[lisahe]

I'm making my first batch of Alnutrin with my sample pack and am wondering how much liver I'm supposed to use. The instructions with the sample say .5 ounce or 14 grams but the Web site says .8 ounce or 23 grams for a pound of meat.

I'm cooking up the larger amount but can easily take some out after cooking.

And yuck to chicken liver! Today's it's sell-by date and I'm sure it's fine but I just don't like the smell.

I know that some members have mentioned that they don't like handling meat so don't want to make food. I do eat meat and don't particularly like handling meat but can do it... though liver nearly puts me over the edge.

Thank you in advance for advice and/or suggestions!

 

[daftcat75]

I’m confused by their liver amount too. Homemade recipes call for 10% which would be 45 g. I keep forgetting to send for samples.

 

[lisahe]

I’m confused by their liver amount too. Homemade recipes call for 10% which would be 45 g. I keep forgetting to send for samples.

Yes, I wondered about that, too!

 

[sabrinah]

I contacted Alnutrin and they said both values are within the range required to be balanced. If your cat hates liver you stick to the low end, if they love it you can go to the higher end.

 

[lisahe]

I contacted Alnutrin and they said both values are within the range required to be balanced. If your cat hates liver you stick to the low end, if they love it you can go to the higher end.

Thank you so much, Sabrinah! I think ours like/love liver so I'm more than happy to keep using the larger amount in future batches. If, that is, they like the Alnutrin food! Which I'm really hoping they do since the absence of Rad Cat gives us no joy.

 

[sabrinah]

Thank you so much, Sabrinah! I think ours like/love liver so I'm more than happy to keep using the larger amount in future batches. If, that is, they like the Alnutrin food! Which I'm really hoping they do since the absence of Rad Cat gives us no joy.

You're welcome! I freaked out when I saw the liver value differences at first. I was starting a new bag and finished an old bag in the same batch and after making it I noticed the liver directions are different on each bag. Cue a panicked email to Alnutrin asking if they changed the formulation and if my entire batch was unbalanced. It would be nice to get a heads up that the liver values have a range so people don't have heart attacks thinking they screwed up.

 

[daftcat75]

Krista misses Rad Cat too. I haven't been able to get her interested in raw since we unofficially ran out of Rad Cat. I have one tub left and a few portioned meals but unless I can get her re-interested in raw in general, I don't want to keep thawing bits of a meal to have her turn away from it. Part of the reason I haven't sent for Alnutrin samples.

It seems like every one and ther mother has come out with a commercial raw since Rad Cat and they all use bone. How is it that no-one has filled that space yet? And the few that have (one in Houston, one in Canada, one in Washington), they don't have any distribution channels so that doesn't help us.

Let me know what your (formerly) Rad Cats think of Alnutrin. Krista wasn't impressed with Better In The Raw and we can't do EZ Complete because of the digestive enzymes. Those enzymes eat Krista instead of her food.

 

[lisahe]

Cue a panicked email to Alnutrin asking if they changed the formulation and if my entire batch was unbalanced. It would be nice to get a heads up that the liver values have a range so people don't have heart attacks thinking they screwed up.

I'm very glad you'd already gotten the story on this one and answered so quickly -- thank you again for that! I was pretty sure it would be fine either way but you just never know.

Let me know what your (formerly) Rad Cats think of Alnutrin. Krista wasn't impressed with Better In The Raw and we can't do EZ Complete because of the digestive enzymes. Those enzymes eat Krista instead of her food.

I finally mixed everything up but the first meal's scheduled for tomorrow -- for the Rad Cat slot -- so I just let the cats smell and lick the spoon. Ireland (picky) sniffed with interest and then Edwina (piglet) ate the little piece of pork left on the spoon. So I'm hoping they'll take to it. Despite my having to deal with the liver.

Might Krista would like cooked food made with Alnutrin, daftcat75? Maybe you could start her on that and then cook it less and less with each batch?

 

[lisamarie12]

"And yuck to chicken liver! Today's it's sell-by date and I'm sure it's fine but I just don't like the smell."

Going forward you know you can you freeze dried liver instead of fresh, right? I don't know how much per pound of meat, maybe do another thread here or check the refs in the beginning of the raw forum. I know the RFFIBD Kitties FB group has the info in the files section.

Buying commercial freeze dried liver would be more expensive than fresh although you have more protein options, e.g., turkey, duck liver etc.

You'd have to pound the FD liver pieces to a fine grind and then weigh.

I agree, fresh liver is too strong for my nose too as well as the jiggly texture.

Good luck with Alnutrin.

 

[lisahe]

Going forward you know you can you freeze dried liver instead of fresh, right?
<snip!>
I agree, fresh liver is too strong for my nose too as well as the jiggly texture.

Good luck with Alnutrin.

Hmm, I'd never freeze-dried liver. I'll keep that in mind, though I bought a whole pound of chicken liver, so I'm set for quite a while! (I already cut off lumps of it for six or eight batches.)

Yes, "jiggly" is just the word to describe the texture and consistency of chicken liver. It's so light but, hmm, not light. I don't like eating chicken livers, either.

