New to raw feeding - Hope I'm doing the right thing

[andyobmonkey]

Hey guys,

Just joined this forum after reading a lot of useful advice regarding raw feeding.

my partner and i, after reading up on raw food vs commercial cat food (and being disgusted to learn how commercial cat food is made) have decided that a all raw diet is best for our little kittens.

Maxi and Bella are both around 6 months old at the moment. The initial switch to raw was fantastic, after a week on the raw diet they are both chomping down on Chicken Wings and nearly finishing all of the bones, they never seemed to like commercial cat food much anyway

I'm just after a bit of advice on what to feed, and how much to feed. I understand the whole 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% Liver and 5% another organ (but not heart?).

Went to the supermarket yesterday to get them some more meat and after a while staring at prices/quality of meat we have in the fridge:

3 packets of Pork Cheeks (aroung 500g each packet)

3 Lamb Breast

2 packs of chicken wings

pack of Chicken Liver

Pack of Lamb Kidneys.

I'll be chopping it all up into meals tonight, but i've put together a plan so hopefully you guys could let me know to make sure i'm getting it right:

I don't have an exact weight for them both but i'm judging growth on the last vet visit i'd say there around 1.5kg each (Bella is a little bit lighter than Maxi) so this is rough estimates

Mon-Wed = around 60grams of various meat (cut into chunks to chew) twice a day

Thurs-Fri = one chicken wing each for breakfast and another 40grams of meat for dinner

Sat-Sun = 40grams of various meat with 10g of organs (5g liver 5g kidney) twice a day

I understand its better to feed kittens more per day however both my partner and I work and are out of the house between 8am - 6pm each day.

I normally split the evening time meal in two, and give the kittens half when i get home and half before bed at around 10-11pm.

Hope I'm doing okay, were trying to do the best for our little Kittys. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Andy

 

[ldg]

Welcome to TCS AND to feeding raw!

Let's see.... this thread has a post from FurryFriends50 about how she feeds her growing kittens: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/243185/cowboy-is-going-to-try

Definitely feel free to feed your cats heart! It is the favorite meal of my kids. It's just that it is considered a muscle meat, not a secreting organ. Same with lungs and gizzards - those are all considered muscle organs, like meat, not secreting organs. :nod:

So that 80% meat / 8-10% bone / 5% liver / 5% other organ should be "other secreting organ." I feed beef kidney, beef pancreas, chicken liver, and rabbit liver, kidney, and spleen. I'm probably going to try other livers and kidneys - they're fairly easy to locate. I have NO idea where FurryFriends50 finds spleen/thymus/brains. Though we are going to go have a chat with the local butcher and local farmers that raise goat, lamb, and rabbit for meat at some point.

I don't know if you've seen the Resource thread "stickied" at the top of the forum, but lots of great nutrition links in there! http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread The one site really dedicated to whole prey model (frankenprey) feeding is http://CatCentric.org

Hope this helps!

 

[carmina piranha]

Hi, Andy, welcome!

That's great that your kittens are already eating big meat chunks!  We may eventually do that for our kittens, if we get more crates.  However I don't think our grown-up cat will ever get there--she pouts if we give her more than a couple chunks of chicken breast with the ground food. 

I don't know that I have much advice to give, other than checking into supplements; since the meat we all buy is not freshly-killed (thank goodness!) and/or we freeze it for awhile, there is some  loss of essential stuff like Taurine, so pretty much everybody supplements that some amount.  Feeding them heart meat will also give them quite a bit of taurine.  (Watch them go crazy over them!  Then wipe up the floor

)  Also, because the meat usually isn't grass-fed (but cats' prey normally would be), most folk give them something that supplies Omega-3 fatty acids.

We feed our kittens on the exact same sort of schedule as you, on days when we both work.  If one of us is home, we slip in a tiny snack partway through the day, to prevent anyone from getting too much acid buildup.  (One of our guys seems to have a sensitive stomach, so we play it safe)