Alternatives To Rad Cat?

Shandyanna

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I tried Small Batch for my cat who has kidney disease and IBD. His phosphorus levels went up as Small Batch uses bone for the calcium source. Also, his stool was very bloody, and upon closer inspection, I found that the pieces of bone in small batch are like needles and little shards. They truly lacerated his intestines. It was so disappointing, because Small Batch is the one food that I found that does not have egg yolk in it which my cat is allergic to - in fact, egg yolk is one of the more common allergens for cats. I’m going to check out HT, if that doesn’t work, I’m going to have to do in online consult with Dr. Lisa Pearson about a custom recipe for my cat with no egg yolk, and no bone as it’s calcium source.
 

kittyluv387

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I tried Small Batch for my cat who has kidney disease and IBD. His phosphorus levels went up as Small Batch uses bone for the calcium source. Also, his stool was very bloody, and upon closer inspection, I found that the pieces of bone in small batch are like needles and little shards. They truly lacerated his intestines. It was so disappointing, because Small Batch is the one food that I found that does not have egg yolk in it which my cat is allergic to - in fact, egg yolk is one of the more common allergens for cats. I’m going to check out HT, if that doesn’t work, I’m going to have to do in online consult with Dr. Lisa Pearson about a custom recipe for my cat with no egg yolk, and no bone as it’s calcium source.
Dr. Pierson's recipie states that the egg is optional.

If you can't use bone you'll have to use eggshell powder. That's what rad cat used.
 

Tobermory

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Although Dr. Pierson strongly encourages people to grind bone, she also provides an alternative calcium source for her recipe. I use the one she provides a link to on her making cat food page: Now Foods Bone Meal Powder. No eggs in it.
 

kittyluv387

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Although Dr. Pierson strongly encourages people to grind bone, she also provides an alternative calcium source for her recipe. I use the one she provides a link to on her making cat food page: Now Foods Bone Meal Powder. No eggs in it.
It doesn't seem like bone meal is a great substitute. The eggshell seems more well received. I wish she put a recipe using eggshell instead. But I'm sure there are there are other sources that can instruct using eggshell powder.
 

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I’ve fed the Smallbatch sliders, which are complete meals. I’ve tried the duck and the turkey, and I think they’re pretty “slurpable.” I added some water after thawing. My cats liked them okay. But I now use the ones they call “blends,” most of which are single protein grinds of meat/bone/organ with nothing else in them. (Some have veggies, but those are more for dogs.) I emailed the company last year about the ratios, and they replied that the blends are 80/10/10.

They come in frozen two-pounds chubs. I defrost them and add supplements, including water, using the catinfo.org recipe. The blends have very small bits of bone but don’t required any chewing. I’m currently using the turkey blend and the rabbit blend.
Thanks for posting this! I did notice that a few of the products had a very high fat ratio but the turkey and rabbit seemed good. Still have the bone problem but not the strange ingredients I found in Darwin's.
 

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I also am in a dilemma now that Rad Cat is defunct. My cat has IBD and kidney disease. I tried Small Batch and it caused my cat to have much blood in his stool. I examined the pieces of bone in Small Batch, and many of the bone fragments are like little needles. Also, my cat’s phosphorus levels went up as bone is much higher in phosphorus then egg shell, which is what Rad Cat used in their recipes . I was quite bummed when Small Batch didn’t work out, because other than the increased phosphorus levels and bloody stool, my cat LOOKED very healthy. I’ve tried a few of the pre-mix powders to make food at home, but each one I’ve tried had fillers and/or texturizers like gelatin. That concerned me given my cats IBD. Whether or not those ingredients were a problem, I don’t know, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way with an IBD flair. Also, he just didn’t look very well. Plus, I’ve read negative things about those kinds of ingredients. Contrary to what one often reads and hears, I’ve found that my cat thrives with a higher fat diet. I’ve read numerous articles saying that cats actually do need a significant amount of fat in their diets. You can’t believe everything you read, but the proof was in his body‘s negative reaction (weight loss) to a low-fat diet compared to a higher fat diet, so I stick with a higher fat diet. He is at a very healthy weight, which is saying a lot considering that he’s in stage III kidney disease. Beef Rad Cat is what I feed him. Now, when I run out of my beef Rad Cat, I plan on making my own food with 80% lean to 20% fat beef following the Dr. Lisa Pierson DVM raw cat food recipe using eggshell as my calcium source, instead of bone or bone meal. You can Google how much eggshell powder you need to use per pound of raw food. So, we’ll see…
 

