Feeding raw with supplement of commercial food?

[ambermay]

I would love to ask for your opinions on the way I feed my kitties and does anyone feed combination of RAW and commercial permanently?

I must say first that we can not buy ANYTHING on a internet (our credit cards are always rejected - sanctioned country), we are not supported by PayPal and such.

I wrote in detail how I fed my babies when they were kittens and what I feed them now in here: http://felinemagic.blogspot.com/2011/07/for-all-who-love-and-care-about-cats.html     But warning - there is a lot to read in that link.

In short - they were raised on raw meats (sold for human consumption).

We don't have prepared balanced raw foods for animals to buy.

About three years ago we hardly had ANY commercial food (was very hard to get) here, hence my choice of feeding them raw, which I'm glad I did.

Meats I use are: beef (best quality products) as fresh as we can get, chicken and occasionally ostrich or turkey.

Of that mainly I feed muscle meat.

I read a lot of balancing a diet with more variety of meats and some bones, organs, etc.  I tried.

Problem with that - it is seldom we buy meat of lower price value like organs and boned meat, because for some reason it is NOT really fresh.  That's what they sell to humans here.  I'd thought butcheries would be better, but just the same - sometimes we can get fresh kill, but most of the time - meat is old and a bit off.  (You'd run away from butcheries here if you sensed a smell inside there).

So I felt that the meat they eat is lacking balance.  So our vets suggested that I feed then commercial food as well (wet and dry) to supplement for possible shortage.

For home-made food there are no supplements available.

Say - calcium (are calcium pills for humans okay? Perhaps not, because they are not pure calcium, but with additions).

Taurine is not available as a supplement.

I used to grind dried egg shells, but then I read somewhere - this is not good for cats.

Seldom I manage to get some chicken hearts from fresh kill.

Hearts of cattle and other organs are readily available in shops - but like I said - meat is not fresh and often a bit off.  My cats won't touch it.

There is also so much contradictions about RAW feeding in many paces on web.

For example: Fish - some say you can feed limited amounts, and some say - don't even let them smell fish.

Some also say that Pork is bad for cats.

I ended up mainly feeding beef and chicken and commercial food too.

I'm happy with my cats' health and their stool is good, but one can not know for sure what is to come...

Any advice?

Thank you very much for your time.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

So you cannot get bone meal or taurine or any of that type of thing, huh?  How disappointing for you.  I am just now learning about raw, so don't really know much, have read that the above is needed, so I would think what you Vet told you makes since...supplement with commercial food.  I'm sure some of the "raw experts" will chime in soon.

 

[auntie crazy]

I think the raw part of what you're feeding is probably, for the most part, just fine. The page you linked to says you're feeding your cats both kibble and canned, in addition to the raw? I'd drop the kibble right now - there's just no need to feed that stuff at all.

To be honest, I don't see enough wrong with what the raw you're feeding to even offer commercial food of any kind. They hunt on their own, right? And you offer fresh chicken and beef, and sometimes ostrich and turkey, correct?

The only piece you're really concerned about is bone content, yes? If you can get chicken, can you purchase chicken wings, or chicken rib meat with bones still included? Feeding those bones a couple times a week will address their bone content needs just fine. (The wing tip and center piece of a chicken wing is usually good for a single meal, and the bone from the rib meat sections can be divided equally between two cats for another meal.)

Taurine is present in all meat, and between the raw meats you feed and the animals they catch on their own, I'll bet your kitties are getting plenty. And I wouldn't be shy about feeding chicken breast meat every now and then - that meat is higher in niacin than other parts of the chicken. So throw a little down once a week for the variety.  :-}

Hope this is helpful!

Best regards.

AC

 

[ambermay]

I think the raw part of what you're feeding is probably, for the most part, just fine. The page you linked to says you're feeding your cats both kibble and canned, in addition to the raw? I'd drop the kibble right now - there's just no need to feed that stuff at all.

To be honest, I don't see enough wrong with what the raw you're feeding to even offer commercial food of any kind. They hunt on their own, right? And you offer fresh chicken and beef, and sometimes ostrich and turkey, correct?

The only piece you're really concerned about is bone content, yes? If you can get chicken, can you purchase chicken wings, or chicken rib meat with bones still included? Feeding those bones a couple times a week will address their bone content needs just fine. (The wing tip and center piece of a chicken wing is usually good for a single meal, and the bone from the rib meat sections can be divided equally between two cats for another meal.)

Taurine is present in all meat, and between the raw meats you feed and the animals they catch on their own, I'll bet your kitties are getting plenty. And I wouldn't be shy about feeding chicken breast meat every now and then - that meat is higher in niacin than other parts of the chicken. So throw a little down once a week for the variety.  :-}

Hope this is helpful!

Best regards.

AC

Thank you very much AC!

Yes, this is correct.

The problem now is that though I offer different meats - my kitties choose the type they like and eat just that.

For example: May at the moment eats ONLY beef, whilst before injury she would mainly eat chicken.  Now she won't touch chicken.

Janie would eat chicken and commercial.

Ambie and Midnight would also eat just beef.

Johnie prefers commercial at the moment, but will eat a bit of beef and chicken too.

Johnie & Janie love their kibbles.  I took this away now and only giving it to them as a treat when they insist.  I don't have it on a table along with other foods anymore.  They are not really kibble-addicts and eat well the wet stuff and some raw meat.

Only I can't really rely on their hunting - they get to catch anything very seldom (we don't have much prey in our area).

I tired to give soft bones to them nowadays (grinded), but they then refuse the whole meal.

Yet when they were kittens - they ate whole chicken being minced. (I've got a manual mincer at home.)  But now they don't eat that minced chicken anymore.  They want cut-up pieces.  They also don't want mixture of meats.  They prefer different meats on separate plates.