Bottomless Pit

[ldg]

...and if you want it completely uncomplicated, you can safely feed 15% unbalanced. So at 21 meals a week, that means for three meals a week, they can be unbalanced. So forget all of the above, feed the ground mixes with your additions/adjustments at most meals, and three times a week feed them whatever you want, in whatever form you want.

 

[harleydiva]

It really depends on how nit-picky you want to be.

Adding 1.6 ounces of organ to each pound (which is 16 ounces) brings the total weight to 17.6 ounces - so the bone AND the organ would now be 9% (actually, 9.1%) of the total. If you want organ to be 10%, you'd have to add 1.8 ounces, bringing the total weight to 17.8 ounces. Organ would be 10%, and bone would be 9%. I don't think you need to be THAT precise.... but if it were me, I would add 0.9oz of liver, and 0.9 ounces of kidney.


....and the only dumb questions are those unasked.

Frankenprey is just another way of saying prey model raw - same thing.

No reason you can't balance that third meal. As Auntie Crazy says, variety is so important! In the diet I feed my kitties, they get whole animal ground with bone, a bone-in meal, and eggshell or freeze-dried bone as a calcium source with most of their frankenprey meals.

There's several ways to do it.

A) Don't reduce the bone content as a percent of the mixes, and feed them one meal of plain meat or meat/organ (see below for how much organ and how to balance it over the course of a week).

OR

B) Include a bone-in meal as part of their frankenprey meals once or twice a week

OR

C) Balance the frankenprey meals with an alternate calcium source: eggshell, bonemeal, or freeze dried bone. (I use eggshell and freeze dried bone - calcium hydroxyapatite from NOW foods).


It just takes 1/32 teaspoon of eggshell powder to balance 1 ounce of meat. I use the Alnutrin Eggshell powder from http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com (or you can just buy the Alnutrin with eggshell powder in it - but you already have the Alnutrin for the ground-with-organ and bone mixes), and these mini-measuring spoons: (The "Smidge" is 1/32 teaspoon).

I don't know how much food your cats are eating, but if they eat, let's say, 6 ounces of food a day, three meals a day, that means each meal is 2 ounces, and you'd be feeding 7 meals a week frankenprey, or 14 ounces a week per cat. 5% liver would be 0.7 ounces per week; same for whatever "other" organ you want to use (or if you don't want to be a stickler about the other organ, you'd need 1.4 ounces of liver). With 2 ounce meals, you could feed 2 meals a week that include some organ: 1.3 ounces of meat, and 0.7 ounces of organ.

When I use eggshell or freeze dried bone as the calcium source, I just sprinkle it on each meal.

I'm a big proponent of the KISS method.  So....if I hear you correctly, I can go ahead and feed ground twice a day, and throw in a third meal of a couple ounces of "meat" once a day, making sure I get in 1.4 oz of liver a week.......and call it good.  Or....I can do the third meal with freeze dried, and not worry about the liver.

 

[vball91]

I'm a big proponent of the KISS method.  So....if I hear you correctly, I can go ahead and feed ground twice a day, and throw in a third meal of a couple ounces of "meat" once a day, making sure I get in 1.4 oz of liver a week.......and call it good.  

Almost. You still need to balance the meat with calcium if you're not feeding a bone-in meal. The eggshell calcium that Laurie mentioned is the easiest.

Originally Posted by HarleyDiva  

  Or....I can do the third meal with freeze dried, and not worry about the liver. and bone/calcium

Yes.

 

[harleydiva]

Almost. You still need to balance the meat with calcium if you're not feeding a bone-in meal. The eggshell calcium that Laurie mentioned is the easiest.

Yes.

vball.....I think I get to skip the calcium step because the ground mixes for the other 2 meals are already at 10%.

 

[vball91]

Oops, sorry, forgot about that. Right, if you leave those ground mixes at 10% bone, you should be fine feeding meat/organs as the 3rd meal. That would bring your bone percentage down to 6.7% assuming you're feeding equal amounts of food at your 3 meals.

 

[auntie crazy]

...

The very fact that some users of the 80-10-5-5 method insist that varying the proteins is "essential" is an acknowledgment that the method can result in deficiencies. The only difference between that approach and the "recipe" approach is that with the recipe approach we aren't satisfied at just assuming that randomly varying the diet ingredients is all that is needed in fill in any nutrient deficiencies and take a more rigorous approach to identifying and rectifying the deficiencies.

