new to raw food - the basics

[shannonrenee]

hi all,

my names shannon and i'm new here

i have a gorgeous kitten, named Leo. and i am a qualified vet nurse, though i no longer am employed as one as i'm not physically capable of that at the moment.

in my studies i did a course soley on animal nutrition and am aware of all the benifits.

but now that i have my baby boy i just want to reconfirm everything as it has been a while since i have looked into this.

at the moment i am feeding him on raw meats, organs and heart with vets all natural. but i feel that it doesnt give me as much control as i would like and to be completely honest i hate the smell of vets natural and the idea of paying $15 for a kilo of oats and barley.

these are the basics that i remember, please correct me if i am wrong and let me know anything that ive left out.


- calcium to phosphorus ratio is extremely important, aim is 1.2:1 to 1.3:1 ideally.

- vitamin d3 supplement usually necessary, requirement is 10iu per kg of body weight per day

- without feeding bone, calcium supplement MUST be added. cats require 400 to 800mg per day of calcium depending on weight.

- taurine supplement should always be added just to be safe, excess taurine is excreted from cat's body and not harmful.

- ideally diet should be 80/10/10

- liver must be 5% to provide sufficient vit A. providing more that 5% can lead to vitamin A excess which can cause health problems.

- heart is considered muscle meat and not an organ.

- heart is high in taurine therefore it is ideal to provide 5-10% heart in diet

- pork should not be fed raw due to parasites.

- kangaroo must be frozen before feeding due to parasites

- diet should include around 5% roughage (oats, barley, whole wheat, above ground veg)



i am looking to start Leo on the following -
75% meats (including chicken, kangaroo, turkey, lamb and beef)
10% hearts (chicken and beef)
5% chicken liver
5% other offal
5% roughage

i will be feeding chunks, not ground, not whole.
i will be feeding a chicken neck or leg every other day for teeth, but i feel the dangers of providing bone outweigh the benifits when i can supplement with calcium in place of the bone. i also do not own a grinder and live in a share house, so grinding bones would be a difficult mission for me anyway.

supplements included will be taurine, calcium, omega 3s and omega 6s, vitamin e and vitamin d

let me know what you all think

 

[auntie crazy]

Originally Posted by shannonrenee

hi all, my names shannon and i'm new here

i have a gorgeous kitten, named Leo. and i am a qualified vet nurse, though i no longer am employed as one as i'm not physically capable of that at the moment.

- pork should not be fed raw due to parasites.

- diet should include around 5% roughage (oats, barley, whole wheat, above ground veg)

i am looking to start Leo on the following -
75% meats (including chicken, kangaroo, turkey, lamb and beef)
10% hearts (chicken and beef)
5% chicken liver
5% other offal
5% roughage

i will be feeding chunks, not ground, not whole.
i will be feeding a chicken neck or leg every other day for teeth, but i feel the dangers of providing bone outweigh the benifits when i can supplement with calcium in place of the bone. i also do not own a grinder and live in a share house, so grinding bones would be a difficult mission for me anyway.

supplements included will be taurine, calcium, omega 3s and omega 6s, vitamin e and vitamin d

let me know what you all think

Hi, ShannonRenee! Welcome to TCS!!!!

Here are my thoughts:

There's nothing wrong with feeding pork. Cats all over the world eat raw pork just fine, some even eat it exclusively. If you're in a still developing country, there might be some issues, but commercial pork from the US, Canada, a few EU countries and Australia is perfectly safe (in fact, since you live in Australia, your peace of mind should be even greater - they've never had a problem with trichinosis.).

No roughage is required or desired in the diet of an obligate carnivore. None.

Rather than "other offal", you will need to find a source for another "secreting organ" like kidney, spleen, etc.

Raw bone-in meals aren't any more dangerous than any other meal; dangers only pop up when folks try to feed cooked bones, as cooking them turns them from flexible and easy to break into sharp, splintery objects just waiting to perforate an abdomen. And no need to grind the bones - half their benefit comes right from the kitty's work at breaking them down.

So I would add chicken and Cornish hen wings and ribs to your menu of necks, BUT I would remove the legs, as cats often have trouble breaking legs down 'cause they're so thick. And I would start first with Cornish hen ribs and wings, then, as Leo's jaw strength and experience improve, try chicken wings, and finally chicken necks.

Definitely don't add Omega 6! There will be plenty of that in the grain-fed animals on your menu. Hmm, no need for calcium, either, since you're offering the bone-in meals.

Actually, with your menu, I wouldn't add any supplements beyond the Omega 3 - and if you feed a sardine a week (wild-caught, packed-in-water, and no-salt-added), you won't even need to supplement that.

Other than these few points, I think you're spot on and ready to rumble!

