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Lisa152

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After losing my two cats in the past year, both to hyperthyroidism and CKD, I began to research the impact of food on their systems. I was pretty astounded to find out just how horrible food, especially kibble, is for them. In the next few weeks, we are hoping to bring two more kitties into our home and I've been thinking raw will be the way to go. Clearly raw doesn't solve all problems and some are genetic and will happen regardless, but I want to do MY part in providing them the best nutrition I can. That said, I'm not ready to dive into making my own raw just yet so I was thinking I would start with an already premade mix. It seems like most of them have one downfall or another. Ie Primal has vegetables, Stella and Chewy's has high ash and phosphorus and now adds pea fiber etc. NW Naturals is the only one I haven't really found any negatives about. Are there any? Rad cat obviously is the best option but as I was calculating it out, realized that according to their feeding guidelines, kittens could eat up to 8oz which times two kittens would be 16 oz a day. The 16 oz container at my store is $17 which makes it $17 a day to feed two cats. Ouch!
So, how do you all handle all the issues with food? Do you rotate brands to try and minimize exposure? Any thoughts on NW Naturals?
Thank you!
 

lisahe

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Welcome to The Cat Site, Lisa152!

I'm very sorry to hear about the cats you lost so recently. Like you and many other Cat Site members, I only began to realize how bad dry food is for cats when our previous cat was sick. We were too late to help her much but there's some consolation knowing that the two cats we have now -- like the two you plan to adopt -- are benefitting from all our new knowledge. They eat very well and I'm sure your cats will, too!

A few thoughts based on your questions:
-The EZ Complete premix works well for the humans and cats in our household. I use it with cooked meats.
-Primal does have vegetables but their foods generally have low carbs because most of their vegetables aren't starchy.
-Stella and Chewy's took the pea fiber out of their foods! (That's a recent development.) I still won't feed a lot of it, though, because it's very bony.
-We feed Northwest Naturals turkey in a blend of foods and our cats like it. At least in small amounts!
-Rad Cat is, indeed, expensive. It's worth checking around on price: I pay $15.50 for the 24-ounce tubs. The price has risen in the last year or so, though, and could vary regionally. We just feed a small daily Rad Cat snack of either turkey or chicken. It's our cats' favorite.
-Yes, we rotate foods. There are two rehydrated freeze-dried meals per day (currently varying blends of Primal pork, Northwest Naturals turkey, Feline Natural chicken/lamb, and a bit of Stella & Chewy's chicken), one Rad Cat snack, and two EZ Complete meals. There's a canned meal instead of homemade every two or three days.
-Our cats have strong preferences for freeze-dried over frozen foods... except where Rad Cat is concerned. :) I keep a little canned food in the mix because I occasionally travel: my husband isn't always able to feed the cats five meals a day.
-In terms of downfalls and downsides of commercial raw foods, I tend to see the fewest in Feline Natural and Northwest Naturals, some in Primal (I don't like the clay or the food's inconsistency, and will only feed pork now that Primal added carrot to the turkey food!), and more in Stella & Chewy's (an abundance of bone and phosphorus). Our cats refuse to eat Nature's Variety, though some cats apparently love it.

From one Lisa to another, welcome again and I hope to see pictures of your new cats soon!
 
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Lisa152

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Thank you, thank you, thank you Lisa! That's awesome info!
 

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When I first started out with raw, I tried commercial first - Darwin's Natural Selections. It's a good food, purely meat, though a little heavy on bone. It was expensive, though less than half the price of RadCat, and my cats loved it. They do a 10 lb sampler of chicken, turkey, and duck for $15 that's definitely worth trying.

I eventually switched to homemade to cut down costs but I still have some of the sampler Darwin's that I keep as a treat for my cats.

It does take some time to figure out homemade, but once you do, it's pretty easy and significantly cheaper. I order preground meat from Hare-Today and mix in supplements. There are even premixes of supplements available like Alnutrin or TCFeline to ease you into the process (though I switched to mixing my own supplements for cost reasons too).

There are a wealth of articles and resources pinned to the top of the forum that you can take a look at as well. Welcome, and we're happy to help guide you through the process of transitioning to raw!
 