That's a nice theory, mschauer, but it's completely incorrect.

The PMR recommendations for variety are based on common sense backed up by science.

How many potential prey species account for the bulk of the diet of mammalian predators? Implications for stable isotope paleodietary analyses, J. A. Pérez-Claros and P. Palmqvist, Journal of Zoology, February 2008

Big Predatory Mammals Such As Felines Need Between 5 And 7 Different Types Of Prey To Meet Their Dietary Needs, Science Daily, July 2008 (Study Review)

Quote: “However, five to seven prey species account for the bulk of the diet of most stalking felids and also for those omnivorous canids that are not pack hunters.” ‘The novelty of the study lies in the confirmation that the large felines, such as lions and leopards, need “from 5 to 7 preys to fulfill their nutritional requirements,” the researcher points out.’

Even cats instinctively know they need more than a single prey source.

The Evolutionary Basis for the Feeding Behavior of Domestic Dogs and Cats, John W. S. Bradshaw, Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, September 2005.

Quote: “Although in the wild much of their food selection behavior must focus on what to hunt, rather than what to eat, cats do modify their food preferences based on experience. For example, the “monotony effect” reduces the perceived palatability of foods that have recently formed a large proportion of the diet, in favor of foods with contrasting sensory characteristics, thereby tending to compensate for any incipient nutritional deficiencies.”

And PMR doesn't recommend "randomly varying" anything, it recommends the diet be split between at least three to five different meat animals.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Ground diets contain supplements because the act of grinding the food degrades the nutrient content, and (IMO) because they appeal to folks who want precise recipes with precise measurements and who are, for a variety of reasons, uncomfortable with the notion that a diet that balances ingredients without attempting to track individual nutrients - aka, a PMR 80/10/5/5 diet - will provide our carnivorous friends with everything they need to thrive.

As a PMR feeder, I do not offer my cats eggs or crickets because I believe they contain anything critical to a balanced diet, I offer them because they up the variety component of my cats' diet, and variety is critical to providing adequate nutrition. And the only reason I consider the Omega 3 content of sardines important is to counter the unnatural O6:O3 balance of today's factory-farmed meat animals. Where I able to source naturally-raised meat animals, I would not be feeding any fish at all.

...and this brings us back around to discussion we've had before (meaning both AC and I, and generally threads in the forum). While certainly variety is critical to the 80/10/5/5 guidelines, I think many simply do not factor in that the nutritional profile of factory farmed meat (and how it's handled before it gets to us) - which, IMO, only somewhat resembles a cat's natural prey - and the issue is not limited to the omega balance.
...

If we were pioneers blazing the trail for others to follow in a brand new feline raw feeding world, then all of this struggling to find numbers would possibly make sense.

But we aren't. People have been PMR feeding their cats for decades, and we have their examples to follow. Beyond that, take a look at your own cats. An astonishing number of TCS members have switched their cats to raw over the last year. We have thread after thread extolling the virtues of raw feeding and the incredible health benefits accruing to TCS cats, PMR fed and otherwise.

Beyond that, we have folks like me, who take their cats in every couple of years and have thorough urine and chem panels analyzed - and they consistently come back with healthy numbers.

And think about this... Vitamin D deficiency and toxicity symptoms are very well known, and take only weeks to a couple of months to show up. If the PMR guideline was so grossly inapplicable, we would have heard about it long, LONG before now. Vets and the anti-raw establishment would be ALL OVER that, bugling it from the rooftops and screaming it in the streets. And they aren't. Why? Because it isn't happening.

Cats are not delicate little crystals that need precisely this or precisely that to thrive. Heck, they've been living (albeit poorly) for years on PFI products that, in some cases, could almost be considered abusive to feed. And they've been thriving - here on TCS and all over the world - on a variety of raw diets, including PMR. Feeding them is no more or less difficult than the common sense feeding of our own children.

There is no crisis of nutritional deficiencies related to PMR feeding.

And I'm willing to put myself on the line to prove it.

