Experiences with Carnivora pre-made?

[bluebo]

Does anyone on this board have experience with Carnivora products?
I emailed them about 3 weeks ago asking if their Carnivora line was nutritionally balanced for cats or whether it required supplementation (taurine). I also asked what the meat/bone/organ percentages were. I didn't get a response.
I sent another email this evening and if I don't get a response I'm wondering about their quality of customer service??
Anyway-- just wondering if anyone on here has had a good/bad experience with the Carnivora product?
Did you find it was bone heavy like some pre-mades?
I'm thinking of buying Bo some Carnivora and mixing it in with his canned to see how he likes it.
I contacted Spring Meadows via email and they got to me within an hour. I haven't been able to contact Carnivora through email. Is this normal? Btw- Spring Meadows is 70/20/10 (meat/bone/organ).... too much bone for a mature cat prone to constipation?
Thanks anyone with advice :nod:

 

[bluebo]

No one?

 

[Willowy]

Sorry no answers yet :dk:. I've heard good things about it but I don't know the details because it's only a Canadian brand.

20% does seems like an awful amount of bone.

 

[bluebo]

Sorry no answers yet :dk:. I've heard good things about it but I don't know the details because it's only a Canadian brand.
20% does seems like an awful amount of bone.

Yea it does seem like quite a bit... maybe not good for a constipated guy.

 

[maraozza]

Hi bluebo!
You can check on their website for calcium/phosphorus ratio for their meats( for example, chicken patties have 1.9 ratio, which I guess must be little bit high for cats.)
We tried once elk patties - our cat didn't touch it, even with toppings . So, we gonna stick with more conventional proteins. We took it back and bought Bold Raw Rabbit for Cats, which we know, he likes a lot.
Btw, meat/organ ratio for this one is 80% meaty bones and 20% organ meat( heart, liver, kidneys), the meat to bone ratio is 60%/40%, according to their answer to my email.
Btw, Carnivora patties have very fine grind and can be easily mixed with wet food. Too bad, they sell it only in 4 lb bags - no small trial sizes!

 

[bluebo]

Hi bluebo!
You can check on their website for calcium/phosphorus ratio for their meats( for example, chicken patties have 1.9 ratio, which I guess must be little bit high for cats.)
We tried once elk patties - our cat didn't touch it, even with toppings . So, we gonna stick with more conventional proteins. We took it back and bought Bold Raw Rabbit for Cats, which we know, he likes a lot.
Btw, meat/organ ratio for this one is 80% meaty bones and 20% organ meat( heart, liver, kidneys), the meat to bone ratio is 60%/40%, according to their answer to my email.
Btw, Carnivora patties have very fine grind and can be easily mixed with wet food. Too bad, they sell it only in 4 lb bags - no small trial sizes!

40% bone?? That doesn't sound right...

 

[auntie crazy]

Cats do best with a bone percentage between 5 and 7%, with a maximum of 10%. Anything over 10% and you are definitely courting constipation. Dogs can handle a bonier diet, but 20% is too high even for them.

AC
 

 

[ldg]

40% bone?? That doesn't sound right...

I think something got mixed up somewhere....

 

[oakshimmer]

Hello!

I have tried the Carnivora brand. It is a good choice, and I had better luck phoning them rather than through email. You might have better luck giving them a call.

I spoke to the owner directly and he was very nice and helpful.

My cat seemed to love the Carnivora Chicken, but for some reason she has stopped liking it. Not sure why that is but I still give her a little bit from time to time. She does love their Beef Offal patties, and that has a very low bone amount and is great to add if you are worried about constipation as it is a great "meaty meat"!

In regards to the whole balanced thing, well it is in fact supposed to be a whole carcass, organs and bones etc, so in essence the idea is that it is a balanced meal. If you are concerned with the taurine in it, you can supplement some taurine powder you can buy at the vitamin store. I give my cat a pinch, well less than a pinch on her meat and I feel happy knowing she is getting what she needs if it is not already in there (which it is).

I hope this answer helps! Oh and Carnivora seems to have some really great choices. I love the idea that the have rabbit... my cat loves rabbit!

 

[maraozza]

Here is exactly what they send me:

Hi Maria,

Thank you for your email, I’m just out of the office until tomorrow afternoon, but I will send you the nutritional analysis then, just didn’t want you to think I forgot! The meat bone ratio is simple, we use 80% ground meaty bone, and 20% organ meat, the rabbit has liver, heart and kidney, the turkey has liver and heart in it, and so does the beef and chicken, all 1 protein (so chicken has chicken liver and chicken heart). The meat to bone ratio is as follows: chicken and rabbit, 60% meat 40% bone, beef is 80% meat and 20% bone and turkey is about 70% meat and 30% bone. For the chicken and rabbit we grind the whole animal, beef we use only lean outside round meat and grind the bone separately (beef bone can be tough on the grinder!) and for the turkey we use whole turkey necks. Hope this helps!

Have a great evening!



Caroline Bolduc

President & CEO

Bold Canine Inc.

