Is this ok? And what should I add?

[shann]

Hello everyone! I've often found myself lurking here, you are a very knowledgeable bunch!

I'm interested in raw, and I know at least one of my cats is interested, too. Unfortunately feeding whole prey or going out to buy a grinder is not something I want to take on right now...

I've found a place that sells a chicken + bone mix for 55 dollars for 44 pounds or 1.69 lb, working out to about 30 cents a day if I buy bulk. It would need to be frozen almost exactly a year to get used up. Would this get freezer burned and if so does that make it useless? How often is it safe to keep chicken frozen? I believe these are sold in tubs if that makes a difference. The place that sells it is a fair drive so I really wouldn't want to do the per pound scenario which would cause me to go back frequently.

It's 92% chicken 8% bone and they mentioned less than 2% liver but I'm not sure where that fits in since the other two parts had already made up 100%.

I know raw should have a lot of variety but I plan to be feeding canned half the time. With that in mind do I need to add all the supplements that a pure raw diet would need or could I just allow the cat to get the vitamins and minerals in their diet from when I feed wet food?

What I would like to know is what I need to add to this mix. Just some taurine? Could I use a cow heart? Maybe some fresh liver? On both I am uncertain of how much I would need to feed per day assuming 4 oz daily is total. Is there any kind of all in one supplement I could try that's a reasonable price? I know of TCFeline but with shipping that would push the price up drastically.

My goal here is cheapest raw possible with as little prep time as I can get away with, while still keeping it a reasonably balanced part-time diet for a cat... I'm trying to keep it under 70 cents a day per cat, otherwise I feel I might as well just stick to canned with occasional premade raw.

Any feedback is welcomed!

 

[vball91]

Hi and welcome to TCS! And the Raw forum!

The chicken/bone mixture sounds good on the bone content but is too low in liver which should be at 5% if there is another 5% secreting organ like kidney, spleen, pancreas, etc. OR 10% if there isn't. I would ask for more info pn what is in the chicken part. Is it muscle meat, organs, skin, etc?

Are you in the US? If so, which part of the country do you live in? Other options for you may be Hare Today or My Pet Carnivore. You mention TCFeline so I am wondering if you are in Canada?

Freezer burn is ok. It doesn't appreciably affect the nutrients. Since it sounds like you are planning on feeding raw 50%, if you are going to go the ground mix route, you will need to add supplements. Have you considered prey model raw instead, also called frankenprey? You don't need a grinder and this method requires fewer supplements. You basically feed slices or chunks of meat, bone and organs in the proper proportion. You can also feed boneless frankenprey which uses a calcium supplement instead of bone. Then your cost relies on how cheaply you can source the meat.

Have you looked at the stickied threads at the top of this forum? If not, I would recommend doing so.

I will post more tomorrow morning.

 

[shann]

Hi, sorry I forgot to specify where I live. I'm in western Canada. Unfortunately that means I can't get in on any of that shipped raw food.

You're right I should ask more about what the chicken consists of... I'll do that and get back with an answer when I can.

I had considered frankenprey but it involves a lot of rounding of of various things, and I feel it would be a very delicate balance to get everything right. When I looked into this option I found it was difficult to keep costs down (with added calcium) and sounds - though I could be wrong - quite time consuming.

 

[vball91]

Frankenprey is pretty easy if you have a good scale and small measuring spoons and if you already eat meat at home. While initially during the transition it may require more time to figure out how much of each to serve, once you develop a weekly menu and a portion size that works for you, it's fairly easy to mix up proteins. The ground mix is easier in the sense that all the measuring is done in the beginning, and depending on your batch size, you don't have to worry about it again for a while.

 

[ldg]

Actually, you can do a "boneless" frankenprey, and there's no guessing at all. Some use eggshell (calcium carbonate) to provide the calcium and minerals instead of bone, and it is MUCH easier to be accurate about the calciumhosphorus ratio.

Here's a thread discussing some the differences: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/263756/raw-types-comparisons

With ground, you make it all up front, and kitty has a nutritionally balanced food at each meal.

With prey model raw, you portion it all up front, and you balance the nutrition either daily or weekly (usually).

I think there's probably less "processing" with the PMR, because you don't have the grinding step. You could just buy the meat and cut it up into meal portions up front. You would have to figure out when and how you were going to feed organs, because you feed less meat at organ meals, but that's no biggie. You would have a few extra things to feed: egg yolks would be a snack you'd have to schedule in; same with sardines. But you still feed the same number of meals otherwise.

I feed "boneless" PMR, and I balance their meals daily; their calcium is balanced at each meal. Here's a thread with pictures I put up about how we do an actual meal. I used an organ meal as an example: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264489/making-a-meal-pictures

Just bear in mind that I have 8 cats, some with very different willingness to eat various things. :lol3:

 

[shann]

Thanks so much LGD! All very informative stuff to consider. I'm differently thinking that's a viable option now... there's a lot of options I hadn't considered.

In the meantime, the company did get back to me and had to say this about their chicken and bone mix: The chicken and bone contains less than 2% liver. It consists of approximately 90% chicken, 8% bone and 2% liver. We grind the entire carcass, along with the necks. The chicken bones (neck & rib) are generally very fine and you shouldn't find any longer than 4mm. The bulk food comes in individually wrapped, 500g (1.1lb) tubes.

If I was to add the http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html (meat & bone) ... would that be a good part-time diet?

I was wondering if that replt they sent even made sense. If the internal organs of the chicken haven't been removed (doesn't sound like it), does that mean on a whole chicken the liver makes up 2% of their diet? I thought 5% was what was required for a cat. Meaning, if they ate a chicken in the wild it wouldn't be nutritionally adequate?

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Excellent question!   Wish I knew the answer. What I do know is that if they ate an entire chicken in the wild, which I don't think they would because that would be an entirely HUGE meal

, but anyway, if they ate a whole bird, they would be consuming some of those other secreting organs, like the pancreas, kidneys, etc., which help on the nutrition scale.  That doesn't quite answer the 5% liver question, but since in the wild a cat would be eating numerous animals, possibly some of the animals they eat have larger livers and those would be MORE than 5%, making the average overall 5%

All I can tell you for sure is that when feeding raw and not in the wild, the rule of thumb is what was already.  Now that they have said 90% chicken, I'm wondering if any of that does include kidneys, pancreas, maybe even the eyes and brain (good things, actually).  And hearts.  Those are full of taurine, which is very good (a must, actually, but all meat has taurine in it, some just more than others)

If you add the Alnutrin (youwhatyoufeed), OR the TCFeline (the ones WITHOUT calcium added), that should be all the supplementation you need for ground mixes, however, you still need some extra liver.  You can probably just buy some chicken livers at a grocery store and add it.  it's so soft you could probably just cut it up with your scissors into small pieces and toss it into their bowls once in awhile along with their ground mix.  You don't want to give them a meal of it by itself though...a lot of cats can't tolerate it if it's fed without regular meat alongside.  I know mine threw it right back up even though they like it.  But, whatever you do, you don't want to forgo that extra liver.  It's important to their overall health. 

And you know what else is bothering me...I have two ground chicken suppliers, and both of them tell me the bone is over slightly over 20%.  You know, there are just a lot of bones in chickens!  I always add extra meat AND liver to my chicken mixes (and turkey) because of the amount of bone.  Just curious, what's the name of this supplier?  Do they have a webpage?

 

[ldg]

Their answer really makes no sense. Either they have proportions of meat, bone, organs they use... or the information they gave you for the percentages is wrong... or they remove some of the bones?

A whole chicken is about 32% bone: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/263570/composition-of-proteins-bone-skin-fat

The raw feeding guidelines of 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, 5% other secreting organs most likely developed for raw feeding dogs. The idea is that it is based on the "average" prey. For cats, this is a mouse. http://catcentric.org/wp-content/up...ge-of-some-Common-Prey-of-the-Cat-06-2002.pdf

A mouse is about 5% bone; a rabbit about 10%. This is most likely why many feeding prey model raw find they actually need to feed about 6% - 8% bone in order to avoid constipation in their kitties.

If what they're providing is whole chicken carcass, period, it would likely need to be "cut" down with more meat, and some more liver, as Sally points out - IF you're going to feed only chicken. (Along with the Alnutrin supplement WITHOUT calcium).

 

[mschauer]

A whole chicken is about 32% bone: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/263570/composition-of-proteins-bone-skin-fat
 

I've seen a lot of online sources make claims about the bone content of their chicken products that make no sense. Claiming that a "whole chicken carcass" has less than 10% bone is one of them. I've also seen whole chicken and turkey necks advertised as having 10% or less bone. I don't know how they get away with making such obviously untrue claims.  

 

Here's Primal claiming chicken backs are 10% bone:

http://www.primalpetfoods.com/product/detail/c/10/id/27

The USDA database says they are 44% bone. I think common sense tells us which is more accurate.