For several months (due to some pesky financials constraints), my cats have been fed exclusively on grocery store products (i.e. no rabbit or Hare Today organs). Nor have they had any eggs, crickets, fish or fish oil during this time. Tomorrow, I will call my vet and set up an appointment for urine and chem panels for my boy Ralph (who happens to enjoy getting out and about). I will ask him to look for vitamin and mineral deficiencies specifically, and will post those results and any comments he has when I get them.

Fair enough?

AC

 

[mschauer]

...

The very fact that some users of the 80-10-5-5 method insist that varying the proteins is "essential" is an acknowledgment that the method can result in deficiencies. The only difference between that approach and the "recipe" approach is that with the recipe approach we aren't satisfied at just assuming that randomly varying the diet ingredients is all that is needed in fill in any nutrient deficiencies and take a more rigorous approach to identifying and rectifying the deficiencies.

That's a nice theory, mschauer, but it's completely incorrect.

There is no theory in what I wrote. Only fact.

Even cats instinctively know they need more than a single prey source.

*Whole* prey that have developed eating *their* own natural diet. Not bits and pieces of animals raised on completely unnatural diets.

And PMR doesn't recommend "randomly varying" anything, it recommends the diet be split between at least three to five different meat animals.

Randomly chosen and in random proportions.

AC, *all* of the following comments by you are gross misrepresentations of what Laurie and I wrote:

... struggling to find numbers... 

... If the PMR guideline was so grossly inapplicable,...

... Cats are not delicate little crystals ...

[color= rgb(70, 70, 70)]... There is no crisis of nutritional deficiencies ...[/color]

Neither of us have made any statements anything even remotely like those.

There is more than one way to approach feeding a homemade diet to cats. You have your way and we have ours. Why you continually feel the need to present your way as the only legitimate way is beyond. me.

When I'm asked to explain why I don't follow the simplistic 80-10-5-5 formula I explain why I'm not comfortable with it but I *never* say that I believe harm will come from following it. In other words, I don't do as you do and insist that I'm right and followers of the 80-10-5-5 method are wrong. I respect their decision.

I'm going to ask you to start showing Laurie and I that same respect. This means that when we explain to others our reasons for feeding the way we do you DO NOT respond with an attack. Particularly not one that outrageously misrepresents our reasoning as you have done in this thread.

Do you think you can do that??

 

[auntie crazy]

There are an infinite number of ways to feed a properly balanced raw diet, including PMR. I advocate for them all, not just PMR.

And I love and adore Laurie. We are friends on TCS and off. If you sense anything, it's frustration. PMR is one of (if not the) oldest way to raw feed a cat. It's been tried and tested for longer than any ground recipe, and it's been proven.

More important than all that - and because of all that - cat owners can have confidence in it. You and Laurie and all the other PMR feeders (if that's how you're feeding) can have confidence in what you're feeding. You may (or may not) get this - but that matters to me. There are many reasons to be worried about our cats, but limited resources to spend on worries. If I can help eliminate one of those worries, I'm dedicated to making the attempt.

You've seen the fear that neophyte raw feeders have to shake off just to try raw food. When fear and confusion is too high, they back off... and that's a disservice to their cats (and to them, too, frankly). My test with Ralph is offered as a balance against the PMR fears that have been floated. I'm doing it for Laurie and anyone else who is worried that a simple PMR diet is inadequate. She is witness to my current situation, and knows the cats haven't been getting what they used to. If, after all this time on a straight, grocery store, four-meat diet with no additions (eggs, crickets, and fish/fish oil), a thorough physical and urine / blood analysis, Ralph is deemed healthy, that's solid proof that even the lowest-grade PMR diet is nutritionally sufficient.

And I think that's worth paying for.

Besides, we've all bemoaned the lack of tests to back up anything related to PMR. Here's a perfect opportunity to put at least one question to bed (or, at least, tuck it in *smile*).

AC

 

[mschauer]

That there are people who are unwilling to blindly and mindlessly accept the opinions of others but rather prefer to examine the evidence themselves and come to their own, possibly different, opinions should not be a source of frustration to anyone who is truely confident in their own position.

Nor should anyone feel the need to resort to inflammatory, wholly inaccurate language to characterize a position that is different from their own. It is that style of debate that makes politicians so obnoxious.  

