Bone Question, Dr. Pierson's ground recipe

[frappe]

Hopefully someone sees this. I have a question related to the Pierson recipe but I did not want to start a new thread. I was curious if I could make the food using a whole chicken and then adding in the appropriate amount of meat to balance the meat/bone content, about 1.25-1.5 times the weight of the whole chicken. Or, do I have to just use chicken thighs? Also, would it work with a whole chicken and then the right amount of meat of another kind, such as turkey, pork, beef every now and then?

Just wondering how much wiggle room I have with the recipe as far as variety. Thanks!

 

[aprilprey]

Hopefully someone sees this. I have a question related to the Pierson recipe but I did not want to start a new thread. I was curious if I could make the food using a whole chicken and then adding in the appropriate amount of meat to balance the meat/bone content, about 1.25-1.5 times the weight of the whole chicken. Or, do I have to just use chicken thighs? Also, would it work with a whole chicken and then the right amount of meat of another kind, such as turkey, pork, beef every now and then?

Just wondering how much wiggle room I have with the recipe as far as variety. Thanks!

I have seen, via other sources that using a whole chicken (or other poultry source) and including all the bone is ok, but have not seen too many that say you need to add more meat to balance out the meat/bone - I think Dr. P does that just for rabbit.  Sorry - no link, just a conglomeration of everything I have read.  I have been thinking the same thing as well - we do the surface cook and I was thinking it would be easier to do with whole birds rather than a crapload of thighs.

If anything, because today's animals bred for market have the highest amount of meat on them genetically possible, you'd think adding more BONE would be the thing to do, not dilute it.

Apologies for not giving a definitive answer....!

 

[mschauer]

Hopefully someone sees this. I have a question related to the Pierson recipe but I did not want to start a new thread. I was curious if I could make the food using a whole chicken and then adding in the appropriate amount of meat to balance the meat/bone content, about 1.25-1.5 times the weight of the whole chicken. Or, do I have to just use chicken thighs? Also, would it work with a whole chicken and then the right amount of meat of another kind, such as turkey, pork, beef every now and then?

Just wondering how much wiggle room I have with the recipe as far as variety. Thanks!

According to the USDA database a whole chicken is 32% bone. Assuming that is correct I would certainly add meat to balance the bone. Again assuming the USDA figure is correct adding meat at 1.5 times the whole chicken weight doesn't seem enough to me. For example if you have a 3 lbs chicken:

0.96 lbs   bone (3 * 32%)

2.04 lbs   meat (3 - 0.96)

4.5  lbs   additional meat (3 * 150%)

======

7.5 lbs total

The bone content would be 12.5%. That is a bit high for me but maybe that is what you intend?

I can't speak for Dr. Pierson but I don't know of any reason why other meats can't be used with her recipe.

 

[peaches08]

Hopefully someone sees this. I have a question related to the Pierson recipe but I did not want to start a new thread. I was curious if I could make the food using a whole chicken and then adding in the appropriate amount of meat to balance the meat/bone content, about 1.25-1.5 times the weight of the whole chicken. Or, do I have to just use chicken thighs? Also, would it work with a whole chicken and then the right amount of meat of another kind, such as turkey, pork, beef every now and then?

Just wondering how much wiggle room I have with the recipe as far as variety. Thanks!

www.catnutrition.org has a recipe for a whole chicken.

 

[frappe]

According to the USDA database a whole chicken is 32% bone. Assuming that is correct I would certainly add meat to balance the bone. Again assuming the USDA figure is correct adding meat at 1.5 times the whole chicken weight doesn't seem enough to me. For example if you have a 3 lbs chicken:

0.96 lbs   bone (3 * 32%)

2.04 lbs   meat (3 - 0.96)

4.5  lbs   additional meat (3 * 150%)

======

7.5 lbs total

The bone content would be 12.5%. That is a bit high for me but maybe that is what you intend?

I can't speak for Dr. Pierson but I don't know of any reason why other meats can't be used with her recipe.

No, I did not necessarily intend to make it that high, but her recipe as is says to remove 20-25% of the bones in the recipe. Chicken thighs are 21% ish (or so I thought) so that would make it rather high on bone as well (12-15% just rough estimate). Originally, I thought it was supposed to be 7-10% bone for their diet, but assumed she worked it out another way. That's why I was asking. It seemed higher in bone than I had previously thought.

Thank you peaches for that link. I will definitely look into using that recipe. I knew a whole chicken was around 30% bone and would need added meat, but I see that that recipe includes the addition of heart, although without it seems pretty high in bone.

 

[mschauer]

Originally Posted by Frappe  

No, I did not necessarily intend to make it that high, but her recipe as is says to remove 20-25% of the bones in the recipe. Chicken thighs are 21% ish (or so I thought) so that would make it rather high on bone as well (12-15% just rough estimate). Originally, I thought it was supposed to be 7-10% bone for their diet, but assumed she worked it out another way. That's why I was asking. It seemed higher in bone than I had previously thought.

