Need Advice Please

[Khrad]

I am planning to go back to school and as a single mom as well as a mom of two for babies, I need a diet for my fur babies that will be easy for me to maintain as well as nutritionally-balanced. I am unable to provide them with home-cooked food 100% of the time due to my new schedule. So for my two 8-9 lbs cats this is what I'm thinking of doing:
- 50% home cooked with alnutrin w/ eggshell. Meats: Chicken, Turkey, Beef
- 20% freeze dried raw. Meats: Duck and Rabbit.
- 18% high protein can food. Meats: Quail, Venison preferably but any other protein is good as well.
- 10% Air dried protein (Ziwiki chicken)
- 1% High protein snacks dehydrated/jerky. Meats: bison, goat, salmon, rabbit, chicken, turkey.
1% Fish: Can of Wild Caught Sardines in water. Weekly only. in
As you can see I have no pork, as cats can't eat it and no lamb, as cats don't like it. The above makeup is also keeping in mind of balanced nutrition as I do not want too much bone, fillers, gums, by products and other questionable ingredients as well as the item is being readily available. The problem that I am running into is with the freeze dried and canned foods. I need advice on which brand you think is better for these categories.
For freeze dry I was thinking of going with either Primal or Vital Essentials. Which one do you think is better in terms of nutrition?
For the canned foods I was planning on going with Evangers that has only the protein meat and adding alnutrin w/eggshell to it. Do you think that would be okay? If not, I was just planning to get either the regular Evanger, Rawz or Organix canned food. Which one do you think is better? Please let me know what you think. Any advice is greatly appreciated. TIA!

 

[Tobermory]

You’re very ambitious! This is a lot of variety. Lucky kitties.

I can’t speak to everything on your list but I’ll give you my two cents for the stuff with which I’m familiar.

• Primal or Vital Essentials. Both good, Primal is lower in carbs which is preferable. Northwest Naturals has a good freeze-dried food, too, btw.
• I think Rawz is by far the best canned food on the market. High protein, low carb, no fillers. That’s what I was feeding my girls before I started making their food. The Organix has more carbs than I’m comfortable with. Evangers seems pretty good. Dave’s is another high quality food and less expensive although I personally would avoid the varieties with carrageenan.

You might check out the ingredients and dry matter analyses for the foods you’re interested in at www.catfooddb.com. Helpful info for everything you’ve mentioned.

 

[1 bruce 1]

This looks really good!
Are you planning on doing this mixture all the time, or just rotating and varying things so over the course of a week or two they get everything they need?
I'm only a 3rd party and I just don't know the facts for sure, but I've heard some not really good stuff about Evangers, but stick something on the internet and it can become catty gossip in seconds, so please don't take this as set in stone. Research it a little and if you're concerned, call the company.)

 

[Khrad]

Thank you both for your input and suggestions, I really appreciate it!

Tobermory - I'm surprised that you consider Vital Essentials as higher in carbs than Primal considering that Primal is the one with all the veggies? Or higher carbs because of bone content?

1 bruce 1 - I'm planning to feed on a weekly basis. I feed them three meals daily along with snacks in between meals so I don't go broke.

 

[Tobermory]

I'm surprised that you consider Vital Essentials as higher in carbs than Primal considering that Primal is the one with all the veggies? Or higher carbs because of bone content?

That’s a great question, and I’m not able to answer it! In looking at the ingredients, I don’t know what’s driving up the carb percentage, but the numbers I saw came from the catfooddb.com listing for dry matter analysis for Vital Essentials.

I found this statement on another site: an email response from the company to someone whose cat has diabetes.

Keep in mind, the “carbs” that do show up in our raw diets are derived from naturally occurring glycogen from connective tissues in the meats.
​

I’m extremely sensitive to carbs because I had a diabetic cat (my guy Max) so I always look at those numbers.

I sometimes think I’ve done more research about my cats’ health than I ever did for my coursework in college...with fewer definitive results! The coursework came to a end; the cat research is ongoing.