 

[auntie crazy]

First, I'm too ignorant or mindless to know the "real" reason variety is important in PMR feeding (but not in any other feline diet... oh, wait, it's important in ALL feline diets), and now I'm as despicable as a politician (nice stereotype)?

*sigh*

I'm not interested in arguing or throwing insults around, I'm interested in researching and educating myself and others on feline nutrition. Ralph's appointment for a full physical, cystocentesis, and complete blood chem panel is on Saturday. When the data comes back, I'll share it with anyone interested.

Best regards.

AC

 

[mschauer]

I think it is obvious that you are yet again misrepresenting my words.

*sigh* 

I have no idea why you think the blood work  of one cat and the limited information it can provide is relevant but by all means post it.

 

[harleydiva]

Update on "The Pit".....he struck again during the night...lol.  When we first got him, we used to keep a stick of butter, wrapped in it's paper near the stove on a small plate.  That had to change....because he discovered it and started eating the butter.  So...we bought a heavy glass covered butter dish to keep him out of it.  That lasted about a week, before he figured out how to get the lid off.  Next, I went to the cooking store and bought one of those fancy butter keepers....the kind where you fill the top thingy with butter, then turn it upside down in the jar.  It is pretty heavy, and the lid fits flush, so he hasn't been able to get into it.....until last night.  I got up this morning, and the lid was lying next to the jar, and all the butter is gone.  

 

[peaches08]

LOL! I feel your pain HarleyDiva! Mason opened the cabinets beneath the sink while I was at clinical yesterday and drug cleaners out onto the floor (everyone is OK). He also found where I hide the toilet paper in the guest bathroom and made a complete mess of it...he's figured out how to open that door. Thankfully he's not the eater that Gadget is. And thankfully Gadget isn't the smarter kitty!

 

[ldg]

Before I address the "PMR vs." stuff, I'm sorry, but I get a giggle out of clever kitties.... being kitties. :lol3: We are SO fortunate that out of 8 cats, none of them open cabinets. I'm quite sure Ming Loy would - but when we lived in a house with easy-to-open cabinets, she was just a baby, and too uncoordinated because of her cerebellar hypoplasia at that point. I think the only reason she can't get into the cabinets in the RV is because the cabinets all have what are essentially child locks on them, so they don't open during travel. But heaven forbid I leave paper towels out for a MINUTE. (And the toilet paper goes on the inside of the cabinet under the bathroom sink!).

 

[mschauer]

It's an almost daily part of my routine to pick the clothes up off the floor and put them back in the bottom drawers of my dresser because the kitties have opened the drawers and pulled them out. 

 

 

[peaches08]

People look at me like I'm crazy when I offer to take their purse and put it in my closed bedroom. No joke, Mason will go through it. He is excellent with those polydactyl thumbs of his. It is literally 15 seconds or less and you will find the back half of my cat sticking out of your purse. He's not looking to eat anything...he's just nosey and looking for a new toy that you may be hiding in there. Friends laugh about my bad brown tabby, "are you sure you don't have a raccoon?" Good point! I used to fend off dumber raccoons when I had a farm!

 

[harleydiva]

It's an almost daily part of my routine to pick the clothes up off the floor and put them back in the bottom drawers of my dresser because the kitties have opened the drawers and pulled them out. 

 

Thank goodness Gideon can't get into the dresser in the bedroom.....it's heavy pine with weird handles that he can't get ahold of.  It's the only safe place n the house.  All the treats and the freeze dried food is stored in my underwear drawer to keep him out of it....lol.

 

[ldg]

Now, as to the "is the 85/10/5/5 nutritionally complete" debate and posts....
.

The very fact that some users of the 80-10-5-5 method insist that varying the proteins is "essential" is an acknowledgment that the method can result in deficiencies. The only difference between that approach and the "recipe" approach is that with the recipe approach we aren't satisfied at just assuming that randomly varying the diet ingredients is all that is needed in fill in any nutrient deficiencies and take a more rigorous approach to identifying and rectifying the deficiencies.

AC: That's a nice theory, mschauer, but it's completely incorrect.

The PMR recommendations for variety are based on common sense backed up by science.

