Does Feeding Raw Really Save Money?

[1 bruce 1]

Raw is the best way and moist food versus dry. Cats normally eat 6 to I nice a day outside depending on size. Dry food is processed down to much and to many additives and plastic from packing. You can get a family pack of chicken drumsticks for about 5 dollars or perhaps go to the store and get feeder mice kitty can eat.

I'm a broken record but I don't care! =D
Liver, gizzards, and (especially) hearts (of the poultry kind) are cheap, easy to obtain through markets, farmers and butchers and are rich in a lot of things muscle meats lack. Our butcher was thrilled when we offered to buy offals and "undesirables" (to humans). Butchers have a hard time sometimes selling these things and they're so nutritionally dense (heart is considered a muscle meat--very rich in taurine, great for kitties) and our willingness to take these off his hands was met with so much greatness we can get them dirt cheap.
Our dogs love beef heart, but a few of them ignored lamb hearts, spoiled brats, LOL.
As a side note (for cats!), I don't usually feed much trachea or gullet to cats as there's little guarantee that the thyroid hormone has been 100% removed. Many places say they remove the thyroid, but I know this can be a tricky thing so we feed this very sparingly to cats, if at all. We have no hyperthyroid cats here but if we did, they wouldn't see this cut of "meat".
Our dogs however consider these things a prize. Dogs seem to get hypOthyroid (low thyroid) whereas cats seem to get hypErthyroid (high thyroid). We fed a hypo dog of ours quite a bit of gullet and trachea in ground form and his thyroid medicine was reduced over time.

ETA: I'm not vegetarian or vegan myself, and I understand the "ethical" dilemma of feeding raw, especially things like hearts, kidneys, livers, pancreas, tripe, etc.... but on the flip side, that ethical part says I'd rather see these things used/fed vs. going to waste so that animal that we thank (for their sacrifice) doesn't go in vain.
There's nothing worse than an animal harvested with half of that thrown out.
When I see my dogs and cats eating "lesser" foods, I know it makes them healthy and I know it makes the sacrifice more complete, if that makes sense.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[Tobermory]

Well, I have a chronically ill formerly-raw fed guy who wants nothing but Fancy Feast anymore, so...whatever. So long as he's eating! He likes other canned foods and certain cooked foods, but for his staple diet FF is where it's at. I don't LOVE the ingredients, but I don't love a cat that's not eating way more!

Max started refusing anything but Fancy Feast (Classic...pate only...chicken) at about age 17. Since he was so underweight and diabetic, that's what he got. All Fancy Feast all the time for the next three years!

 

[sophie1]

My cat has salmon Instinct (It was free and the only flavor left), and while it used to be kitty crack, she's now decided she doesn't really want it. What the heck?! She just wants Greenies. That's it. All Greenies, all the time.

Cats, that's why we love them so much!!!

I have a few secret weapons for dealing with finicky eating, as do most of us I suspect. First level is the concealed handgun version: sprinkle the powder from the bottom of bags of Whole Life treats or Nature Variety raw boost mixers (= cheap treats), or nutritional yeast on the food dish. Second level is the bazooka version: top food with Friskies, preferably the "tasty treasures with cheese" line. For some reason, only the seriously horrible junk will do. Third level is the anti-aircraft missile version: plain meat baby food.

Recently when Charlie refused all food except Honest Kitchen, the solution was to feed him exclusively that for two days, which is how long it took him to get tired of it. I wouldn't suggest this for Greenies though!

Sounds like you need to find out what your cat doesn't like in the mix. Put it back in the freezer and see if it's the liver or the Alnutrin she doesn't like, since the chicken probably isn't the issue. If it's liver, see if she'll eat it cooked, or you could try her on freeze dried (Stewart's is fairly inexpensive). If it's Alnutrin, you could try adding just a teeny bit at first to plain chicken and gradually increase it.

 

[sabrinah]

I'm a broken record but I don't care! =D
Liver, gizzards, and (especially) hearts (of the poultry kind) are cheap, easy to obtain through markets, farmers and butchers and are rich in a lot of things muscle meats lack. Our butcher was thrilled when we offered to buy offals and "undesirables" (to humans). Butchers have a hard time sometimes selling these things and they're so nutritionally dense (heart is considered a muscle meat--very rich in taurine, great for kitties) and our willingness to take these off his hands was met with so much greatness we can get them dirt cheap.
Our dogs love beef heart, but a few of them ignored lamb hearts, spoiled brats, LOL.
As a side note (for cats!), I don't usually feed much trachea or gullet to cats as there's little guarantee that the thyroid hormone has been 100% removed. Many places say they remove the thyroid, but I know this can be a tricky thing so we feed this very sparingly to cats, if at all. We have no hyperthyroid cats here but if we did, they wouldn't see this cut of "meat".
Our dogs however consider these things a prize. Dogs seem to get hypOthyroid (low thyroid) whereas cats seem to get hypErthyroid (high thyroid). We fed a hypo dog of ours quite a bit of gullet and trachea in ground form and his thyroid medicine was reduced over time.

ETA: I'm not vegetarian or vegan myself, and I understand the "ethical" dilemma of feeding raw, especially things like hearts, kidneys, livers, pancreas, tripe, etc.... but on the flip side, that ethical part says I'd rather see these things used/fed vs. going to waste so that animal that we thank (for their sacrifice) doesn't go in vain.
There's nothing worse than an animal harvested with half of that thrown out.
When I see my dogs and cats eating "lesser" foods, I know it makes them healthy and I know it makes the sacrifice more complete, if that makes sense.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.

