Alternatives To Rad Cat?

[Tillybug]

You can get apartment sized deep freezers. I had to get one for my cat food too lol... it fits in a closet. I also found a second hand meat grinder on fb marketplace for $40.

I pack my food in ziplock snack sized bags. 2.5oz in each and I freeze them flat so I can make 6-8 weeks of food at once. Plus the baggies defrost quick in warm water if I forget to defrost.

I found a local supplier that does 80/10/10 so I ordered 5lbs of pork and duck. I also ordered 5 lbs of ground rabbit. I got 15lbs of meat for $50. The trick with this place is I have to order it a month out each time so I have to stay on top of it.

I use Alnutrin for meat and bone for my supplements because EZComplete worked out to be crazy expensive for me up here in Canada. But my cat was definitely more enthusiastic about his EZ meals.

 

[Talien]

Oh ok good. My purchases wont be a perfect cube but sounds like a 5 or 7 cu foot will be plenty!

Ohhhh my gooood!!!! I just did the math. I have just one cat who's eating raw but he needs 100% raw due to chronic diarrhea. He eats around 6 ounces a day. That came out to $4.19/day based on primal freeze dried. Im seriously dying at the shock of this. How can he cost so much??? I did a calculation based on Hare Today with Quail, Rabbit, Turkey, and Chicken meats. It would cost $2.60/day to feed him from Hare Today! I don't care, I am gonna figure out a way to fit a darn chest freezer in my new apartment when I move in December and buy a grinder!!!

Edit: I have one other cat that I pay for. The third one is my bfs so he pays for her. So the costs add up.

Freeze dried is always going to be more expensive. The upside is it's a lot more convenient since you can store it anywhere and it doesn't need to be thawed, ground, or otherwise prepared and cleaned up after, you just add water to reconstitute.

 

[kittyluv387]

You can get apartment sized deep freezers. I had to get one for my cat food too lol... it fits in a closet. I also found a second hand meat grinder on fb marketplace for $40.

I pack my food in ziplock snack sized bags. 2.5oz in each and I freeze them flat so I can make 6-8 weeks of food at once. Plus the baggies defrost quick in warm water if I forget to defrost.

I found a local supplier that does 80/10/10 so I ordered 5lbs of pork and duck. I also ordered 5 lbs of ground rabbit. I got 15lbs of meat for $50. The trick with this place is I have to order it a month out each time so I have to stay on top of it.

I use Alnutrin for meat and bone for my supplements because EZComplete worked out to be crazy expensive for me up here in Canada. But my cat was definitely more enthusiastic about his EZ meals.

Whats the cu ft in yours?

Freeze dried is always going to be more expensive. The upside is it's a lot more convenient since you can store it anywhere and it doesn't need to be thawed, ground, or otherwise prepared and cleaned up after, you just add water to reconstitute.

Oh I'm aware. My cat just got sick of the frozen nuggets though. He wont eat frozen turkey but will eat freeze dried. But he seems to want variety. Thats what rad cat was for. :/ Now I might make my own.

 

[Tillybug]

I believe it’s 3 cu ft.

 

[Tobermory]

Whats the cu ft in yours?

Here’s mine. I think it’s a 3.5 cf. I remember I was considering a 5 cf but I believe I got talked into the smaller one. I’d have to measure it to be sure. If you put it in a closet you’d want to be sure there was room for air to circulate around the back.

 

[Tillybug]

Yup! And I leave the closet door open a crack. I keep enough food for the week in my freezer and overflow in the deep freeze. Raw is inexpensive if you can do bulk. I couldn’t afford to do it if I got the premade stuff.

 

[Tobermory]

View attachment 258420 Yup! And I leave the closet door open a crack. I keep enough food for the week in my freezer and overflow in the deep freeze. Raw is inexpensive if you can do bulk. I couldn’t afford to do it if I got the premade stuff.

Ditto! The small bins in the refrigerator freezer door work perfectly, and they’re worthless for anything else anyway.

 

[kittyluv387]

Here’s mine. I think it’s a 3.5 cf. I remember I was considering a 5 cf but I believe I got talked into the smaller one. I’d have to measure it to be sure. If you put it in a closet you’d want to be sure there was room for air to circulate around the back.
View attachment 258417
View attachment 258419

That looks like a decent size!

 

[Tobermory]

That looks like a decent size!

It’s a big help for storing cat food, and it wasn’t terribly expensive. The right hand side where I’ve stacked the cat food is only half the depth of the freezer. The left side is the entire depth. I have people food on that side. I bought a small magnetic white board to stick to the front so I can keep track of what’s in there. It’s hard to remember, and everything is stacked up and you can’t see what’s at the bottom. That’s one of the drawbacks to it. Another is that it has to be manually defrosted...which I need to do. So I’ll have to figure out how to store the frozen stuff while I defrost it. But I couldn’t handle raw feeding without it. I just don’t have room in my refrigerator freezer. Mine like freeze-dried commercial but that’s a very pricey choice for feeding three cats!