How many potential prey species account for the bulk of the diet of mammalian predators? Implications for stable isotope paleodietary analyses, J. A. Pérez-Claros and P. Palmqvist, Journal of Zoology, February 2008

Big Predatory Mammals Such As Felines Need Between 5 And 7 Different Types Of Prey To Meet Their Dietary Needs, Science Daily, July 2008 (Study Review)

I'm lost on this response and why mschauer's comment about variety is incorrect. Anyone that's done any research at all on PMR, which both of you have, knows that variety is essential in balancing a PMR diet. We're all agreed on that. Perhaps I missed something or something's going over my head, but I read that as part of mschauer's point. The very title of that second link you posted, AC, says it all: "....to meet their dietary needs." Am I missing something? "Strict" PMR feeders, based on research, believe the rotation in variety is sufficient; people like Medora and I are wondering what's missing that requires variety. :scratch: I see it as just a ... different kind of research. My understanding is that you don't want to "break it down" into components, and that's fine. But I'm not getting why looking into why the need for variety is contentious. :dk:

As Medora pointed out, cats eating 5 - 7 different types of prey in the wild - whole animals eating their natural diet - is quite different than providing chicken, turkey, beef and pork, and only chicken liver and beef kidney. I also believe we all agree on that point.

In one of our discussions of supplements, AC, I asked why you didn't consider eggs or sardines "supplements" in the PMR diet. Your reply in this thread as re: eggs and sardines was surprising to me, as I was sure you'd said that they're not supplements in a traditional sense - they're whole foods that are part of a balanced PMR diet. Either I misunderstood, or you meant they're potentially part of the protein and fat rotation and are optional if enough other proteins/omega 3 fats are being offered (though it definitely was not put that way at the time). :dk:

More to the point, perhaps, is the question - can we assume that the variety we provide (if using just 80/10/5/5) is enough? That was the original question. But given ease of sourcing issues, perhaps the question is really, if people feed just chicken liver and beef kidney as the organs, and rotate only factory farmed proteins - without offering eggs and sardines or some type of fish or fish oil - is that sufficient?

And the back-and-forth so far doesn't address that at all.
.

If we were pioneers blazing the trail for others to follow in a brand new feline raw feeding world, then all of this struggling to find numbers would possibly make sense.

But we aren't. People have been PMR feeding their cats for decades, and we have their examples to follow. Beyond that, take a look at your own cats. An astonishing number of TCS members have switched their cats to raw over the last year. We have thread after thread extolling the virtues of raw feeding and the incredible health benefits accruing to TCS cats, PMR fed and otherwise.

But WHAT "version" of PMR?

Kymythy Schultz, one of the pioneers of raw PMR feeding, includes egg, fish oil, and her "super supp" - which is recommended to account for the "nutrient depletion of our soils (and thus, our foods), modern day stress, environmental toxins, and the extra nutrients that may be found in the cat's natural wild diet." (p. 94, Natural Nutrition for Cats, 2nd Ed, 2010). Linda Zurich, in Raw Fed Cats, stresses the importance of oily fish, and recommends including eggs in the rotation. :dk:

Being a raw feeder now, I pay attention to raw feeding group discussions in a number of places - and while there are plenty of people that don't weigh things, don't follow menus... it seems that most of those people provide a very wide variety of proteins, including a wide variety of organs - pancreas, brain, spleen: many seek wild hunted meat, and most do seem to provide some kind of fish. So providing hunted, natural quail, grouse, rabbit, venison, moose, etc., IMO, totally changes the nutritional composition. It has to.

My only point in answering "no" to Minka's question about the 80/10/5/5 being solely sufficient was that it isn't likely to be properly balanced UNLESS.... all the qualifiers I pointed out post #68.

...and if we we are going to provide limited organs, no variety in the source of those organs, and only rotate proteins, then as someone who has looked into the sources of which nutrients come from what, I believe it is important to include eggs (or at least yolks) and some kind of fish (or fish oil) as part of the variety and rotation.

************************

Beyond that, we have folks like me, who take their cats in every couple of years and have thorough urine and chem panels analyzed - and they consistently come back with healthy numbers.

And think about this... Vitamin D deficiency and toxicity symptoms are very well known, and take only weeks to a couple of months to show up. If the PMR guideline was so grossly inapplicable, we would have heard about it long, LONG before now.

