Ez Complete Vs. Alnutrin Vs. Young Again For Chunked Meats

[EmersonandEvie]

Ok. I need some advice from everyone who uses some sort of premix to make complete meals. I really want to try some, but I don't have access to a grinder and would love to have the dental benefits of eating chunked meats as opposed to just lapping up a slurry of meat.

Young Again seems to be the cheapest and most economical. Has anyone used their CarnivoreRAW line?

 

[mschauer]

I wasn't aware of Young Again. Interesting looking product. At $0.564 / lbs meat it certainly is inexpensive and yet, going by the ingredients, it contains everything needed to make a complete food along with some extras.

If you decide to use it I'd love to hear how it works out for you.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

I'm concerned with the cats getting everything nutritoonally if the powder/water mix won't stick to the chunks of meat.

 

[mschauer]

That is a challenge when feeding chunks. Whether a cat will lap up what doesn't stick depends on how tasty they think it is. EZComplete contains green lipped mussel which some cats love. Also egg yolk powder and chicken liver powder which add some flavor.

CarnivoreRAW contains chicken flavoring which might make it tasty. It also contains "yeast". If that is brewers yeast, one of my cats goes nuts for it.

The only thing Alnutrin has that might add flavor is egg yolk powder. If you use chicken liver powder instead of whole liver with it that would add more flavor.

There's no way to know what your cat will like though. You'll just have to try something and see what happens.

 

[daftcat75]

Have your kitties had a recent dental exam? It’s no good to give them chunks of meat if chewing it causes them discomfort or pain. My Krista needs a slurpable texture because she’s already had teeth removed and likely will need more extractions in the future. No chunks for her.

I would worry about calcium if your kitties aren’t going to be crunching into some bone. Aside from calcium, I think they will get most of their nutrition from muscle meat and liver. I don’t have experience with prey model or franken-prey but that’s what this sounds like. Will you be feeding liver or bone?

 

[daftcat75]

Krista liked EZ Complete well enough but the digestive enzymes gave her the pained look like they were digesting her. So she won’t be trying CarnivoreRAW. I only just found a liver source so I’ll be ordering Alnutrin soon. The only other mix she’s tried was Better In The Raw. She liked the taste okay (I presume) but I don’t know if it transited through her at an acceptable rate. I don’t know. Too much going on with her diet with the Rad Cat almost gone to know what’s what. I just want her to eat something again with the same excitement and joy the Rad Cat brought her.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

Have your kitties had a recent dental exam? It’s no good to give them chunks of meat if chewing it causes them discomfort or pain. My Krista needs a slurpable texture because she’s already had teeth removed and likely will need more extractions in the future. No chunks for her.

I would worry about calcium if your kitties aren’t going to be crunching into some bone. Aside from calcium, I think they will get most of their nutrition from muscle meat and liver. I don’t have experience with prey model or franken-prey but that’s what this sounds like. Will you be feeding liver or bone?

They have not had a dental specific exam, if that is what you're asking. The last time they were at the vet (March for the older one, 3 weeks ago for Dexter), she examined their teeth and gave them the all-clear. I look at them regularly for signs of plaque buildup. They are also young (Evie and Emerson will be 3 in March and we think Dexter is 5 months old).
The CarnivoreRAW has recipes for both boneless meats and bone-in grinds. Liver does not have to be added like Alnutrin, it is included in the mix. I would feed the mix for boneless meats plus calcium if I did the chunks.

I have given freeze dried chicken necks as treats before- very sparingly, like once a month. All of mine love them, but Evie will throw up if she gets an entire one. I guess it's too much bone for her system all at once.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

Krista liked EZ Complete well enough but the digestive enzymes gave her the pained look like they were digesting her. So she won’t be trying CarnivoreRAW. I only just found a liver source so I’ll be ordering Alnutrin soon. The only other mix she’s tried was Better In The Raw. She liked the taste okay (I presume) but I don’t know if it transited through her at an acceptable rate. I don’t know. Too much going on with her diet with the Rad Cat almost gone to know what’s what. I just want her to eat something again with the same excitement and joy the Rad Cat brought her.