 

[nansiludie]

Does anyone know if there is a novel protein based type of EZ complete mix? All I can find is the one with chicken.

 

[kittyluv387]

It’s a big help for storing cat food, and it wasn’t terribly expensive. The right hand side where I’ve stacked the cat food is only half the depth of the freezer. The left side is the entire depth. I have people food on that side. I bought a small magnetic white board to stick to the front so I can keep track of what’s in there. It’s hard to remember, and everything is stacked up and you can’t see what’s at the bottom. That’s one of the drawbacks to it. Another is that it has to be manually defrosted...which I need to do. So I’ll have to figure out how to store the frozen stuff while I defrost it. But I couldn’t handle raw feeding without it. I just don’t have room in my refrigerator freezer. Mine like freeze-dried commercial but that’s a very pricey choice for feeding three cats!

Thats a good point about keeping track of whats inside. I'll have to do that too so I don't end up with mystery meat lol.

 

[LTS3]

Does anyone know if there is a novel protein based type of EZ complete mix? All I can find is the one with chicken.

You can use any novel protein with EZComplete and other pre-mixes.

If you're looking for chicken-free pre-mixes, try these:

Better In The Raw has egg yolk but no chicken: Egg yolk, calcium lactate, beef liver powder, gelatin, whey protein concentrate, psyllium husks, EFA from fish oil, taurine, kelp, barley grass powder, Vitamin B complex, Vitamin E succinate

My Natural Cat originalhas egg yolk but no chicken: https://felineinstincts.com/wp-content/uploads/My-Natural-Cat-Brochure-calcium-lactate.pdf

Egg-free My Natural Cat: https://felineinstincts.com/wp-content/uploads/Egg-Free-Brochure-1.pdf

TC Feline Original: New Zealand freeze-dried Bovine Bone (human grade); Canadian Gelatin from pork skin (human grade); grass-fed New Zealand Whey Protein Isolate (GMO free, rBGH free, BSE free); Taurine; Canadian freeze-dried Krill; Calcium Carbonate; Vitamin E succinate; Vitamin A palmitate (Retinol); Vitamin D3.

TC Feline PLUS with beef liver: New Zealand freeze-dried Bovine Bone (human grade); New Zealand freeze-dried Beef Liver (human grade); Canadian Gelatin from pork skin (human grade), grass-fed New Zealand Whey Protein Isolate (GMO free, rBGH free, BSE free); Taurine; Canadian freeze-dried Krill; Calcium Carbonate; Vitamin E succinate; Vitamin A palmitate (Retinol); Vitamin D3.

 

[nansiludie]

Thank you. Some of these pre-mixes are rather expensive. I may just end up continuing to buy her food already done by nature's variety.

 

[mschauer]

Thank you. Some of these pre-mixes are rather expensive. I may just end up continuing to buy her food already done by nature's variety.

Alnutrin is very affordable. Costs about $0.60/lb but you do need to add liver (doesn't have to be chicken liver). My home-made pre-mix costs about $0.35/lb so I don't think you can do much better than the Alnutrin, cost wise.

 

[Tobermory]

My home-made pre-mix

By homemade pre-mix, do you mean that you mix a larger quantity of your dry supplements and store them, and then measure the appropriate amount when you make batches? That would be a big time saver if I could do that!

 

[mschauer]

By homemade pre-mix, do you mean that you mix a larger quantity of your dry supplements and store them, and then measure the appropriate amount when you make batches? That would be a big time saver if I could do that!

Yup.

 

[Tobermory]

Yup.

You just made my day. I’ve never thought of doing that. Are there any of the dry supplements that it would be better not to pre-mix?

 

[mschauer]

I include them all. And I plop a small desiccant pack (which I'm currently out of I just remembered) in the jar to prevent caking.

 

[Tobermory]

I include them all. And I plop a small desiccant pack (which I'm currently out of I just remembered) in the jar to prevent caking.

Great! Thank you!

 

[Bearpaws]

I've been sad to hear that Radcat is shutting down, Holly was absolutely thriving on it!

The shop I've been going to for about 2 years now suggested Steve's as a replacement for Radcat. It stinks to high heaven, but it looks nutritionally balanced, so I'm putting up with it until I have the means to start making my own mix.

 

[1 bruce 1]

Without Rad Cat, What Will My Picky Cat Eat?
Make sure to check out the articles about halfway down. Interesting.