phosphorous / bone content in commercial raw

[Kylie1313]

Hi everyone,

First time posting here but I have used the site for a while to help with many things so thank you for all the informative content.
I have 3 1 year old cats and a 4 month old kitten. I have had my cats on home made raw with some commercial raw thrown in there as well since they were around 6 months old. My new kitten has had diarrhea since the previous owner found her around 4 weeks of age. I have her eating Stella and chewy's freeze dried raw and Darwins natural raw and adding in probiotics and it is helping her diarhhea. One of my other cats suffers from occasional constipation which I recently discovered could be too high bone content and found out S&C does have high phosphorous.
Id like to add in more commercial raw to their diets as I don't have as much time to make the homemade cat food. Once this Darwins is gone I will not be using it anymore as one my cats throw up every time he eats it.
I just wanted some help understanding bone/phosphorous content and what foods are not too high.
I just ordered fegnion to try and then my local pet store has ordered me Tiki cat raw, boss nation raw, and tuckers raw to try with my cats. Do any of you know if these are good bone to meat ratios? I've read I could add psyllium husk to my constipated cats food. Thoughts on this? Thank you for any help you can provide. Just want to make sure I'm feeding them correct ingredient ratios and trying to find a food that suits them all.

 

[kittyluv387]

I know you want what's best for your cat but the fact is that most commercial raw foods have way too much phosphorus because bone is cheap and meat is expensive. The companies want to make profit. I don't recommend feeding any commercial raw unless you feed the boneless kind. You will see that these are much more expensive because it is meat based and not bone based.

I have been feeding raw for the past 6 years because my cat had diarrhea with any other kind of food. It seems like he eventually grew out of that sensitivity and is ok with eating high quality canned from time to time now. I have been feeding homemade raw for the past 2.5 years and do not plan on going back to commercial raw because I don't believe it is healthy due to the nutritional imbalances you mentioned.

 

[Tobermory]

I make my cats' food, but I totally understand what you're saying about it being extremely time consuming! If you can find Northwest Naturals frozen or freeze-dried raw, the bone content is a bit lower--or at least it was when I questioned them a couple of years ago. I emailed them about it and they responded that the bone content was 7% which is much better than Stella & Chewy's regular foods. But S&C does have a frozen raw line called Stella's Selects which doesn't have bone; it has calcium carbonate. You might try that.

My two 17-year-olds are prone to constipation so I add a bit of Miralax to their food. I feed them twice a day, and I find that 1/8 tsp. with each meal helps.

 

[Kylie1313]

I make my cats' food, but I totally understand what you're saying about it being extremely time consuming! If you can find Northwest Naturals frozen or freeze-dried raw, the bone content is a bit lower--or at least it was when I questioned them a couple of years ago. I emailed them about it and they responded that the bone content was 7% which is much better than Stella & Chewy's regular foods. But S&C does have a frozen raw line called Stella's Selects which doesn't have bone; it has calcium carbonate. You might try that.

My two 17-year-olds are prone to constipation so I add a bit of Miralax to their food. I feed them twice a day, and I find that 1/8 tsp. with each meal helps.

Thank you! I don't see northwest naturals sold anywhere in my area but in can order online. I didn't even realize S&C had this line. My cats hate their regular frozen food but I can give this one a try too.

 

[Tobermory]

Thank you! I don't see northwest naturals sold anywhere in my area but in can order online. I didn't even realize S&C had this line. My cats hate their regular frozen food but I can give this one a try too.

Mine much prefer the freeze-dried raw to the frozen. I keep some on hand to rehydrate and serve when someone decides to get picky. It also works as a topper.

 

[lisahe]

A few commercial raw foods available in the US are included in this chart of dry matter phosphorus. Our cats' breakfast is Primal pork, which they love. Unless something has changed in the last few years, Primal freeze-dried is the same as Primal frozen... it just has the water taken out. Like Tobermory 's cats, ours also much prefer freeze-dried to frozen; and I prefer freeze-dried for the convenience. Though they do really like Stella & Chewy's Selects.

We also feed Purpose freeze-dried, which is a huge favorite. I don't know the bone content or phosphorus levels (I keep meaning to write to ask but never do!) but my strong suspicion is that the chicken food has less bone than the turkey food. Our cat who tends toward constipation started getting picky about her food (first sign of a problem!) when I fed half-and-half turkey/chicken meals. I now just use only very small amounts of turkey and she's fine.

I add egg yolk and pumpkin to our cats' homemade (cooked) food and those both seem to help, too.

 

[sophie1]

I had a bad experience with a cat developing bladder stones while eating Nature Variety frozen raw. I wrote to the company and found that the bone content was 15-19%, which shocked me. This had increased, unannounced, at some point since I'd first started feeding it. At least they were honest! To be fair, diet was almost certainly not the only contributor to the bladder stones. I make all my cats' food now, and it is a PITA but the peace of mind is worth it to me. One bit of convenience is that I buy the Alnutrin supplement and 8 oz bottles of liquid Iceland salmon oil to save the work of stocking and fussing with pills & capsules.

It is annoying that if you don't have a fallback e.g. freeze dried or canned food, you end up in situations where you have to make cat food regardless of how bad the timing might be for you personally. So including one of the above options (or Honest Kitchen, which is what I use) is probably a good idea unless you're a real die hard with zero complications in your life. You can be less picky about ingredients if it's not a large portion of your cats' diet.

 

[mschauer]

I make all my cats' food now, and it is a PITA but the peace of mind is worth it to me.

That is one of the biggest reasons I kept with making my own, including my own supplement mix, even as more and more pre-made diets have become available. I wanted to be absolutely sure what I was feeding. To me it's more of a PITA to have to keep monitoring whether the manufacturer of a food I'm using has changed it in a way I don't like or even in a way that makes it inappropriate for my cats.

It certainly takes more time to make your own than to use pre-made though. Especially at the beginning when there is a learning curve to get over.

 

[lisahe]

I had a bad experience with a cat developing bladder stones while eating Nature Variety frozen raw. I wrote to the company and found that the bone content was 15-19%, which shocked me.

That really is shockingly high. Some years ago, I bought a package of Oma's Pride frozen raw cat food, which our cats both absolutely loved. I'm glad I wrote to them before I bought more because the bone content was in a similar range.