519-833-0800

www.boldcanine.com

www.boldraw.com

Also, last week, I asked a representative of Pet4Life about their raw feline formulas, and they told me it has about 30% bone in it. Another local raw pet food company is preparing ground meats for cats with 3:1 meat to bone ratio. I believe, most of Canadian Raw Pet Food Companies are using more bone and less meat, because of the high price of the meat.

I know, that is a very high bone content for cats, so I am always balancing it with plain meat chunks!

 

[bluebo]

Here is exactly what they send me:
Hi Maria,
Thank you for your email, I’m just out of the office until tomorrow afternoon, but I will send you the nutritional analysis then, just didn’t want you to think I forgot! The meat bone ratio is simple, we use 80% ground meaty bone, and 20% organ meat, the rabbit has liver, heart and kidney, the turkey has liver and heart in it, and so does the beef and chicken, all 1 protein (so chicken has chicken liver and chicken heart). The meat to bone ratio is as follows: chicken and rabbit, 60% meat 40% bone, beef is 80% meat and 20% bone and turkey is about 70% meat and 30% bone. For the chicken and rabbit we grind the whole animal, beef we use only lean outside round meat and grind the bone separately (beef bone can be tough on the grinder!) and for the turkey we use whole turkey necks. Hope this helps!
Have a great evening!

Caroline Bolduc
President & CEO
Bold Canine Inc.
519-833-0800
www.boldcanine.com
www.boldraw.com
Also, last week, I asked a representative of Pet4Life about their raw feline formulas, and they told me it has about 30% bone in it. Another local raw pet food company is preparing ground meats for cats with 3:1 meat to bone ratio. I believe, most of Canadian Raw Pet Food Companies are using more bone and less meat, because of the high price of the meat.
I know, that is a very high bone content for cats, so I am always balancing it with plain meat chunks!

But this is Bold Raw not Carnivora...?
If that is the bone content in Carnivora OR Bold Raw, I definitely could not use it for my cat. He is very prone to constipation, I thought the 20% in Spring Meadows was high!!
I guess he will be on his one brand of canned food that he likes- Merrick. *sigh
I would also like to state that I have emailed Carnivora twice and they have NOT gotten back to me at all. This is unacceptable in my opinion and wouldn't give them my business at this point.
Spring Meadows got back to me within 2 hours of emailing them, so I would definitely recommend Spring Meadows over Carnivora to the Canadians out there with dogs or cats :nod:
http://www.springmeadowsnaturalpetfood.com/

 

[andrya]

Hi Bluebo,

l just started Carnivora a couple of weeks ago.

l got 2 red meat flavours for thye dog, and 2 white for the cats, but they refuse to even sniff the turkey, so the dog is happy.

They "tolerate" the rabbit, but you're correct that the calcium : phosphorous ratio isn't optimal.

On the bag of rabbit it lists Phosphorous at 0.66%  and Calcium at 1.06%, which is well outside of the ratio listed on my raw recipe site.

Some other Carnivora flavours are worse - almost exactly 2 : 1.

l guess it's best to feed it added to meat chunks??

 

[mschauer]

Hi bluebo!
You can check on their website for calcium/phosphorus ratio for their meats( for example, chicken patties have 1.9 ratio, which I guess must be little bit high for cats.)

I'd say 1.9 is way too high! I shoot for a calciumhosphorus ratio of 1.1. A ratio of 1.9 means the calcium content is 70% higher than what I would want.

It's really strange that those products have so much bone. Especially given that constipation caused by too much bone is not an uncommon problem when raw feeding.

Very strange.

 

[ldg]

Basically, whatever the Ca ratio is in the Carnivora foods - just like with many of the Hare Today ground foods - it's the "natural" Ca ratio of the animal, because they are whole ground animals. They simply don't add more meat to the product to reduce the Ca ratio to the more natural ratio found in typical cat prey.

...at least that's my understanding of the situation.

 

[bluebo]

I'd say 1.9 is way too high! I shoot for a calciumhosphorus ratio of 1.1. A ratio of 1.9 means the calcium content is 70% higher than what I would want.

It's really strange that those products have so much bone. Especially given that constipation caused by too much bone is not an uncommon problem when raw feeding.

Very strange.

Well I tried to contact them multiple times to ask them about the amount of bone and there was no response. That's an answer in and of itself. I will not be giving them my business.
I will HAVE to stick with canned right now. I was willing to try him on the pre-made raw because if all else fails- I KNOW my dog would have eaten it lol. At this point I have run out of options.

 

[bluebo]

Basically, whatever the Ca ratio is in the Carnivora foods - just like with many of the Hare Today ground foods - it's the "natural" Ca ratio of the animal, because they are whole ground animals. They simply don't add more meat to the product to reduce the Ca ratio to the more natural ratio found in typical cat prey.
...at least that's my understanding of the situation.

For the price that they charge, the meat should have a balanced Ca ratio! If they realize that the Calcium is much too high they should be balancing it out IMO.