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Lisa152

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thank you Ardina!
I looked into the premade supplements today and was looking at ezcomplete and Alnutrin too. I was a little shocked to see Ezcomplete was twice the price of Alnutrin and only was for 12lbs of meat vs 40 with Alnutrin. Yikes! Is there any difference in the two really? That made the ezcomplete more than the actual meat!
For some reason, I'm nervous to make my own supplements, but it's looking like that may be the way to go too. are you happy with Hare today?
 

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Hare Today is great! The more you order, the more you can save on shipping. I started with small orders, to determine what my kitties liked, and because I didn't have a lot of freezer space. Now I get a large order every two to three months since I got a small chest freezer. I order my Alnutrin supplement directly from the manufacturer because it's significantly cheaper. It's super easy to thaw a 5 pound chub, mix in the Alnutrin, package and freeze.
 
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Lisa152

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Hare Today is great! The more you order, the more you can save on shipping. I started with small orders, to determine what my kitties liked, and because I didn't have a lot of freezer space. Now I get a large order every two to three months since I got a small chest freezer. I order my Alnutrin supplement directly from the manufacturer because it's significantly cheaper. It's super easy to thaw a 5 pound chub, mix in the Alnutrin, package and freeze.
What do you order from Hare today? What mix do you give your kitties?
 

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thank you Ardina!
I looked into the premade supplements today and was looking at ezcomplete and Alnutrin too. I was a little shocked to see Ezcomplete was twice the price of Alnutrin and only was for 12lbs of meat vs 40 with Alnutrin. Yikes! Is there any difference in the two really? That made the ezcomplete more than the actual meat!
For some reason, I'm nervous to make my own supplements, but it's looking like that may be the way to go too. are you happy with Hare today?
Ezcomplete is meant to be added to boneless and organless muscle meat only - the supplement takes care of the calcium and organ content so you don't need to have bone or organs in the meat that you purchase. Alnutrin comes in two types - the first is Alnutrin for Meat and Bone, which is exactly what it sounds like. You add it to meat that has the right ratios of bone and organ (roughly 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 10% organ). The other type is Alnutrin with calcium - you add it to boneless meat with the right amount of organ.

This may sound complicated, but the concept is pretty simple: in cat food, you need mostly muscle meat (~80%), some bone for calcium (~10%), and some organ (~10%). The different supplement mixes let you customize as you wish depending on how you want to source each component. Finally, they all add certain vitamins and taurine to make it a complete diet.

I love Hare Today! They make it super easy to source my meat, do all the grinding for me, and have a huge variety of proteins for cats that are picky or have allergies.

Many homemade feeders recommend at least 3-5 different proteins. I make 4 raw mixes:

1) Chicken - I get the ground chicken with bone and organ, add chicken hearts and boneless thigh chunks to dilute out the excess bone content, and add some beef kidney and ground rabbit organ to get the organ content up to 10%, and finally mix in my supplements + egg yolks. I like to make some of my mixes with chunks to get my cats chewing and cleaning their teeth.
2) Turkey - same recipe as the chicken but with turkey as the main protein.
3) Rabbit - I get the whole carcass grind, which conveniently is already in the 80/10/10 ratio. So I just thaw, mix in the supplements/eggs, portion into smaller containers, and refreeze.
4) Cavies - same as the rabbit but with ground whole carcass cavies.

I also do duck and beef occasionally, but they're fattier mixes and Saipha doesn't need to gain any more weight.
 
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Lisa152

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Ezcomplete is meant to be added to boneless and organless muscle meat only - the supplement takes care of the calcium and organ content so you don't need to have bone or organs in the meat that you purchase. Alnutrin comes in two types - the first is Alnutrin for Meat and Bone, which is exactly what it sounds like. You add it to meat that has the right ratios of bone and organ (roughly 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 10% organ). The other type is Alnutrin with calcium - you add it to boneless meat with the right amount of organ.

This may sound complicated, but the concept is pretty simple: in cat food, you need mostly muscle meat (~80%), some bone for calcium (~10%), and some organ (~10%). The different supplement mixes let you customize as you wish depending on how you want to source each component. Finally, they all add certain vitamins and taurine to make it a complete diet.

I love Hare Today! They make it super easy to source my meat, do all the grinding for me, and have a huge variety of proteins for cats that are picky or have allergies.

