How much heart meat is okay?

[pisces7386]

I feed homemade ground raw. I make some with alnutrin with calcium and some of it I make according to the 80/10/5/5 ratios using eggshell instead of bone.

So my local grocery store sells beef heart for pretty cheap ( in comparison to other muscle meats which are usually twice the cost). My question is this- is there a ratio that I should keep below when mixing heart to other muscle meat? Or is heart just as good as any other muscle and I can feed it to my kitties without needing to worry about balancing it with other muscle?

 

[vball91]

For the different nutritional profiles of the different proteins and types of meat, I wouldn't want beef heart to be the majority of every mix. However, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about how much is too much heart, or even that that's possible, but if we're ideally aiming for make-up of small prey, heart is going to be a small percentage. Sorry, I know that's not an answer, but I am not sure there is a right answer.

If you look Dr. Pierson feeding pretty much only poultry thighs with some rabbit thrown in once in a while for 10-15 years, I am not sure it makes that big of a difference.

 

[roguethecat]

you'll notice 

 if there's too much heart, they get soft poop. How much exactly probably differs from cat to cat. So if you find that's the case, just cut back on it. Have you tried offering small pieces of the heart on the side without grounding it up? If they like that, it would be easier to control how much they get.

 

[pisces7386]

Thanks VBall and Rogue! We have only been feeding raw for a few months so we haven't really gotten into a pattern yet, but we usually make up a week at a time ( 6 lbs of meat) out of two types of meat. Meaning three lbs of one type of meat and three of another. I am thinking that heart  ( beef or pork or whatever) could be put into the rotation as options.  We have a chicken allergy in the family so we don't use it at all --- and that really limits what is affordable to us.  

Our Mom cat, Bub, is a source a trouble for us, she has the biggest chicken issue ( really stinky loose stool), but she is also prone to constipation. Since switching to raw I have noticed that her poop is very hard and she has had some constipation ( we are working on zeroing in on our calcium amounts). If heart makes their stool softer I might just go heavy on the heart  

On a side note, we gave them whole Chicken heart one night ( early in the switch over) and all three of them growled as they ate them!! I have never heard these guys growl before... and they never make noise while eating, lol! It was the funniest thing ever! We decided that meal sized chunks may not be the way to go if that is the reaction we got  

 

[roguethecat]

On a side note, we gave them whole Chicken heart one night ( early in the switch over) and all three of them growled as they ate them!! I have never heard these guys growl before... and they never make noise while eating, lol! It was the funniest thing ever! We decided that meal sized chunks may not be the way to go if that is the reaction we got  

well, if you want them to have some fun you'll go this way