New to raw - Questions about meats, calories, taurine and sodium

[Lyzzie]

Hi everyone, I'm Lise, I'm new here, and since I've been browsing this site, I've decided to switch Sparrow, my 4 years old male tabby, to raw.

I think the Frankenprey model is the best for us.

I did a lot of research, but I still have a few questions.

#1 : About the meats

I think I have a good understanding of the 80/10/5/5 ratio, my question is about the type of meat in itself. Is it best to have more dark meat or more light meat in the 80% ? I'm thinking dark meat because of the taurine contents, but I really can't say for sure.

#2 : About the calories

I almost had my weekly meals planned, and then realized that I never asked myself about the calories intake. I've been browsing a bit, but feel a bit lost about that.

Sparrow is actually eating dry Virbac HPM neutered, 60g per day (that's 2.12 oz if the converter I use is correct, I have no idea, I use the metric system).

The information I got is this : 338.75 kcal/100g of product. Which means that for 60g he's getting 203.25 kcal per day.

Am I correct with this?

I have seriously no idea about how to determine how much calories he need.

3# About taurine

For now, if all my calculations are correct, my meal plan should be around 1240mg of taurine per week. Is that ok? Is it too much, or not enough? I know too much isn't a problem because it gets out via urine, but still, I don't want to overdo it either.

4# About sodium

I live in France, and here, manufacturers are not obligated to lists ingredients and nutritional values on their meat (I believe it varies with the size of the packaging, it's just weird). So, I'm having a hard time finding meats that are OK in the sodium department. Everything I find is either too high, or doesn't have any nutritional info.

Any advice on that?

Here are the meats and cuts I can source :

- Chicken (grass fed) : Wings, legs, breasts, liver

- Rabbit liver

- Turkey legs

- Beef heart

- Beef

- Pork (That's the one I have problems with in regards to sodium content)

I'm still looking for a source of kidneys, and I can get some rabbit gizzards from time to time.

Any help with this will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[mr finley]

Hi Lyzzie,

You sound like you've done plenty of research and great to hear your taking the nutrition so seriously!

#1 I would say always go for the darker meat where you can because of the taurine content. But, in the wild, the cat would not exclusively eat just the dark meat so don't feel bad if every now and then they get given a bit of light meat.
#2 cats need 2-4% of their bodyweight in food so a 4kg cat would need anything from 80-160g food per day, depending on their activity levels. A slender cat could cope with the upper limit here, but to be safe, start with 3% and assess their weight again after a fortnight and see what changes have been made.
#3 taurine levels, I'm not 100% certain on this but I would think as long as they are eating natural, meaty foods at the correct level, ie within the 2-4% rule, and it's the 80/10/5/5 principle then it should be all good. You could always throw in a few extra chicken hearts for an extra dose if you are concerned.
#4 all the meats and offal you have listed will be fine...but for me, I have read things that say raw pork can be a problem. Something to do with the parasites and cats not coping well with them. If it were me I would avoid pork all together, but you may have different info.c I think chicken, rabbit, duck, pheasant, beef, lamb (meat and offal) are all great! Fish - I would again, avoid, but not as completely as pork. Maybe one treat with some sardine or a bit of salmon once a fortnight/month but I wouldn't add it to the line up. I know you didn't mention it, but thought I would just offer my opinion on it as well.

Hope this helps! I run my own feline nutrition store in the UK and I sell some German brands of foods which you may be able to find in France? The brands I stock, along with many other German brands, fully declare the ingredients so you know exactly what you're feeding your kitty. I feed my cat predominantly the canned foods but he gets two or three raw meals a week as well.

If I can help further, please get in touch.

 

[Lyzzie]

@Mr Finley

Thanks!

I think I may be worrying too much... My cat Kyran passed away last year due to kidney failure, and after reading a lot about raw/wet/dry food, there is no way I'm gonna keep giving kibble to Sparrow. I'm sure the kibble contributed to Kyran's disease, he was only 10 yo.

So, for the dark/light meat, it seems I'm gonna be able to source a lot of dark and a bit of light, so that works fine.

All the calculations I did were based on 3% body weight. Sparrow's 6kg right now, the vet said to not get him lower than that, he's a tall cat.

Now that I'm thinking about this, the 60g/day were to help him lose a bit of weight (he was almost 7kg).

But now that he's a his target weight, plus considering that when I try to fed him some raw chicken he just ate the whole thing and was really more energetic for like 2 days in a row, I think I need to feed him more, watch out for his gain/lost weight, and go from there.

So, if I'm taking 4%, that would be 240g/day.

What do you think?

I hadn't thought about giving him a few extra hearts, that's a good idea!

While I'm transitioning him on timed meals, I tried and gave him a little bit of rabbit liver, which he ate when I crushed a bit of freeze dried chicken treat on it, and went for the chicken liver without any coaxing. So I'm guessing that if he likes the hearts as much as he likes the liver, that's not gonna be a problem.

About the pork, since I can't source it anyway because of the whole sodium thing, I'm gonna just leave it. Rabbit here is really expensive, duck too, I'm guessing game meat is also gonna be a problem, but I'm gonna try to find one more.

My plan was to give him a sardine once a week, but for now all I could find was sardines with oil, and again, my enemy the sodium was there. What about fresh sardines from the fish market? Would that do?

 

[mr finley]

Hi,

I think if he's active and his weight seems fine then go with the 4% and see what happens. If his weight goes up just get him moving more. There's some great toys out there to do this. Alternatively, you can hide his dinner and make him hunt around the house for it!

Sardines...hmmm. I t k this should really be an occasional treat,mid at all. Fish isn't really on the natural menu for cats (I know beef and lamb aren't either really) but I think because of the metal content and possibly the oils and omegas (I'm no expert so don't quote me on this!) fish isn't a great option for cats. So if you can't get hold of it easily and are unsure, I say just don't stress it. Your cat won't be missing out on a vital food source as they really were never used to them...not like they are chicken, small birds, small prey/vermin.

If you get stuck for more info there's a whole heap of sites out there to help. And this forum has loads and loads of great articles. You can email me at [email protected] if you like and I can tell you the name of my company so you can have a look and see if it offers any help.

Thanks
Tim

 

[Lyzzie]

Thanks, I think I'm gonna go with 4%, weigh him weekly, and go from there.

For the sardines, I'm still gonna try to find one to my liking, mainly because of the omega 3 and others goodies in there.

But if I can't, I'm gonna find some fish oil, I remember seeing threads about it here somewhere.

When I'm done researching and planning, I will make another thread about the meal plans, just to make sure that everything is balanced. I would love to have some more opinions on that

Thanks again Mr Finley!