Many homemade feeders recommend at least 3-5 different proteins. I make 4 raw mixes:

1) Chicken - I get the ground chicken with bone and organ, add chicken hearts and boneless thigh chunks to dilute out the excess bone content, and add some beef kidney and ground rabbit organ to get the organ content up to 10%, and finally mix in my supplements + egg yolks. I like to make some of my mixes with chunks to get my cats chewing and cleaning their teeth.
2) Turkey - same recipe as the chicken but with turkey as the main protein.
3) Rabbit - I get the whole carcass grind, which conveniently is already in the 80/10/10 ratio. So I just thaw, mix in the supplements/eggs, portion into smaller containers, and refreeze.
4) Cavies - same as the rabbit but with ground whole carcass cavies.

I also do duck and beef occasionally, but they're fattier mixes and Saipha doesn't need to gain any more weight.
That's great information! Thank you!!!! I'm hoping to ultimately make my own supplements but it makes me nervous. I am definitely considering Hare today. It looks much better than what you get in the stores and the variety can't be beat! Is there a resource I can bookmark that tells how to make your own supplements?
 

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That's great information! Thank you!!!! I'm hoping to ultimately make my own supplements but it makes me nervous. I am definitely considering Hare today. It looks much better than what you get in the stores and the variety can't be beat! Is there a resource I can bookmark that tells how to make your own supplements?
I use this recipe: Easy Raw Diet Feeding for the Busy Person - Feline Nutrition Foundation. It's for five pounds of pre-ground meat/bones/organs and listed halfway down the page.

Oh, and one other thing - don't buy ground meat from grocery stores to make cat food. Grinding meat leads to a large surface area for bacteria to multiply, and meat ground for human consumption isn't necessarily frozen immediately or kept frozen because they expect it to be cooked. Hare Today freezes their ground meat immediately to prevent this and keeps it frozen.
 

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Essentially, the cost of raw involves a trade-off of money and convenience.

Premade raw complete with supplements (like Rad Cat) is the most expensive because all the work has been done for you.
Preground raw (like Hare Today) is moderately expensive. They've done the grinding/chopping for you, but you have to source supplements and often extra boneless meat and organs to balance the food. Hare Today is a very popular option for price/convenience.
Homemade raw is a lot of work, but can be extremely affordable by shopping sale prices and having a freezer to stock meats. I feed three cats for around 50 cents each per day.

It sounds like Hare Today would work for you as a starting place. There are plenty of people here who can help you take out the "intimidation factor" of starting on raw. ;)
 
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Lisa152

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Essentially, the cost of raw involves a trade-off of money and convenience.

Premade raw complete with supplements (like Rad Cat) is the most expensive because all the work has been done for you.
Preground raw (like Hare Today) is moderately expensive. They've done the grinding/chopping for you, but you have to source supplements and often extra boneless meat and organs to balance the food. Hare Today is a very popular option for price/convenience.
Homemade raw is a lot of work, but can be extremely affordable by shopping sale prices and having a freezer to stock meats. I feed three cats for around 50 cents each per day.

It sounds like Hare Today would work for you as a starting place. There are plenty of people here who can help you take out the "intimidation factor" of starting on raw. ;)
Thank you! Do you use a similar supplement recipe as Ardina? I realize part of the struggle is that there is so much information that it is difficult to determine what recipe to go with.
 

orange&white

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The supplements from the recipes at feline-nutrition.org (linked by Ardina) and at catinfo.org are the mainstream supplements that most raw feeders use. Dr. Pearson with catinfo.org is a veterinarian who has dedicated her career to the study of cat nutrition and she has been recommending those core supplements for a couple of decades now.

Core supplements: Taurine, B-Complex, E, Lite Salt, Fish Oil, Egg yolks.

The only tricky part with choosing individual supplements is to make sure what you're buying. A lot of fish oil is "plus Vitamin D" (which we don't want). B-Complex often includes "Plus - some other vitamin" (we don't want). Vitamin E should be natural D-Tocopherols, not the synthetic DL-Tocopherals.
 

orange&white

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Thank you! Do you use a similar supplement recipe as Ardina? I realize part of the struggle is that there is so much information that it is difficult to determine what recipe to go with.
In 2008 when I moved my cats and dogs to raw, Dr. Pierson of catinfo.org was really a primary resource for raw cat food recipe. Back then, she was not doing a "partially cooked" diet like she is now, but was recommending all raw. The supplements were the same though.