kittyluv387

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I also am in a dilemma now that Rad Cat is defunct. My cat has IBD and kidney disease. I tried Small Batch and it caused my cat to have much blood in his stool. I examined the pieces of bone in Small Batch, and many of the bone fragments are like little needles. Also, my cat’s phosphorus levels went up as bone is much higher in phosphorus then egg shell, which is what Rad Cat used in their recipes . I was quite bummed when Small Batch didn’t work out, because other than the increased phosphorus levels and bloody stool, my cat LOOKED very healthy. I’ve tried a few of the pre-mix powders to make food at home, but each one I’ve tried had fillers and/or texturizers like gelatin. That concerned me given my cats IBD. Whether or not those ingredients were a problem, I don’t know, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way with an IBD flair. Also, he just didn’t look very well. Plus, I’ve read negative things about those kinds of ingredients. Contrary to what one often reads and hears, I’ve found that my cat thrives with a higher fat diet. I’ve read numerous articles saying that cats actually do need a significant amount of fat in their diets. You can’t believe everything you read, but the proof was in his body‘s negative reaction (weight loss) to a low-fat diet compared to a higher fat diet, so I stick with a higher fat diet. He is at a very healthy weight, which is saying a lot considering that he’s in stage III kidney disease. Beef Rad Cat is what I feed him. Now, when I run out of my beef Rad Cat, I plan on making my own food with 80% lean to 20% fat beef following the Dr. Lisa Pierson DVM raw cat food recipe using eggshell as my calcium source, instead of bone or bone meal. You can Google how much eggshell powder you need to use per pound of raw food. So, we’ll see…
Cats digest fat very well and should eat a good amount of it. It's just a lot of canned foods have more calories coming from fat and not protein. Not ideal but not the worst case scenario. Much better option than carb.
 

Shandyanna

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And, it’s really too bad that so many recipes recommend a high percentage of pumpkin, squash, etc. for KD cats. I just about killed my cat using one of those recipes. It was one of the pre-mixes that was for KD cats and it called for quite a bit of pumpkin.
 

kittyluv387

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And, it’s really too bad that so many recipes recommend a high percentage of pumpkin, squash, etc. for KD cats. I just about killed my cat using one of those recipes. It was one of the pre-mixes that was for KD cats and it called for quite a bit of pumpkin.
Yikes so sorry to hear that. But yes a lot of the KD diets are just atrocious.
 

Shandyanna

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It was especially disconcerting as this formula was from a well-known pre-mix company.
 

Tobermory

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Thanks for posting this! I did notice that a few of the products had a very high fat ratio but the turkey and rabbit seemed good. Still have the bone problem but not the strange ingredients I found in Darwin's.
Since I posted this in October, I’ve stopped using Small Batch. I decided it had more bone than I was comfortable with, even after I added boneless to decrease the bone content (and added liver to rebalance the organ percentage). Small Batch said it was 10% bone, but it felt really bone heavy to me when I rubbed it between my fingers. And when I looked at the ingredients on both the turkey and the chicken, necks were listed first.
 

lisamarie12

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Since I posted this in October, I’ve stopped using Small Batch. I decided it had more bone than I was comfortable with, even after I added boneless to decrease the bone content (and added liver to rebalance the organ percentage). Small Batch said it was 10% bone, but it felt really bone heavy to me when I rubbed it between my fingers. And when I looked at the ingredients on both the turkey and the chicken, necks were listed first.
Yeah, it seems like a lot of the commercial raw companies are parroting "10% bone" when in fact it's higher. And even 10% is high for a cat, imo, not being the percentage they would consume in their natural habitat although some cats can tolerate higher bone percentages than others.

Thanks for posting this, it's important to receive feedback regarding potential excess bone so others can get a heads up, especially if their cats are prone to constipation or urinary blockages.
 
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Tobermory

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Yeah, it seems like a lot of the commercial raw companies are parroting "10% bone" when in fact it's higher. And even 10% is high for a cat, imo, not being the percentage they would consume in their natural habitat although some cats can tolerate higher bone percentages than others.

Thanks for posting this, it's important to receive feedback regarding potential excess bone so others can get a heads up, especially if their cats are prone to constipation or urinary blockages.
And constipation was the reason I stopped using it. The girls hadn’t had any problems until I started using SB even though I reduced the bone content by adding boneless. All three got constipated and were straining a bit in the litter box.
 
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daftcat75

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I had heard Tucker’s was going to make a boneless raw to fill the Rad Cat gap. Nope! Yet another bone mix. It’s like they know it’s going to constipate cats because they added pumpkin and mineral oil (!!) to the recipe.

That’s a hard pass from me and Krista.

No pun intended.
:flail:
 

Talien

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I got an email from Darwin's a while back with a short questionnaire asking if I would be interested in a boneless formula, so it looks like they may be doing something like that eventually. Might be worth contacting them about it for people who are interested in alternate calcium sources.
 

riley1

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I got an email from Darwin's a while back with a short questionnaire asking if I would be interested in a boneless formula, so it looks like they may be doing something like that eventually. Might be worth contacting them about it for people who are interested in alternate calcium sources.
Darwin's would not give me the % of bone when I ordered. They said it was about the size of a pencil eraser. They also are putting choline chloride which is not a good thing: Choline supplementation improves the lipid metabolism of intrauterine-growth-restricted pigs. - PubMed - NCBI Vegetables as well.
 
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