Poor Krista. And I imagine that their recipes are all proprietary information and not able to be duplicated? That's a shame about them going under...they were a brand that I was wanting to (eventually) try.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

That is a challenge when feeding chunks. Whether a cat will lap up what doesn't stick depends on how tasty they think it is. EZComplete contains green lipped mussel which some cats love. Also egg yolk powder and chicken liver powder which add some flavor.

CarnivoreRAW contains chicken flavoring which might make it tasty. It also contains "yeast". If that is brewers yeast, one of my cats goes nuts for it.

The only thing Alnutrin has that might add flavor is egg yolk powder. If you use chicken liver powder instead of whole liver with it that would add more flavor.

There's no way to know what your cat will like though. You'll just have to try something and see what happens.

They do have trial packs that make 2lbs of meat. Guess I will be trying that out soon enough!

 

[daftcat75]

They have not had a dental specific exam, if that is what you're asking. The last time they were at the vet (March for the older one, 3 weeks ago for Dexter), she examined their teeth and gave them the all-clear. I look at them regularly for signs of plaque buildup. They are also young (Evie and Emerson will be 3 in March and we think Dexter is 5 months old).
The CarnivoreRAW has recipes for both boneless meats and bone-in grinds. Liver does not have to be added like Alnutrin, it is included in the mix. I would feed the mix for boneless meats plus calcium if I did the chunks.

I have given freeze dried chicken necks as treats before- very sparingly, like once a month. All of mine love them, but Evie will throw up if she gets an entire one. I guess it's too much bone for her system all at once.

You’re bumping against my own objections to chunks, bone, and prey model. Unless they clean their plates of all bits every time, every bite needs to balanced. That’s why a grind is a good way to go.

Chewing is a lot of work. Maybe you could use a blender or food processor to make a grind which gets a mix. Then chunks are added to their diet as part of the treat budget. This way if they don’t make it through their bowl of chunks and lick all the powder or gravy, you won’t worry about whether they are getting enough of their supplements.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

You’re bumping against my own objections to chunks, bone, and prey model. Unless they clean their plates of all bits every time, every bite needs to balanced. That’s why a grind is a good way to go.

Chewing is a lot of work. Maybe you could use a blender or food processor to make a grind which gets a mix. Then chunks are added to their diet as part of the treat budget. This way if they don’t make it through their bowl of chunks and lick all the powder or gravy, you won’t worry about whether they are getting enough of their supplements.

I didn't mean to come across at combative...my apologies.
That's actually a very good idea that I hadn't thought of. Do like a 50/50 mix of chunks and grinds, using the chunks as basically a topper. They would get all of the supplements from the grind. I would just have to be super diligent about making sure that the chunks are exactly half of the food.
Something else that I have thought about doing is simply feeding chunked chicken once a week in place of a meal. It would be unbalanced but it would be less than 10% of the overall diet.

EDIT: For some reason my eyes literally skipped over your two last sentences. I didn't mean to basically repeat what you just said...lol.

 

[daftcat75]

I didn’t mean anything argumentative or hostile by that turn of phrase.

I think prey model is great if you have a healthy eater with healthy teeth. If they Hoover up what ever you put in front of them, then go for that. That sounds easiest. Mix up a balanced week’s worth of meat, organs, and bone and feed in whatever order and mood you or the cats are in. But it’s only balanced if they eat it all. Same objection I have with mixing medicine into food. Unless they clean the plate, how much medicine did they take? At least with a grind, you know it’s balanced (or as balanced as your recipe is) no matter the portion or remainder.

My Krista was a fur pig before we moved away from Rad Cat. Now she’s fussy and broken. But we’ll fix that. But using her RC appetite, she was eating 8 oz a day. So 56 oz per week. With healthy teeth, her weekly budget for chunks or anything unbalanced for that matter would be about 6 oz.

The formula for figuring out the treat budget:

(Weekly total oz or grams fed / 0.90) * 0.10