Penelope and Delilah on Raw

[catnamedpanda]

So at the vet yesterday Delilah was sniffing the dog treats and I just made the comment that they don't like treats or any hard food even, and that Delilah loves her wet. The vet just in mentioning was saying it's ok that they only eat wet and that it was closer to their natural diet, and that raw would be even better. She was very happy that I told her the eat raw too.

Now these babies will not eat any of the treats that my other cats go nuts over. I saw at the store today some freeze dried chicken treats and figured I would try them. Well they are a hit! Delilah got so excited she actually bit my finger trying to get it so fast. They were still sniffing around looking for more after they finished. I don't know if they are cooked or raw freeze dried though. The brand is pure bites.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Oh, mine LOVE Purebites.  I just ordered a 30oz bag of the chicken flavor.  Didn't even know they made that size until I started looking for the best price for 11 oz size.  I'm pretty sure it's cooked, but it's still pure chicken, nothing else, so can't be a bad treat.  I use it as a topper for when mine have a hard time getting started with their raw, or don't quite finish, as well as their before bed treats and when I first get up in the morning so they don't "bug" me to immediately fix their breakfast. 

 

[ldg]

Yep, Pure Bites and Whole Life are both cooked. But cats on raw seem to go nuts for BOTH. And both have more flavors of things. I had the Pure Bites Turkey, and the kitties loved those too!

 

[feralvr]

I have never tried Pure Bites for the cats. I have for the dogs though!!!! OH wonderful, another topper :lol3: Yeah - the cats go bonkers for the Whole Life Freeze Dried Chicken. Except if your name is Pipsqueak!!! Very odd kitty, My Pipster!

 

[catnamedpanda]

Ok, so one of the reasons I went with call of the wild was because I couldn't find kidney or anything like that in the store, I can find liver no problem. Well I was picking up more meat and I saw some beef kidney for the first time. I was thinking about trying to see if the girls would eat it and I could do the whole balance thing. I didn't pick them up yet, and was wondering if I should try? If I did I would need help.

 

[ldg]

Well, we can definitely help. My Tuxie LOVES beef kidney. Shel can't tolerate it. :lol3:

 

[catnamedpanda]

I'm really curious if Delilah would like it, she likes meat better when it is plain before I add the supplement.

Ok, so if I feed meat, liver and kidneys but no bones I will have to add calcium of some sort. But what kind and how much?

Do I need to feed all of the elements in one meal or is it over the course of one day?

Is it going to be a problem if Delilah doesn't eat everything I give her and she still wants wet too?

If beef kidney is all that is available, do I feed chicken liver, beef liver, or I think there is another kind of liver I just don't remember what kind?

 

[carolina]

Shel can't tolerate it. :lol3:

Me either I call it pee jelly :lol3:

 

[catnamedpanda]

Me either

I call it pee jelly

They did look pretty gross in the store but I think I can handle it... I hope.

 

[carolina]

They did look pretty gross in the store but I think I can handle it... I hope. :lol3:

oh, the problem is not the texture.... Is the stench! Man.... It's like walking into a man's gas station restroom that has been peed all over the walls, floor.... Kept closed and hasn't been cleaned for a month! Yep, that's my best analogy :lol3:

 

[catnamedpanda]

Well I have never been in a dirty men's gas station restroom

But I can imagine what you are talking about. I will just have to put a strong scent in my scentsy or suck on a peppermint when I cut them up. Peppermint helped when we were getting to the end of dissecting fetal pigs in high school. We had those things for like a month and they reeked by the end.

Hopefully it cant be a worse smell than that!

 

[ldg]

OH! If you're going to try it, do not feed an entire meal of it!!! When feeding whole prey model, the liver is only 5% of the total food requirement - same for the kidney. So it would only be a small portion of a couple of meals a week. :nod:

 

[catnamedpanda]

That's where I was getting confused if each meal had to contain the right percentage or the day. But I only have to make it for the week? With Delilah I am never sure just how much she is going to eat, will this cause a problem. And then calcium, If I am not feeding them bones, how much do I give them and of what exactly should I look for. Is there any thing else I will need to add.

 

[ldg]

It's usually balanced over a week. :nod: You need to have a pretty good idea of how many ounces they usually eat each day.

Here's how it works for my kitties. I'll give you a couple of examples.

Tuxedo. I feed him 1.5 ounces at each meal; he gets three meals a day, so he eats 4.5 ounces of food a day. That's 32 ounces (two pounds) of food a week (technically it's 31.5 ounces, but I'm rounding LOL).

So he should be eating about 1.5 ounces of liver each week, and 1.5 ounces of kidney each week. He's not in love with liver (I've tried chicken, pork, and lamb) and he can't keep it down if I feed him too much of it at once. He loves the kidney - go figure. :lol3:

Because several of my cats have issues keeping the organs down if it's a significant portion of the meal, I split their liver requirement into three meals over the week, and I do the same thing for the kidney. So six times a week, he gets a meal that is two-thirds meat (1 ounce meat) and one-third (half an ounce) liver or kidney. I cut the pieces of liver up really small, and I coat them in Whole Life chicken powder for him. The kidney he likes - several of the others don't, so I do that same thing for them (cutting the pieces up small and coating them in Whole Life chicken powder).

Tuxie doesn't always finish the liver.

And I don't worry about it.