There are slight variations in the quantities of supplements added to a pound of mix between the recipes at feline-nutrition and catinfo, but the supplements are the same. For instance, feline nutrition uses twice as much Vitamin E as catinfo but 1/2 the amount of fish oil. I split the difference. I believe both recipes are valid "as is" though. Most of these supplements have a wide range of safety between minimum requirements and maximum levels.
 

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What do you order from Hare today? What mix do you give your kitties?
I get the whole carcass ground rabbit, whole carcass ground cavies, ground boneless turkey thighs, and some whole prey - jumbo mice, chicks, extra small guinea pigs. So I use the Alnutrin for meat with bone for the rabbit and cavies, Alnutrin with eggshell calcium for the turkey. I add some extra taurine powder and unscented pharmaceutical grade fish oil (anchovy and sardine).
 

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Lisa152, most of us start with commercial raw. My cats would not eat Natures variety instinct so, that was a waste of money. I then moved on to Primal chubs and tried once to make my own supplement mix.I was unsure of what I was doing so, I bought Alnutrin and stayed with that for about 2 years. About 1 year into raw I stated getting food from HT, they also sell Alnutrin for meta with bone and Alnutrin for boneless with organs. HT is so great but the poultry is bone heavy so you have to add boneless . Here is a calculator that can help you figure it out www.rawcalc.org. Last year I bought agrinder ( Tasin 108 at www.onestopjerkyshop) I make cornish game hens and add heart, liver, and the appropriate amount of boneless turkey or chicken , some chunked. I make my own supplement mix now. Like Ardina I use the recipe from Feline-nutrition.org/ I still order a ton from HT. I was just about to order from rawfeedingmiami.com but, being in Miami this is not a good time for them.Just do what you feel comfortable doing, especially at the start until you feel confident. You may decide commercial is the way to go , you may order from someone like HT or, you might combine many different sources, that is what I do. A couple times a month I give the cats a can of either Wild Calling or Weruva .I also supplemnt with freeze-dried. You will be really glad you feed a raw diet. I would never go back, I have a hard time giving my 3 even canned food.It is all a process...
 

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You will be really glad you feed a raw diet. I would never go back, I have a hard time giving my 3 even canned food.It is all a process...
So true! Even though it's more work than just opening up a can, it's so worth it. I never have to worry about recalls or companies changing formulas without warning or random ingredients that may or may not be bad for them.My cats' poop has no odor whatsoever. They have tons of energy and shiny, full coats. They never have hairballs, not my longhaired cat and not my shorthaired cat who grooms the longhair. And it's much cheaper than feeding the high-end grain-free canned food that they'd turn their noses up at.
 

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So true! Even though it's more work than just opening up a can, it's so worth it. I never have to worry about recalls or companies changing formulas without warning or random ingredients that may or may not be bad for them.My cats' poop has no odor whatsoever. They have tons of energy and shiny, full coats. They never have hairballs, not my longhaired cat and not my shorthaired cat who grooms the longhair. And it's much cheaper than feeding the high-end grain-free canned food that they'd turn their noses up at.
I agree. What has surprised me the most is that I actually am much more comfortable feeding my cats food I have made myself as opposed to ANY commercial product. that includes any raw product. When I make it myself I know exactly what is in it. I know that I have followed proper hygiene and that they are getting a quality, healthy meal.I got really tired of reading labels on cans and trying to give them high quality canned food that I can afford.Occasionally I splurge for my cats and order Llama or Venison from HT but, I can feed them a high quality raw diet without breaking my bank the way high end canned did.
 

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Making cat food is definitely a labor of love. I'd compare it to a family with children where the parents feed a home-cooked meal every evening with whole healthy foods, versus the parents who are too busy and rely on the convenience of driving through McDonalds for Happy Meals. None of the children will die directly from the diet choices the parents make, but the long-range health outcomes are likely to be quite different.

Raw food takes more of an investment of time but the results in health are evident.
 
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