Yup, I also got 12-15% bone in Dr P's recipe. The 'bone as a percent of the total' thing is pretty imprecise. Meaning there is no definite "right" value. I think it is better to be on the high side than the low side unless of course a high percentage causes constipation in your cats. When I used whole bone I started targeting 7-8% after finding what looked exactly like pieces of chalk in their litter box with a higher percentage of bone.

 

[katznbunz]

For  a cat who has been idiopathic hypercalcemic should I remove 50% of the turkey thigh bones, instead of 25%, prior to making Dr. Pierson's cat food recipe?  Also, is there any way to check with Dr. Pierson regarding her recipe to make sure that the vitamin slurry is based on 3 pounds of turkey skin/meat/bone and chicken heart after some of the bones and skin have been removed and 4 oz. of the chicken heart have been added?  Looks like I will need to purchase a food scale in addition to the meat grinder. :-)

 

[mschauer]

 
For  a cat who has been idiopathic hypercalcemic should I remove 50% of the turkey thigh bones, instead of 25%, prior to making Dr. Pierson's cat food recipe?  

There isn't anyone in this forum who is qualified to answer that. It's a question for your vet. In your situation you might want to consider using a calcium supplement rather than ground bone. You'll have more reliable control over the calcium content of your food that way.

Has your vet recommended a low calcium diet? 

 Also, is there any way to check with Dr. Pierson regarding her recipe to make sure that the vitamin slurry is based on 3 pounds of turkey skin/meat/bone and chicken heart after some of the bones and skin have been removed and 4 oz. of the chicken heart have been added?  Looks like I will need to purchase a food scale in addition to the meat grinder. :-)

You can try sending her an email.

 

[monkeymom]

 
Just thought I'd report back that the recipe works out great. I deboned the thighs using a boning knife and popped them into the pressure cooker. Took about an hour and a half for them to reach crumble status. I let them cool, pureed them and made the recipe exactly as Dr. Pierson has it on her website. The cats inhaled it!

How very creative! Thanks for posting your technique! It's a nice way to work around the whole grinder issue. My cats are also not crazy about the chicken based recipe, and the flavor and smell enhancement with the broth may help.

 

[katznbunz]

So I bought the meat grinder Dr. Pierson recommended and I spent pretty much all day this past Sunday making the cat food from turkey thighs.  Since this is my first time using Dr. Pierson's recipe I have questions for those who have experience using her cat food recipe.  My biggest question has to do with the 3 pounds of turkey meat, skin, and bones.  I bought a scale and weighed the two large antibiotic free turkey thighs after removing one half of the thigh bone from the smaller turkey thigh in the hopes that I would be removing 25% of the bones.  Then I cooked the two turkey thighs and the 4 oz. of organic chicken livers (after washing them all off) at 350 degrees for 15 min.  Then I ground them all together turkey thighs and skin (I didn't remove any skin because my cats are skinny) and bones and chicken liver first on the large grind and then again on the 4.5 grind.  Even after adding the little bit of juice from them being partially cooked back in - the ground meat/skin/bones/chicken livers weighed less than 3 pounds - so I started to grind more meat to get the weight up to 3 pounds.  I figured the vitamin/mineral/water slurry mixture is based on 3 pounds of ground meat but am not sure.  Does anyone know if the 3 pounds of turkey thighs is based on it being ground up?  Since I ground the 4 oz. of chicken livers with the turkey thighs, I probably should have tried to get the ground meat/skin/bones/chicken livers weight up to 3 pounds 4oz but I was tired and just mixed the slurry into the 3 pounds of ground meat/skin/bones/chicken livers.  Was that OK?  Putting the entire mixture into small jars and freezing was the easy part.  Cut myself cleaning up.  Next time, I will use a bottle brush to clean out the grinder head instead of a sponge.  I have been cooking the defrosted food in the microwave and hope I am not destroying too many of the nutrients.  Also, I just found out one of my cats is both FIV and CKD.  Does anyone know why Dr. Pierson does not recommend this recipe for cats with CKD?  Thanks for advice!

 

[da hoomin]

 
Does anyone know why Dr. Pierson does not recommend this recipe for cats with CKD?  Thanks for advice!

A bit late to answer Katznbuns - but - A high serum [ blood] calcium level is hard on an already weakened renal system. 

 

[taraconnor777]

Just thought I'd report back that the recipe works out great. I deboned the thighs using a boning knife and popped them into the pressure cooker. Took about an hour and a half for them to reach crumble status. I let them cool, pureed them and made the recipe exactly as Dr. Pierson has it on her website. The cats inhaled it!

HOW ABOUT ,YOU cook the bones to soft state and then Cuisinart them to mush?

 

[smoochas]

Hi Frappe, hoping to hear an update on how the pressure cooked and blitz chicken bones in your homemade cat food recipe is. Are you still doing this? Thanks!