Sheldon. He eats the same amount of food as Tuxedo. But he hates liver, and hates kidney. I stopped giving him fresh liver. The good news is that he likes freeze dried liver. Freeze drying retains the nutrition of the fresh stuff. I do NOT rehydrate it (it says on the thing of treats not to). I know how much of a chicken liver I was feeding him, so I just eyeball the amount of freeze-dried to give him, knowing that it's about 1/4 the size once it's been dehydrated. I just add a couple of pieces to his bowl, and he gobbles them up.

For his kidney... I cut it up into maybe pea-sized pieces, and coat it in Whole Life chicken powder. He usually eats about half of it.

And I don't worry about it.


The bottom line... I drove myself nuts trying to get them to eat all their liver and kidney (or whatever) for months. I keep trying different organs, because I've been able to find them, and sometimes he'll eat all of whatever, and other times he won't. And I've stopped sweating it. I never ate the tops of my broccoli as a kid, and I hated mushrooms and asparagus. :dk: In the end, I figure this diet is so much healthier for them (I SEE it in them, you know?), that I'm not going to fret if he's only getting 2.5% of that "other secreting organ" instead of the 5% he should have. I'm just happy about all the stuff he's NOT eating by not eating commercial canned.

 

[ldg]

OH! The calcium.

There are three different things you can use:

Eggshell powder
Bone Meal
Freeze-dried bone (called microcrystalline hydroxyapatite (MCHA)).

The only manufacturer of MCHA that has ONLY freeze-dried bone in it is NOW. I don't know if you can order it there? I like the NOW calcium hydroxyapatite, because it's bone - but not subject to the high heat process that bone meal is. It's also made from young cows, not old ones, so you don't have the potential issue of toxins in the bone marrow. It takes half a capsule per one ounce to have a 1.1:1 Ca ratio for most meats. It takes 3/4 of a capsule to have a 1.3:1 Ca ratio for most meats. (I target a 1.3:1 calciumhosphorus ratio).

The organs have a higher phosphorus content.

For beef kidney, it takes 3/4 of a capsule to get to a 1.1:1 Ca ratio; it takes one capsule to get to a 1.3:1 Ca ratio (roughly).
It's the same for chicken liver.

So for most meals, I use one capsule per 1.5 ounces of meat.

When it's an organ meal, I use 1 1/4 capsule for the kitties that eat 1.5 ounces per meal.


That said... the NOW calcium hydroxyapatite would cost me about $50 a month to feed all 8 cats that exclusively as the calcium supplement. So rather than use that exclusively, I use eggshell powder one week, and NOW calcium hydroxyapatite the following week and just alternate between the two.

If you want to use eggshell powder (I order it already made - I don't know if they ship to Canada: http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html (Scroll down to the last product in the list), I hope you can find these little measuring spoons. :lol3:
Eggshell powder for the two girls, you can also probably make yourself. :nod: Just keep your eggshells - bake them at a low temperature for half an hour or so (so they completely dry out), and then powder them. Each eggshell should make about a teaspoon of powder.

It takes 1/32 of a teaspoon of eggshell powder (on the Norpro set, that is the spoon labeled "smidgen") to balance the phosphorus in one ounce of meat; and it takes 3/64 of a teaspoon (the "drop" is 1/64) to balance one ounce of chicken liver or beef kidney.

So when I use the eggshell, the cats that eat 1.5 ounces of food get 1 "smidgen" (1/32) and 1 drop (1/64) of eggshell sprinkled on their meat meals.

When they have organ meals, because I use half an ounce of organs, I use 1/32 (for the ounce of meat) and 1.5 of the 1/64 (for the half ounce of organs).

This might sound confusing.... but we're happy to help figure out how much of what calcium supplement to use for the meals you'll be feeding your girls, based on the amounts you'll be feeding them. :nod:

Same goes for how much of the organs to feed - we can help you figure that out too.

 

[ldg]

Oh - bone meal, I don't know off-hand. But we can figure that out if it's what you'll want to use. :nod:

 

[catnamedpanda]

A bit confusing but not overly. I think the first thing I need to do is figure out exactly how much Delilah especially will eat. I usually give her the same as Penelope and can get her to eat about half, but that is just eyeballing it. Sometimes she has barely ate any and I have to coax her to eat some more, but I know she is never full because she is begging for wet food right afterwards (she is eating less after meals now). She is getting a little better about eating more raw, most of the time

. To figure out exactly how much she will eat I can pick up what is left after she refuses to eat anymore and then weigh it again to see how much is left. I guess maybe the best would be to figure out at least a minimum of what she will eat and go from there. Penelope will be easy, she eats whatever i give her and rarely wants to eat Delilah's leftovers. Granted she is eating 3oz in a meal.

As far as calcium goes I will look around and see if I can find any of the NOW in stores close, but I have plenty of eggshells that will be easier for me to use right now.

 

[ldg]

If you want to double check the amounts you come up with, feel free to run it by us.

And I order the NOW calcium hydroxyapatite capsules online. I wonder if amazon would ship it to you? :dk:

 

[carolina]

I also feed the eggshell Ca from here http://knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html
it lasts for a looooooong time, so it is well worth it, if you want to try..... Totally recommend it!

 

[ldg]

Yep. The eggshell is a quick and easy supplement to use (if you have those teeny measuring spoons. :lol3: ). I don't know if knowwhatyoufeed ships to Canada. :dk: