Just getting started....

[Salticid]

Hi there!
I've got a pair of kitten boys, a 5 month old Maine Coon named Lotor and a 3.5 month old DSH spotted tabby named Lucifer (or Luci).
I've had them on Merrick Back Country for the time being while I research Raw and Species Appropriate Diets, because I want to make sure I am giving them the very best food I can for them, and the benefits are inescapable.

I'm at a point now where I've decided to start out with Alnutrin as a premix until I can afford to get a grinder that can handle bone. At that point I'll probably end up just doing my own full supplementation from one of the known and recommended recipes, as that really seems most cost effective.

Anyway, I'm also at a point where what questions I have left are more easily asked than researched (available time being what it is), and this community has already been such a great resource for my reading, I figured I would ask here.

Has anyone used My Pet Carnivore as a source for pre-ground food? I've seen other sites like Hare Today Gone Tomorrow, but MPC seems to have slightly better prices? At least for chicken. It's actually very close to market prices here where I live in the northeast.
I'm asking because I'm curious about trying their whole ground chicken as a base. (I know I would have to use a premix made for meat with bone, not one made for meat without bone). I'm curious about if the whole ground carcass would have too high a bone to meat ratio? And would I still have to add some liver? I can't really find any specific recipes which use the whole chicken...

I am also curious - and I have contacted Alnutrin to ask but I'd like other opinions too - would the eggshell calcium supplement better support kitten growth than a mineral supplement?

Last question that's been bugging me for now. As far as alternative protein sources... I will mainly be sticking with chicken for now but will branch out with some time after they have fully transitioned. But I was curious about mice and rats. I'm considering buying some pinkies as treats and maybe if they like them bringing in mouse and rat as a protein source - one I potentially wouldn't have to supplement either, if I'm understanding correctly, because it's their natural prey? That said... has anyone tried running a pack or two of mice, rats or chicks through a grinder to make a wet food from them? Is that not advisable for some reason having more to do with the grinder or losing nutrients? Would such a meal need supplementation do you think?
Let me be clear I am not asking out of any squeamishness at feeding the whole prey item - in fact in a way this idea seems to be a bit more gross and disturbing to me than feeding the whole animal, even if I have to cut it up a little to get them started. No, it has more to do with cleaning up after messy eaters dragging and hiding carcasses on the regular than anything else. And just curiosity.

Attached is a pic of my boys. There's more in my intro post, and I'll probably end up posting more in time.

 

[dhammagirl]

Hi
I give Zeke, the white/black cat, whole adult mice, chunks of rabbit, and sometimes a whole guinea pig. He just gobbles them down, occasionally taking a bigger bone to a nearby mat to gnaw on.

Starting with pinkies is a good idea.

I think Hare Today sells ground whole mouse, or at least they used to. It’s kinda expensive, and my kitties all snubbed it.

A mouse or rat is a nutritionally complete cat food, but it’s good to have a variety of proteins.

 

[Mailmans_Mom]

Thanks for paying the cat tax with your pics.

I have put a frozen/thawed mouse in the blender before. Not for the faint of heart. First time I did it I did not remove the intestines. No one would touch that, not even the ferals. Second time I removed the intestines and offered it whole. My highly food-driven neutered male ate it, but three others turned up their noses first. Third time, removed the intestines and ripped off bits manually to add to wet food (by now I'm getting used to rendering corpses in my kitchen). I was able to sneak small pieces of raw mouse (i.e. legs) into canned and all cats ate it (the remainder of the mouse was finished off by the food-driven male). I had to mix in the mouse bits. The three normal cats refused the raw mouse bits without it being mixed in with their normal canned.

I read in a cat book from the 90's that cats don't like the taste of mice. That's why there's no commercial mouse cat food (or even mouse-flavored). But you can flavor mice with bacon grease, fish oil, etc.

There was a UC Davis study recently of a raw diet using frozen raw ground rabbit. These cats quickly became taurine deficient. So it's recommended to add taurine when feeding frozen whole prey.