Need Advise For Freeze-dried/homemade Food Choices

kry

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I have been feeding my cat can food in the morning, some dry food for lunch, and steamed chicken breast/pork/beef for dinner. He's doing fine, and his stool are decent.

Recently I read and learned about the advantages of freeze-dried. Is it okay to incorporate freeze-dried in this diet? I have also heard you cannot feed freeze-dried and homemade cooked food on the same day. What is your feeding method?
 

Ardina

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First of all, a warm welcome to TCS!

In terms of your questions, it's perfectly fine to feed freeze-dried raw on the same day or even the same meal. My cats love Stella and Chewy freeze dried raw, so I occasionally crumble it into their homemade raw food if they're being picky.

Something important to keep in mind though is that unbalanced food (aka not nutritionally complete food) should not make up more than 10% of your cat's diet. Plain steamed meat is not balanced unless you're adding the appropriate supplements. This is not at all to discourage you from feeding homemade cat food! There are easy ways to balance food using commercial products like ezcomplete or even your own supplements as long as you carefully follow an established recipe.

I started out feeding my cats commercial raw, switched to homemade ground raw, and now feed them homemade prey-model raw. There's a lot of good info online if you want to read more. I'd recommend catinfo.org and feline-nutrition.org.
 
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kry

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First of all, a warm welcome to TCS!

In terms of your questions, it's perfectly fine to feed freeze-dried raw on the same day or even the same meal. My cats love Stella and Chewy freeze dried raw, so I occasionally crumble it into their homemade raw food if they're being picky.

Something important to keep in mind though is that unbalanced food (aka not nutritionally complete food) should not make up more than 10% of your cat's diet. Plain steamed meat is not balanced unless you're adding the appropriate supplements. This is not at all to discourage you from feeding homemade cat food! There are easy ways to balance food using commercial products like ezcomplete or even your own supplements as long as you carefully follow an established recipe.

I started out feeding my cats commercial raw, switched to homemade ground raw, and now feed them homemade prey-model raw. There's a lot of good info online if you want to read more. I'd recommend catinfo.org and feline-nutrition.org.
Thank you! Would a combination of freeze-dried and 1 can food per day (in addition to homemade meat for dinner) make up for the balance?
 

Ardina

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Balanced food refers to the right ratios of protein and fats with an appropriate amount of calcium (a common source is bone or eggshell calcium in homemade food), taurine (found in muscle meats and easily degraded by cooking), and other nutrients like iodine (found in thyroid glands), B vitamins (liver is a great source), etc.

Commercial food that is labeled as "nutritionally complete" or "according to AAFCO guidelines" has been tested to ensure that it follows the guidelines above.

When making homemade food, we generally follow specific formulas to ensure that cats are getting nutritionally complete food. For example, my homemade raw food contains muscle meat, bone, and organ meat in the appropriate ratios. I also supplement with chicken hearts for extra taurine and iodine containing salt since I don't feed them thyroid. Over time, feeding unbalanced food can cause deficiencies that affect health.

So when I said "balanced," the freeze dried raw (assuming it says nutritionally complete on the packaging) and the canned food are correctly balanced by the manufacturers, but your homemade food isn't.

Thus, the rule of thumb is that any food that isn't balanced, like plain steamed meat, should be considered a treat and not make up more than 10% of a cat's diet. So if you plan to keep feeding homemade food for approximately 1/3 of your cat's diet, you should make sure it's properly balanced with a supplement (typically a powder that is mixed into the meat).

I hope this makes things clearer!
 
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kry

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Balanced food refers to the right ratios of protein and fats with an appropriate amount of calcium (a common source is bone or eggshell calcium in homemade food), taurine (found in muscle meats and easily degraded by cooking), and other nutrients like iodine (found in thyroid glands), B vitamins (liver is a great source), etc.

Commercial food that is labeled as "nutritionally complete" or "according to AAFCO guidelines" has been tested to ensure that it follows the guidelines above.

When making homemade food, we generally follow specific formulas to ensure that cats are getting nutritionally complete food. For example, my homemade raw food contains muscle meat, bone, and organ meat in the appropriate ratios. I also supplement with chicken hearts for extra taurine and iodine containing salt since I don't feed them thyroid. Over time, feeding unbalanced food can cause deficiencies that affect health.

So when I said "balanced," the freeze dried raw (assuming it says nutritionally complete on the packaging) and the canned food are correctly balanced by the manufacturers, but your homemade food isn't.

Thus, the rule of thumb is that any food that isn't balanced, like plain steamed meat, should be considered a treat and not make up more than 10% of a cat's diet. So if you plan to keep feeding homemade food for approximately 1/3 of your cat's diet, you should make sure it's properly balanced with a supplement (typically a powder that is mixed into the meat).

I hope this makes things clearer!
I understand.
Thank you for writing all these, I will do more research and dive more into it.
It's my first time having a cat, and I'm trying to give him the best care I can (nervous about everything).
Thank you again!!
 

Ardina

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I understand.
Thank you for writing all these, I will do more research and dive more into it.
It's my first time having a cat, and I'm trying to give him the best care I can (nervous about everything).
Thank you again!!
It's great that you're trying to learn more! Feel free to keep asking questions - there are lots of knowledgeable people on this forum, and it's thanks to their help two years ago that I learned all I know about raw feeding and homemade cat food.
 
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lisahe

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I feed Freeze Dried raw and canned food daily :)
So do we! And we also feed homemade cooked food. Our cats love the variety and I love that we can feed them decent options from each "genre" without them getting too bored with their food.

K kry , we use two supplements for our cats' food so do ask if you're interested in making homemade. (That said, I'm not sure where you live, and availability is sometimes an issue!)
 
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