Does anyone know of an alternative to fish oil when making home-made raw cat food? If there is not a good alternative, what is the lower limit per pound of meat? Can I skip fish oil entirely?
Tim has been doing extremely well on his diet of mostly raw and some canned. I would say the proportion is about 85% raw, 15% canned. Raw rabbit generally agrees with him, so that is a major part of his diet. But he is not excited about the commercial raw brands I've tried - Primal and Stella and Chewy - so I recently started using plain, ground rabbit muscle and organ meats plus bone and adding my own supplements. He loves it! And I am gradually increasing that as I decrease the canned rabbit I had to mix with the commercial raw rabbit to get him to eat it.
But here is the problem. During the past week, Tim has vomited within minutes of eating his rabbit meal. It has happened two times so far. And he's showing other signs of nausea and gas and possibly excess stomach acid, but only after eating the rabbit meal. Perhaps coincidentally, we made a big jump in the home-supplemented rabbit just last week. Additionally, I used a bit more fish oil in this batch than in the previous batch. Tim has had trouble with fish oil before, which is why I suspect it now. I am following Lisa Pierson's recipe, and aim for 2000 mg of fish oil per three pounds of meat. For this batch, I prepared a single pound, but used most of a 1200 mg capsule of fish oil, so maybe about 1000 mg, which is still below Pierson's upper limit of fish oil, but possibly more than I used previously.
I plan to make another batch of rabbit next week. I will be using a two-pound chub and intend to use a single 1200 mg capsule of fish oil. Does this seem sufficient? Or can I use something else to make sure Tim gets the omega 3s that he needs, but without causing the gas and acid and nausea that seem to go along with, perhaps higher levels of, fish oil?
Tim has been doing extremely well on his diet of mostly raw and some canned. I would say the proportion is about 85% raw, 15% canned. Raw rabbit generally agrees with him, so that is a major part of his diet. But he is not excited about the commercial raw brands I've tried - Primal and Stella and Chewy - so I recently started using plain, ground rabbit muscle and organ meats plus bone and adding my own supplements. He loves it! And I am gradually increasing that as I decrease the canned rabbit I had to mix with the commercial raw rabbit to get him to eat it.
But here is the problem. During the past week, Tim has vomited within minutes of eating his rabbit meal. It has happened two times so far. And he's showing other signs of nausea and gas and possibly excess stomach acid, but only after eating the rabbit meal. Perhaps coincidentally, we made a big jump in the home-supplemented rabbit just last week. Additionally, I used a bit more fish oil in this batch than in the previous batch. Tim has had trouble with fish oil before, which is why I suspect it now. I am following Lisa Pierson's recipe, and aim for 2000 mg of fish oil per three pounds of meat. For this batch, I prepared a single pound, but used most of a 1200 mg capsule of fish oil, so maybe about 1000 mg, which is still below Pierson's upper limit of fish oil, but possibly more than I used previously.
I plan to make another batch of rabbit next week. I will be using a two-pound chub and intend to use a single 1200 mg capsule of fish oil. Does this seem sufficient? Or can I use something else to make sure Tim gets the omega 3s that he needs, but without causing the gas and acid and nausea that seem to go along with, perhaps higher levels of, fish oil?