AC

 

[shannonrenee]

thanks for the reply

i will consider adding bones, but he is just a kitten and he isnt taking to well them at the moment.

i thought that a little roughage was needed in place of the stomach contents of cats prey? especially if i do not feed bone. otherwise there will be too high percentage of meat and organs?

my thought in adding omega 6 and 3 is that kittens need a high fat diet and i will be feeding at least one third kangaroo. which has basically no fat.

what about adding vitamin d? i am getting a lot of conflicting information about this one lol. i know he only needs very little but i am afraid that he may not get that from the meat.

in regards to taurine, i will be putting together the meals once a month and then freezing, and as we dont know how much taurine can actually be lost during freezing i would rather be safe than sorry in that department

-shannon

 

[shannonrenee]

p.s. if i was to introduce bones, does you have any ideas how to encourage him? like would i feed it as a whole meal?

 

[furryfriends50]

I started two of mine (Morey and Mitch) on raw at four weeks old. You may be surprised with how big of pieces a kitten can conquer - I just saw a picture on a group on Facebook, with a five week old kitten chowing down on 1/4 of a rabbit! Obviously, it couldn't eat that all, as the bones are simply to big, but it sure had no problem with eating all it could! I think they fed that for a few meals, and then gave the rest to their dogs.

Start out with small bones. For example: Cornish Game Hen ribs or quail ribs. If you need to, you can smash the bone-in meat with a hammer until the bone is all broken into tiny pieces, slowly smashing it less and less.

is an example of what I mean by feeding a "bone-in meal". The picture is of Rajah (at 15) eating 1/4 of a Cornish Game Hen. You leave lots of meat on the bone

Below is a list of the bone percentages in differant cuts of chicken. The percent listed is the "refuse" aka bone in this case. So, for example, if you were feeding smashed chicken necks, you would want to feed 1 ounce of neck per 3 ounces of meat.

RAW - BONE %s in Chicken



Broiler or Fryer whole, meat and skin and giblets and neck 31%

back, meat and skin 44%

breast, meat and skin 20%

drumstick, meat and skin 33%

thigh, meat and skin 21%

leg, meat and skin 27%

neck, meat and skin 36%

neck, meat only 75%

wing, meat and skin 46%

wing, meat only 68%



Capon 27%

Cornish Hen 39% no neck/giblets

Roaster 27%

Stewing 32% ( 27% bone, 5% separable fat)

 

[auntie crazy]

As Furryfriends mentioned, start small and soft, Shannonrenee. After the kitten becomes comfortable with small chunks of meat, move up to larger chunks, then to difficult meats (chicken and pork are easy to chew, beef more difficult, gizzards the most difficult of all). Then begin offering small bone-in meals - Cornish Hen rib and wing bones are awesome starter bones - and work up to thicker bones very slowly.

And, yep, "bone-in" means bones wrapped in meat. :-)

Good luck!

AC

 

[shannonrenee]

thank you both for your answers

i'm still a bit terrified of bones but i'll see how he goes with the bones that you've suggested.

can grinding or smashing the bones increase the likelihood of the bones becoming lodged in the throat, gums, stomach etc?

also, Leo has been eating more and more food as he gets older, as they do. at the moment he is 16 weeks and weighs almost 3 kilos. I do think he's going to be a massive cat anyway, but at the moment he is eating about 180g of raw food a day, and he is still hungry after each meal. is 180g of food average for a kitten on raw food? i know adult cats tend to eat less of raw food than commercial as it is more nutrient dense. but Leo just wont stop!

thanks again in advance

 

[furryfriends50]

Actually, I feed my kittens as much as they want to eat, 3-4 times a day. At the peak of their growing, that meant 453 grams a day, if I converted that number correctly

Morey and Mitch are 10 months old, and wiegh 5.91 kilos.

No, I wouldn't worry about problems from smashing/grinding the bone. The only time I really worried about my kittens eating bone, is when Morey swallowed an 85 gram chicken neck whole

I didn't smash it or anything, he chomped on it a few times, and then swallowed.

I hope I got the numbers right, I'm from the USA so I'm not used to grams or kilos, but I did use an online converter to get the numbers

 

[shannonrenee]

wow. 453 grams is a lot!! they sound like big cats too.

Leo is just a mix breed but i can tell he's going to be big, his paws are pretty chunky and his tail is huge lol. well he is still hungry most times after i feed him so i guess i should be feeding him more then.

i wish do he could stay small forever but im actually excited to see how big he gets

 

[furryfriends50]

Morey and Mitch are mixed breeds also. Their mother is a feral, who is named Jezebel, because of her, well, lack of manners

I trapped her to get her spayed, when her kittens were four weeks old, Morey and Mitch are two of the six kittens. Jezebel wieghs around half of what Morey & Mitch do! Their presumed father doesn't look like he wieghs much either - so I don't know why they got so big.

 

[shannonrenee]

could be because they ate so much

strange info that relates to the size of animals, foxes are usually the size of a small dog right? in central east australia i have personally witnessed foxes that were closer to the size of a labrador than a small terrier. which is a HUGE difference. needless to say they scared the heck outta me and at first i honestly didnt even know they were foxes i thought somehow wolves had gotten into the australian outback haha

anyway my dad recons majority of foxes out there are that size because they have access to incredible amount of sheep. the more they eat, the more room they have, the bigger they get. obviously only to a certain extent but its kind of like tiny parts of evolution in one animal

anyone knows that limiting a kitten to food can inhibit growth so it is possible that not limiting them at all could make them massive