As already pointed out by mschauer, no one said "grossly inapplicable." And in a PMR diet that includes beef and beef kidney, we're not talking about the kind of vitamin D deficiency that's going to show up in weeks or months. I haven't done the work on vitamin D, but I have on vitamin A. Vitamin D, like vitamin A, is fat soluble, not water soluble - it is stored in body fat. With the complete absence of vitamin A in the diet, it takes several months for a deficiency to appear. So suggesting that a vitamin D deficiency would take weeks is most likely inaccurate. I definitely overstated the situation when I said that if you're not feeding eggs or fish (or fish oil) you're providing no vitamin D. But if you're not feeding beef, kidney, other sources of liver apart from chicken - AND no eggs or oily fish - then perhaps a vitamin D deficiency would appear inside of a few months. But that's not the type of deficiency I'm worried about. With proper PMR, at a minimum kidney is part of the diet. But does it provide sufficient vitamin D for there not to potentially be problems after 10 or 15 years? Only time and cardiac ultrasound or bone density type tests would indicate that - not annual blood work. I haven't seen vitamin A or D levels included as normal blood work done on cats.

[As an added side-note: all of my cats have had blood work done since being on a raw diet. One has had blood work done three times, several twice. (Due to health issues unrelated to raw). I've only been feeding raw for 13 months, but blood work is all fine in all of my cats. ].

And actually, Carolina sent me these links. It appears that the requirement for vitamin D in adult cats is "low," and can be "offset" by the Ca ratio (and bear in mind, in the Plantinga study, they were surprised to find the Ca ratio was higher than anticipated at 1.5:1).

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/63/1/79.full.pdf "The Effect of Vitamin D-Deficient Diets Containing Various Ca Ratios on Cats," Gershoff et al. 1957. (Disturbing to read because of the methods used in testing on kittens).

A short-to-the-point (unreferenced) summary: http://www.fabcats.org/owners/feeding/info.html "Vitamin D is involved in the metabolism of calcium. Animal tissue is low in calcium so the cat's diet must be supplemented with this mineral. A deficiency of vitamin D results in rickets. However, cats need very little vitamin D and when the quantity and ration of calcium to phosphorus in the diet is normal, true rickets is very rarely seen."
.

Cats are not delicate little crystals that need precisely this or precisely that to thrive. Heck, they've been living (albeit poorly) for years on PFI products that, in some cases, could almost be considered abusive to feed.

OK, but this isn't related to nutritional deficiency, as almost all prepared pet food in the U.S., no matter the quality, is supplemented, so has nothing to do with the discussion.
.

And they've been thriving - here on TCS and all over the world - on a variety of raw diets, including PMR. Feeding them is no more or less difficult than the common sense feeding of our own children.

There is no crisis of nutritional deficiencies related to PMR feeding.

.

And no one has suggested there is. :scratch:
.

There is more than one way to approach feeding a homemade diet to cats. You have your way and we have ours. Why you continually feel the need to present your way as the only legitimate way is beyond me.

When I'm asked to explain why I don't follow the simplistic 80-10-5-5 formula I explain why I'm not comfortable with it but I *never* say that I believe harm will come from following it. In other words, I don't do as you do and insist that I'm right and followers of the 80-10-5-5 method are wrong. I respect their decision.

.

There are an infinite number of ways to feed a properly balanced raw diet, including PMR. I advocate for them all, not just PMR.

While you may support all choices as re: raw feeding, believing that any version is better than commercial pet foods, you advocate for PMR. You definitely do not advocate for supplementing (and there's nothing wrong with that, let's just be accurate. ).

And this entire discussion is because of your belief that supplements aren't needed, and I think that's the difference. I'm perfectly willing to believe that with enough variety in rotation of naturally raised, pastured animals and their parts, PMR is sufficient; yet I choose to analyze the diet choices I've made (well, have the diets analyzed), and based on those analyses, I choose to use some supplements. Your arguments and choices are rooted in the belief (based on your research) that analysis isn't even needed.
.

And I love and adore Laurie. We are friends on TCS and off. If you sense anything, it's frustration. PMR is one of (if not the) oldest way to raw feed a cat. It's been tried and tested for longer than any ground recipe, and it's been proven.

Aw, I love and adore you too. :heart2:

As to this discussion... Your frustration with the discussion of "to supplement or not to supplement," or on focus on any individual nutrient, or statement, implication, or contemplation that something may be missing from a PMR diet, perhaps sometimes expresses itself in the exaggerated statements mschauer highlighted.


