Don't be silly! We all started somewhere - and you've already overcome what is usually the major hurdle: your boy LOVES the food! 
AND you're already over another common hurdle - you understand it's what he should be eating. :nod: So as far as I'm concerned, you're already doing great!
This has nothing to do with being inadequate. It's about beginnings!
I fed my cats a prescription diet to control urinary crystals for 7 years. I simply had no real interest in cat nutrition, and trusted my vet. It wasn't until we rescued a health-challenged kitty that we had to start thinking outside the box. We found a holistic D.V.M., and the first thing she did when we met her was review his diet. She was appalled, and I was embarrassed. :lol3: The funny thing is, I care for ferals. I rescue ferals, I TNR... we live in a rural area, and I know what they eat in addition to the food we put out. They eat the small rodents, rabbits, and crickets. Yet even knowing this, it never occurred to me to wonder... what's IN that cat food I feed them? Well, she got me looking. It took me over a year to decide that I should be feeding raw food - a year wasted, as far as I'm concerned. I did immediately get rid of the kibble, and moved them to timed meals of wet food that is high protein low-carb. In fact, I learned a lot about nutrition arguing against raw (here on this site. :lol3: ). It was doing the research for that debating that led me to, in the end, feed it to my cats. And I am SO THANKFUL I did. The change I saw in them when we switched to all canned (high protein, low carb) was impressive. The switch to raw from canned was equally impressive. :nod:
Nutritional deficiencies don't happen overnight. I was a nervous wreck just thinking about feeding raw - it all seemed so overwhelming once I'd made the decision to feed it. The "how" was hard! But like you, I just dove in. I used commercial raw - and it's not perfect always either. I felt a false sense of security, because technically it meets the AAFCO "complete and balanced" thing. But I ran into a roadblock. I was using what was available to me locally, and that was Nature's Variety frozen raw food. It targets 15% bone. In prey model raw feeding, the guideline is 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% "other secreting organ." Well too much bone means constipated cats (and too little bone means soft stools or diarrhea). And several of my cats got badly constipated. So I had to "thin out" that commercial food with just plain meat. And while it took a while to convince my cats that raw was even food - they'd been eating it for 3 months, and now loved it. And when I fed them little chunks of plain meat, they decided they didn't want ground food any longer. So I had to figure out how to balance meat. :lol3: I didn't have plans on feeding prey model raw, but if I wanted my cats eating raw, at that point I had little choice. And I learned how to do it over time, and they didn't suffer even though I wasn't doing it right at first.
You don't need to know everything to start. You can learn as you go. Do I eat a balanced diet at every meal? No. Do I eat a balance diet even every day? No.
So while it IS important to make sure your kitty gets everything he needs over time, it's not going to hurt him that you didn't do it perfectly right out of the gate. It's not like we're at a point in history where there's some microchip we can buy and stick in our heads and know everything about any given subject.... and the whole POINT of forums like this is to share, to exchange, and to learn from each other. :rub:
For all we know that diet is perfectly healthy. I still don't know what it is as I can't watch the video, so I don't know the recipe.
But if you stop and take just a moment to think about it... what is a mouse? It is meat, bones, and organs. Yes, there's some fur, but there's no nutritional value to insoluble fiber. So then that should be the building blocks, no?
If you want to make ground food, and you want time tested recipes, they exist:
http://www.catnutrition.org/recipes.html
http://www.holisticat.com/well-fed/
http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood
If you don't have a grinder, if you do want to make your own ground food, it's highly recommended that you get your own. Buying pre-ground meat from the supermarket is usually riskier as re: pathogens, because it's the environment in which its made that can spread them so easily.
If you want to make home-made ground super easy without a grinder and you live in the U.S., you can order the whole ground animals from Hare-Today and just add in the Alnutrin supplement (the one for meat/bones/organs). The supplement is sold on the website, and there are a gazillion proteins to choose from: http://www.hare-today.com . I do recommend the one or two pound packages: the five pound packages are difficult to dethaw. :lol3: But just dethaw by putting in the fridge or in a bowl of cold water. When it's mostly dethawed, plop it in a bowl, add the alnutrin and the little bit of water as per instructions, mix it up well, the portion it into baggies or something, and refreeze. Easy peasy! I still order the ground pork and ground rabbit even though I mostly provide my kitties with my boneless version of prey model raw.
For further reading, the Raw Resources thread is helpful but overwhelming :lol3: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread
But please don't feel so discouraged that you give up. You're already over the major hurdles - just keep going, and learn as you go.
