Bold Raw Food For Cats - How To Question

[yogakitty]

Hey everyone. So I finally went out and got a few tubs of ready made raw for Simon. I decided on Bold Raw as they don't use any vegetables that most of the other brands I saw had. I bought chicken and a small container of rabbit. Can someone please help me figure out how to portion out frozen raw meat?

It should not be thawed, portioned, and re-frozen, correct?

I think it will be difficult to portion it out like this though. It's frozen solid, obviously. How does everyone do this? And how long can thawed raw meat stay in the fridge? Is kitty ok to eat it cold like that or is there some other process I need to keep in mind before serving?

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Here is the food by the way. Anyone try their kitty on it? Any opinions?
Bold Chicken for Cats - Bold Raw

 

[LTS3]

You can partially thaw the container, portion out the food, and then re-freeze. Thawed raw meat can keep in the fridge for about 2 days. I portion out raw + Alnutrin into 3 oz containers and a container can last up to 4 days in the fridge. I only add a spoonful to the cats' NV raw.

Some cats will eat raw straight from the fridge. Others prefer warmed up food. My cats will eat frost covered raw. You can warm up the food by placing the container into warm water for a few minutes.

 

[orange&white]

Yes, if you can thaw only until you can cut semi-frozen pieces with a sharp knife that is best. Semi-thaw on one pound of food will probably take 8-12 hours in the fridge. Then you can take a sharp knife and cut "blocks", say 8 blocks out of a pound would be 2oz portions each on average (determine how much you want to feed per meal to decide on the number of blocks). You can lay the blocks on wax paper on a cookie sheet, or in muffin tins, and refreeze solid then throw into freezer bags.

Method 2: Fully thawed. If you prefer to portion into 2-3 day tubs, you can spoon into any containers you wish to refreeze. The 1-lb tubs may be perfect as is, if your cat eats a little over 5 ounces per day.

My senior cat eats food right out of the fridge and the kitten seems to prefer "room temperature". If the food is only at semi-thawed phase when I want to feed it then I set the saucer of food on the rim of a saucepan of hot water (1/2" of water heats really fast to near-boiling, then remove from heat) and put the lid on top of the food. 5-10 minutes to heat to room temp or slightly warmer.

 

[yogakitty]

Thanks everyone. I managed to cut through the raw blocks. Took some muscle but I didn't have to thaw it. Now the big question. How much to feed? The recommended amount says 5% of body weight per day. So my guy weighs 8.5lbs. My math is horrible but it came out to just shy of 200 grams. That seems like a lot? That's a little over 3/4 cup per day. Am I doing this right? What's the easiest way to calculate the daily requirement?

 

[orange&white]

5% is a lot! ...unless Simon is a growing kitten, then it may not be enough. The general rule of thumb is 2-4% of body weight for adult cats.

Cat's weight (8.5 pounds), convert to cat's weight in ounces (8.5 x 16) = 136.

2% of 136 = 2.7 ounces
3% of 136 = 4.1 ounces
4% of 136 = 5.4 ounces

If Simon is a kitten, he may eat double an adult cat (4-8% of his weight), so 5% would be 6.8 ounces...and I'll leave it to you to convert ounces to grams.

At 7 months and 8 pounds, my kitten just slowed down to 3.5-4.0% of her weight. She did eat as much as 6-7% of her weight when she was growing really fast.

 

[yogakitty]

So sorry for the late reply. Just so busy lately. Simon still keeps growing. He weighs 9.4 lbs as of this morning! He doesn't look fat, but he is getting larger overall. He will be 1 year on July 5th. He's quite active though. I'm glad I came upon your answer! Thank you very much!

I think this is how much I should be feeding him then?

9.4 x 16 = 150.4 ounces and 3% of that is 4.5 ounces?

Should I go down to 2% at this point or leave it at 3 for another month or two? So sorry. I'm new to this. I'd hate to be giving him too much and have him get fat. But then I don't want to deprive him either! Thanks again for all of your help. You guys are fantastic! He loves the raw by the way.

 

[yogakitty]

Not a fatty, right?

 

[valentine319]

He looks lean. Certain breeds take years to completely mature. As for how much to feed search the app store for raw feeding, raw pet and such. I have raw pet on iphone. I put the pet name in, custom set the percentage of food, pet weight and number of meals. It'll tell me daily ounces and how much for each meal.

 

[orange&white]

He's looks to be in exceptional shape. Nice job!

I'm planning to feed my kitten as much food as she wants to eat until she is fully developed (unless she starts getting fat). It is rare, but not unheard of, to see an overweight cat under 2-3 years old. Especially on a raw diet.

Some days my 8 month old kitten eats less than 3 ounces and sometime more than 5 ounces. I just put anything she doesn't finish back in the fridge after about 45 minutes. Of course that means I turn into a catering service with delivery and pickup a few times a day. She seems to self-regulate pretty well.

 

[valentine319]

When I said lean I just wanted to expand that I didn't mean too skinny or under nourished looking. You've done a great job as a pet parent.

For your cat's weight, 9.4 lbs, I have the following per day:
2%: 3.01 ounces (I assume unless sedentary this would be too low)
2.5%: 3.76 ounces
3%: 4.51 ounces
3.5%: 5.26 ounces
4%: 6.03 ounces
4.5%: 6.77 ounces
5%: 7.52 ounces

You can decide how many meals to feed per day and divide it up. They tend to stop when full (I'm sure there's an exception to this but in general).