 

[cyndie]

I am sad to say that I have had two near fatal experiences with Carnivora pre-made frozen raw diet.  I have 3 cats - one of them suffered with salmonella poisoning about 18 months ago (big vet bill to help cat recover).  I thought it was a one time thing and because my cats were all raised on raw - I continued with the diet.  This past weekend another one of my cats suffered near death with salmonella poisoning again with same product line.  First time was with Beef, this time was with Elk.  After another big vet bill to save this cat -- I will defintely not feed this product to my cats again.  The packaging is poor, the response from the company when I contacted them was poor and although this is one of the more affordable foods -- I would not recommend it - at all!!

Please do some more research on raw and if you are going to purchase pre-made consider a product that is packaged so that air cannot get into it.  Nature's Way is a good one.  Sometimes a little more expense up front is worth it as big vet bills and the possibility of loosing your feline friend are not worth the cost savings.  I am currently investigating the freeze-dry raw because since there are absolutely no regulations on raw diet for pets, it is very difficult to make sure that you are not inadvertenly poisoning your animals unless you are preparting the meat yourself.

 

[ldg]

Wow, that's scary! Did you have the meat tested to confirm it? Also a bummer that customer service response was poor.

FYI, many of us include a probiotic for our cats daily, to help them combat any bacteria that may be in the meat we feed. I use a human grade probiotic (I just switched from one with basically acidophilus, bifidus, and L. rhamnosus strains to a 20-strain probiotic that includes those plus S. Boulardii. Acidophilus & Bifidus have shown efficacy against Salmonella and E. Coli; the S. Boulardii provides protection against strains of clostridium and coccidia).

 

[boldraw]

Hi folks,

I realize that this response is quite tardy give that the discussion began in late 2012, but wanted to help provide some input since I actually came across this thread in a websearch for our company, Bold Raw.  And, in case anyone comes across the thread here I wanted to help answer a bit regarding the meat to bone ratio in our feline rabbit blend.

The Bold Raw Cat Rabbit blend only uses whole fresh Canadian raised roaster rabbits (I'd say average weight 4-6 lbs) and rabbit organ meat (heart, lung, kidney, liver).  There is no mixing of X amount of pure meat, and X amount of ground bone.  The rabbit simply gets ground in it's entirety (our grinder can accomodate whole rabbits without an issue) and then mixed with additional ground organ meat.  The feline blend receives a double grind, first thru a 3/8" plate, and a final grind via a 1/4" plate.  Caroline may have been off a bit in her estimation of bone percentage, and it's likely closer to 70% meat:bone ratio just for the whole rabbit itself, but then note that 20% of the blend is supplemented with pure organ meat.  So in reality, the average bone content over the entire meal is likely around 25% or there about (80% of the meal being the ground rabbit, plus 20% organ meat).

The link below gives an idea of the breakdown of a rabbit's mass.  Unprocessed, the table states that it has roughly 10% bone based on total weight, which also includes the fur, un-used innards, head, feet, etc.  So some estimations need to be used to derive the exact bone percentage in the rabbit, but 30-35% is likely a fair range.

http://catcentric.org/wp-content/up...ge-of-some-Common-Prey-of-the-Cat-06-2002.pdf

Our rabbits are all human grade and raised locally arriving fresh to our location weekly and processed same day. 

Thanks so much for the opportunity to provide some input into the question regarding our rabbit blend.

Regards,

Dave Herz

Bold Raw Inc.

 

[andrya]

 
Hi folks,

I realize that this response is quite tardy give that the discussion began in late 2012, but wanted to help provide some input since I actually came across this thread in a websearch for our company, Bold Raw.  And, in case anyone comes across the thread here I wanted to help answer a bit regarding the meat to bone ratio in our feline rabbit blend.

The Bold Raw Cat Rabbit blend only uses whole fresh Canadian raised roaster rabbits (I'd say average weight 4-6 lbs) and rabbit organ meat (heart, lung, kidney, liver).  There is no mixing of X amount of pure meat, and X amount of ground bone.  The rabbit simply gets ground in it's entirety (our grinder can accomodate whole rabbits without an issue) and then mixed with additional ground organ meat.  The feline blend receives a double grind, first thru a 3/8" plate, and a final grind via a 1/4" plate.  Caroline may have been off a bit in her estimation of bone percentage, and it's likely closer to 70% meat:bone ratio just for the whole rabbit itself, but then note that 20% of the blend is supplemented with pure organ meat.  So in reality, the average bone content over the entire meal is likely around 25% or there about (80% of the meal being the ground rabbit, plus 20% organ meat).

The link below gives an idea of the breakdown of a rabbit's mass.  Unprocessed, the table states that it has roughly 10% bone based on total weight, which also includes the fur, un-used innards, head, feet, etc.  So some estimations need to be used to derive the exact bone percentage in the rabbit, but 30-35% is likely a fair range.

http://catcentric.org/wp-content/up...ge-of-some-Common-Prey-of-the-Cat-06-2002.pdf

Our rabbits are all human grade and raised locally arriving fresh to our location weekly and processed same day. 

Thanks so much for the opportunity to provide some input into the question regarding our rabbit blend.

Regards,

Dave Herz

Bold Raw Inc.

Welcome to TCS 

Thanks for your input and explanation.

l started out the raw feeding route by giving my kitties Boldraw. 

l'll try them with the rabbit, l like that they're sourced in Canada.