I fully intend on adding in more organs once she's willingly eating raw! I think there was a butcher 20ish miles away, which I can hit up on my way home during the week regularly if I like it. If I'm feeding the muscle meat, I want to feed all the other suitable parts of the bird (except the bone because I have a tiny grinder), as long as she'll willingly eat it.

Cats, that's why we love them so much!!!

I have a few secret weapons for dealing with finicky eating, as do most of us I suspect. First level is the concealed handgun version: sprinkle the powder from the bottom of bags of Whole Life treats or Nature Variety raw boost mixers (= cheap treats), or nutritional yeast on the food dish. Second level is the bazooka version: top food with Friskies, preferably the "tasty treasures with cheese" line. For some reason, only the seriously horrible junk will do. Third level is the anti-aircraft missile version: plain meat baby food.

Recently when Charlie refused all food except Honest Kitchen, the solution was to feed him exclusively that for two days, which is how long it took him to get tired of it. I wouldn't suggest this for Greenies though!

Sounds like you need to find out what your cat doesn't like in the mix. Put it back in the freezer and see if it's the liver or the Alnutrin she doesn't like, since the chicken probably isn't the issue. If it's liver, see if she'll eat it cooked, or you could try her on freeze dried (Stewart's is fairly inexpensive). If it's Alnutrin, you could try adding just a teeny bit at first to plain chicken and gradually increase it.

I wish it was that easy to persuade her to eat! If she's decided she doesn't want it, that's that. She won't look at it again. No amount of bribery will change her mind. I have the majority of the mix in the freezer. I'm positive the problem isn't the chicken. I'll have to buy more liver to try that on its own, and that will have to wait until I head into that city at some point. There's one super tiny pathetic grocery store in my town (literally the only store that hasn't shut down) and the meat all looks a little scary. I'm sure I could get cheap liver but the entire store is kinda gross, so I don't really trust the meat. I wish Alnutrin gave you more than one sample! I don't want to buy the bag and risk her not liking it! EZComplete is too expensive. There's absolutely no way I could use that stuff.

I finally got a little separate thing to put a tiny bit of the raw on separate from her usual food, so I can start trying to persuade her to eat it again. I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that she won't eat at all if the raw is in the same bowl as her food. I should just go ahead and get freeze dried liver. Are the pieces small? She'll only eat tiny things and she's not a chewer.

 

[sabrinah]

What do you guys think of using Fortiflora to tempt her to try it? I hear it's good for finicky cats. It wouldn't be a permanent thing, just a one time purchase to tempt her to try the homemade food. None of her usual favorites are tempting enough to get her to try it.

 

[Tobermory]

What do you guys think of using Fortiflora to tempt her to try it? I hear it's good for finicky cats. It wouldn't be a permanent thing, just a one time purchase to tempt her to try the homemade food. None of her usual favorites are tempting enough to get her to try it.

I used it to get Iris, my finicky eater, to eat last summer when she got sick. The emergency vet sent me home with it. Iris liked it, and it really helped to increase her interest in her food. It’s expensive but since you’re not using it as a probiotic, you’ll need very little...just a dusting on top. I still have some and alternate it with Pure Bites when she occasionally turns her little pink nose up at a particular flavor.

 

[sabrinah]

I used it to get Iris, my finicky eater, to eat last summer when she got sick. The emergency vet sent me home with it. Iris liked it, and it really helped to increase her interest in her food. It’s expensive but since you’re not using it as a probiotic, you’ll need very little...just a dusting on top. I still have some and alternate it with Pure Bites when she occasionally turns her little pink nose up at a particular flavor.

Since I'll only be dusting a pea-sized amount once a day I figure a packet will last at least a week, maybe more. My cat is probably the only one ever that turns her nose up at Pure Bites. I don't particularly want to spend nearly $30, but if it'll work it will be worth it in the long run.

 

[sabrinah]

Well, she's been on raw for a few months now. I put her back on canned for a month after a dental extraction to make sure everything was all healed up and she switched back to raw with minimal fuss. I think eating more wet/raw and less dry helps with her salivary gland issue a little bit, so I'm going to try to increase the amount of raw she gets. She's currently eating 2 ounces of raw a day and grazing on dry. Maybe I'll try 3 ounces? The cost hasn't been too bad. If I buy during Safeway sales I can get chicken and beef for $2/lb or less. I want to find a good butcher that has around the same price, if such a thing exists. She gets tired of eating the same thing over and over again, so I think I'll try making 3 2lb batches of different proteins. I know I can get chicken, beef, and pork easy but I would rather do turkey than pork. I think turkey is out of the budget though. I have to add extra fat in for her or she's starving, but I can get that for free from my parents when they buy fatty meat and trim all the fat off. I have a massive bag of fat and skin in the freezer!

I'm over halfway through the bag of Alnutrin, and since I'm going to try increasing her amount of raw I think I'm going to have to switch to buying the supplements separately instead of using a premix It's going to be a month at least until I can buy the supplements though. Does anyone have preferred brands? I also have to buy a new grinder because the first one I got just wasn't cut out for the job. I need a decent hand crank grinder with a nice fine plate. I can't afford (and I don't really need) a big electric grinder that can handle bones since I'll either be continuing with eggshell calcium or use bone meal. The extra fat killed the blender so that option is out. The food processor is a joke so that won't work either.

If I go with hand crank it'll be one of these two (which are very similar)


If I do electric it'll be this one, though some of the bad reviews scare me