The best news is (here you go, daftcat75 !) the cats really liked their first meal. Even Ireland ate a big serving. I specially chose what I think of as "hybrid pork chops" (I don't remember what they're called but theyre cheap boneless ones where it's like there are two cuts in one, one part is light pink, the other part is dark pink, almost like tenderloin.) because she loves those.

I'm really hoping Alnutrin works for them because I definitely can't increase their bone-based raw food. Ireland's been eating much, much better in general since I started adding small amounts of pumpkin to some of her meals. I've always thought she was verging on constipation, though it seemed to go in cycles that I couldn't figure out. Until, that is, I started feeding freeze-dried some afternoons in the former Rad Cat meal slot. I think I'll keep her on the pumpkin for at least another three or four weeks as I try adding more versions of Alnutrin into the diet. I'm crossing my fingers that the pumpkin continues to work and that it was just the additional freeze-dried that made her that little bit worse. Even in such small amounts, I'd love to take the pumpkin back out, if possible, though I'd rather err on the side of the pumpkin -- the poor cat seems so much happier now!

 

[daftcat75]

Here's the article on using freeze-dried liver. Apparently I already read this because it came up in my history when I went to search it.

Using Freeze Dried Liver in Place of Fresh

I should look into how much Krista's freeze-dried liver treats weigh. I've been crushing them up and using them as topper on her Rawz until we're ready to go back to raw.

 

[lisahe]

Our cats have had freeze-dried chicken liver in combo (liver, heart, meat?) treats from Bravo, I think it was. They loved those!

Thank you for the link, daftcat75 , that may well come in handy when that liver trove in the freezer runs out.

 

[kittyluv387]

I’m late but Dr. Pierson’s recipe on catinfo.org doesn’t use 10% liver either.

On a side note I’m super excited to make my own raw! I just ordered the Tasin grinder which has delayed shipping due to weather and we’re picking up the chest freezer on Saturday. I already bought alnutrin and supplements listed on catinfo. Eek I’m excited!

 

[lisamarie12]

I'm really hoping Alnutrin works for them because I definitely can't increase their bone-based raw food. Ireland's been eating much, much better in general since I started adding small amounts of pumpkin to some of her meals. I've always thought she was verging on constipation, though it seemed to go in cycles that I couldn't figure out. Until, that is, I started feeding freeze-dried some afternoons in the former Rad Cat meal slot. I think I'll keep her on the pumpkin for at least another three or four weeks as I try adding more versions of Alnutrin into the diet. I'm crossing my fingers that the pumpkin continues to work and that it was just the additional freeze-dried that made her that little bit worse. Even in such small amounts, I'd love to take the pumpkin back out, if possible, though I'd rather err on the side of the pumpkin -- the poor cat seems so much happier now!

There's nothing worse than a constipated cat. You may want to try a little extra fat if you want to replace pumpkin, fat does help. I found with Mikey that bulking up his stool with fiber made his motility issues worse with the bigger stools, fat helps him a lot actually.

A little extra liver or liver fd treats can also help with constipation, although not too much because of the increase in phosphorus.

For recipes,. Stewart's might be the most cost effective, available in large containers:

Pro-Treat® Freeze Dried Treats - Stewart Pet

I'm glad Alnutrin is working out, wish they had an egg free version but I'm just going back to using my own supps.

 

[lisahe]

Thanks for the suggestions, L lisamarie12 ! I do tend to use all the fat in their cat food meat -- and they eat a lot of pork, which tends to be fatty! -- but each batch is different (and tenderloin, which Ireland especially loves, of course, since it's the priciest, is lower in fat) so I wonder if that might help explain why Ireland's problem have seemed to wax and wane. I just bought more well-marbled pork chops so I'll put that fat to good use.

The pumpkin really does seem to help: she's been digging into her food like never before and eating everything. Of course I think that's partly because she likes the pumpkin. She's always been slender, though not dangerously so (other than when we brought the cats home from the shelter as underweight kittens), but I'm hoping she'll bulk up a bit now!

 

[lisahe]

Another thanks to L lisamarie12 and daftcat75 for the idea of using freeze-dried liver and then the link to the calculator for making it a reality. More than a year later, I'm finally going to use freeze-dried! I wasn't sure how liver availability would be when the pandemic/lockdown started so bought a big tub of freeze-dried (and it is Stewart's, lisamarie12!) from Chewy for whenever... Now that whenever has arrived and the large batch of fresh liver I'd had in the freezer (from the "before days"!) is coming to an end, I'm going to use that calculator to figure out how much FD to put in the food. Everybody's happy. I no longer have to deal with icky raw liver and my husband's glad he won't have to smell cooked liver.

Thank you again for the idea and the help!

 

[lisamarie12]

Hooray for you, excellent! That's what I need to do, switch over to some homemade foods, so glad the fd liver will work out and that you can get the right percentage!

 

[lisahe]

Hooray for you, excellent! That's what I need to do, switch over to some homemade foods, so glad the fd liver will work out and that you can get the right percentage!

I'll make the first batch this weekend. If you're going to made homemade, our cats highly recommend Alnutrin. (Though does one of your cats have problems with egg?) They were okay with EZ Complete (at least until I realized Edwina couldn't eat it, probably because of the mussels) but never lapped it up like they lap up Alnutrin food.