AND you're already over another common hurdle - you understand it's what he should be eating. :nod: So as far as I'm concerned, you're already doing great!This has nothing to do with being inadequate. It's about beginnings!
I fed my cats a prescription diet to control urinary crystals for 7 years. I simply had no real interest in cat nutrition, and trusted my vet. It wasn't until we rescued a health-challenged kitty that we had to start thinking outside the box. We found a holistic D.V.M., and the first thing she did when we met her was review his diet. She was appalled, and I was embarrassed. :lol3: The funny thing is, I care for ferals. I rescue ferals, I TNR... we live in a rural area, and I know what they eat in addition to the food we put out. They eat the small rodents, rabbits, and crickets. Yet even knowing this, it never occurred to me to wonder... what's IN that cat food I feed them? Well, she got me looking. It took me over a year to decide that I should be feeding raw food - a year wasted, as far as I'm concerned. I did immediately get rid of the kibble, and moved them to timed meals of wet food that is high protein low-carb. In fact, I learned a lot about nutrition arguing against raw (here on this site. :lol3: ). It was doing the research for that debating that led me to, in the end, feed it to my cats. And I am SO THANKFUL I did. The change I saw in them when we switched to all canned (high protein, low carb) was impressive. The switch to raw from canned was equally impressive. :nod:
Nutritional deficiencies don't happen overnight. I was a nervous wreck just thinking about feeding raw - it all seemed so overwhelming once I'd made the decision to feed it. The "how" was hard! But like you, I just dove in. I used commercial raw - and it's not perfect always either. I felt a false sense of security, because technically it meets the AAFCO "complete and balanced" thing. But I ran into a roadblock. I was using what was available to me locally, and that was Nature's Variety frozen raw food. It targets 15% bone. In prey model raw feeding, the guideline is 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% "other secreting organ." Well too much bone means constipated cats (and too little bone means soft stools or diarrhea). And several of my cats got badly constipated. So I had to "thin out" that commercial food with just plain meat. And while it took a while to convince my cats that raw was even food - they'd been eating it for 3 months, and now loved it. And when I fed them little chunks of plain meat, they decided they didn't want ground food any longer. So I had to figure out how to balance meat. :lol3: I didn't have plans on feeding prey model raw, but if I wanted my cats eating raw, at that point I had little choice. And I learned how to do it over time, and they didn't suffer even though I wasn't doing it right at first.
You don't need to know everything to start. You can learn as you go. Do I eat a balanced diet at every meal? No. Do I eat a balance diet even every day? No.
So while it IS important to make sure your kitty gets everything he needs over time, it's not going to hurt him that you didn't do it perfectly right out of the gate. It's not like we're at a point in history where there's some microchip we can buy and stick in our heads and know everything about any given subject.... and the whole POINT of forums like this is to share, to exchange, and to learn from each other. :rub:
For all we know that diet is perfectly healthy. I still don't know what it is as I can't watch the video, so I don't know the recipe.
But if you stop and take just a moment to think about it... what is a mouse? It is meat, bones, and organs. Yes, there's some fur, but there's no nutritional value to insoluble fiber. So then that should be the building blocks, no?
If you want to make ground food, and you want time tested recipes, they exist:
http://www.catnutrition.org/recipes.html
http://www.holisticat.com/well-fed/
http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood
If you don't have a grinder, if you do want to make your own ground food, it's highly recommended that you get your own. Buying pre-ground meat from the supermarket is usually riskier as re: pathogens, because it's the environment in which its made that can spread them so easily.
If you want to make home-made ground super easy without a grinder and you live in the U.S., you can order the whole ground animals from Hare-Today and just add in the Alnutrin supplement (the one for meat/bones/organs). The supplement is sold on the website, and there are a gazillion proteins to choose from: http://www.hare-today.com . I do recommend the one or two pound packages: the five pound packages are difficult to dethaw. :lol3: But just dethaw by putting in the fridge or in a bowl of cold water. When it's mostly dethawed, plop it in a bowl, add the alnutrin and the little bit of water as per instructions, mix it up well, the portion it into baggies or something, and refreeze. Easy peasy! I still order the ground pork and ground rabbit even though I mostly provide my kitties with my boneless version of prey model raw.
For further reading, the Raw Resources thread is helpful but overwhelming :lol3: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread
But please don't feel so discouraged that you give up. You're already over the major hurdles - just keep going, and learn as you go.
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- he said Pumpkin needs to be 1/4 of the meat