IMO, the issue isn't "PMR." It's what comprises balanced PMR. It's tried and tested... but did it include a wide variety of proteins? Organs? Sources of organs? Fish? Fish oil? Eggs? We don't know what choices all these individuals made. We just know that every single book on raw feeding - including those on PMR as opposed to ground - includes mention of all of these things. And most address issues of providing for the parts of animals we don't feed when using the prey model; and quite a few address issues of providing for taking into account that our sources of proteins are ... "imperfect," as factory farm-raised animals. And what I hear you arguing in this thread is that we don't "need" eggs or oily fish or fish oil. And I don't argue that could well be true if the rest of the variety is sufficient from "properly" sourced proteins. But that gets back to my original statement: discussion of PMR being sufficient and nutritionally balanced at 80/10/5/5 requires qualification.
.

More important than all that - and because of all that - cat owners can have confidence in it. You and Laurie and all the other PMR feeders (if that's how you're feeding) can have confidence in what you're feeding. You may (or may not) get this - but that matters to me. There are many reasons to be worried about our cats, but limited resources to spend on worries. If I can help eliminate one of those worries, I'm dedicated to making the attempt.

You've seen the fear that neophyte raw feeders have to shake off just to try raw food. When fear and confusion is too high, they back off... and that's a disservice to their cats (and to them, too, frankly).

I really don't understand this statement at all. Are you suggesting that those of us that discuss supplementing PMR creates fear and confusion?

One of the biggest fears most people have is that they're not going to provide a nutritionally complete diet. Suggesting that including eggs and fish oil is hardly irresponsible when discussing a balanced PMR diet; it's not complicated, and I don't see at all how it would create fear. When I respond to people asking questions about PMR, my experience is that explaining what egg yolks and sardines (or fish oil) add to a diet provides increased comfort level - and prompts us to find alternate sources for what they provide for people's whose cats don't like eggs or sardines (or fish oil).
.

My test with Ralph is offered as a balance against the PMR fears that have been floated. I'm doing it for Laurie and anyone else who is worried that a simple PMR diet is inadequate. She is witness to my current situation, and knows the cats haven't been getting what they used to. If, after all this time on a straight, grocery store, four-meat diet with no additions (eggs, crickets, and fish/fish oil), a thorough physical and urine / blood analysis, Ralph is deemed healthy, that's solid proof that even the lowest-grade PMR diet is nutritionally sufficient.

If he's due for an annual and blood work, then by all means, keep the appointment. But I personally do not feel that the blood work will prove or disprove anything, as I don't believe a potentially slightly-deficient diet for a (relatively) short period of time would result in any anomalies that would show up in normal blood work or urinalysis. And he has been getting 80/10/5/5 - just not with the same depth of variety as previously. And if he were fed this limited-variety-diet for the next 15+ years, he may be fine. But as I explained before - my concern as re: PMR being sufficient isn't the research, the science, the theory... it's the inputs.

.

 

[peaches08]

Oh boy...for a year I fed ground chicken thighs per Dr. Pierson's recipe but omitted egg yolks due to IBD. Dr. Pierson also lists the egg yolks as optional. The only source of liver I use is chicken liver. I would give them juice from tuna packed in water maybe once a month, only recently have I added sardines (juice and all, I don't eat sardines). I use fish oil in their recipe, and usually fed according to her new requirements of fish oil.

Should I be worried about their vitamin D levels? My vet thought they were VERY healthy when he saw them in January, but no blood work was done.

 

[ldg]

It seems like the answer is no, you don't need to be concerned. The information Carolina sent up in the links in the post I just posted indicate that adult cats have a very low requirement for vitamin D, especially if the Ca ratio is adequate.

FYI, fish oil has quite a bit of vitamin D in it, which is likely why Dr. P says the eggs are optional. I have several cats that won't eat kidney, so their primary source of vit D is the salmon oil.

I just keep referencing sardines, because the discussion has been as re: "unsupplemented" PMR, and the most typical fish recommended to include in rotation is sardines; but a strict PMR feeder wouldn't include fish oil as a "supplement."

Edited to add: I went back and edited my post above to include mention of fish oil, not just sardines.
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