Prey Model Raw

Ardina

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Hi all, it's been a while. For about a year, I fed my cats homemade raw - hare today chubs balanced to 80/10/10 with supplements. Around March or so, time constraints and circumstances made it difficult, so I switched to radcat.

Now that radcat shut down, Saipha and Mishka are reluctantly eating frozen primal turkey. I don't want to give them the other varieties that have fish, they refuse to eat venison, and I'm not happy with the vegetables in primal in any case.

So now I'm considering prey model raw. Saipha and Mishka both happily eat chicken wings (bone included), chicken heads and necks, heart, and muscle meat of various types. They're excellent chewers and easily handle large chunks. I recently managed to convince them to eat lamb kidney, and liver is next on the menu. But I have a few questions before I switch them over completely:

1) Over what time period should I balance their diet? Is a week reasonable?

2) Are supplements necessary? And if so, which ones? I'm mostly going to try to source fresh meats, but they may have to be frozen, particularly the organs. I do plan to feed them heart for taurine, but what percentage of their diet should heart make up?

3) I used to do 80/10/5/5. Would you all recommend 83/7/5/5 instead? Saipha and Mishka never strain in the litterbox, but their poop is fairly small, dry, and crumbly (as it has been since I switched them to raw).

4) Should sardines/anchovies or egg yolks be a part of their diet? How much?

5) Anyone have a good method for meal prep? Do you prep once a week and pack each meal in Tupperware? Or pack each cat's food for one day and split into as many meals as seems reasonable?

6) With multiple cats (especially one active cat who needs to eat more and a cat who is prone to gaining weight and gets less food), how do you make sure each cat only eats their own food? And any solution for dealing with cats who like to run away with their chunks?

7) Anyone have a reliable source for bone percentages of chicken wings, heads, and necks?

Thank you all in advance!
 

mani

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Raw isn't may area I'm afraid.
I hope that someone who can help you may come along soon. :)
 

daftcat75

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I can’t answer most of those since I’m still going through my Rad Cat stocks.

For portioning and serving though, I reportion to ice cube trays. The average cube is between 16 and 20 g. Krista currently gets three cubes for a meal. I take them from freezer into a baggie. I add egg yolk powder because I’m still trying to work that in for hairball control. I seal the baggie and run it under warm water until it’s completely thawed. I used a candy thermometer to mark off 100F on my kitchen sink. But slightly cooler than how you like your bath water is a good approximation. As long as you keep the water at this temperature, you won’t have to worry about cooking your raw.
 

riley1

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I too, am looking for a Rad Cat replacement! Thought I could use Instinct Signature rabbit/Chicken & Primal Pork/Turkey. I still have a week or so of RADCAT left so I started with the others. No comparison! They are these gray little pieces that look awful! I wish I could find something else.
 

daftcat75

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I spoke to a guy at one of the pet supply stores that used to sell Rad Cat. He says Tucker’s are working on a similar formula to Rad Cat and expect to have their product ready in December. If that’s right, it will already have a distribution channel according to him.
 

kittyluv387

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A lot of people on here feed their cats 83/7/10 because they feel 10% is too much bone or their cats get too constipated from it. I have 3 cats and 2 of them are quite piggish. I have to put the non pig one in the bedroom to make sure he gets to eat in peace. Especially important since he takes longer to eat. I let the 2 pigs eat next to each other from their own bowls but I supervise them to make sure my male pig doesnt steal his sister's food.

mschauer mschauer is quite knowledgeable. Maybe she would help you!
 
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Ardina

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Thanks for the responses everyone! I found some great butcher shops that sell unusual cuts and organ meats, so I stocked up on chicken organs, lamb hearts, some cheap cuts of beef, and chicken wings. I made a spreadsheet, planned out their meals to balance over a week, and meal prepped with Tupperware. I also managed to snag some whole quail, and they loved it! It's expensive, so it'll be an occasional treat.

I decided to go with 83/7/5/5 and see how they do. Their Sunday evening meal will be 1.5 oz of tinned sardines topped with a raw egg yolk. Yesterday, they both stayed at their bowls licking away long after all the food was gone. :D

Mishka is still running away with chicken wings, which makes for messy cleanup! And both drag the food off the dishes onto the floor. For now, I'm closing the bedroom door to limit them to tiled areas, but I'll see if I can figure out a better solution.

The only thing I'm still unsure about is whether or not to supplement. Having done homemade ground raw, I was really careful about supplementing appropriately, but I'm at a bit of a loss for prey model raw. Nothing is ground, so there shouldn't be much nutrient loss. Perhaps some loss from freezing? I'm giving egg yolks for B vitamins and sardines for omega 3 fatty acids. They're getting about 5-6 oz of heart per week for taurine. And I'm feeding them a mix of chicken organs - liver, pancreas, spleen, kidney, and whatever other unidentifiable organ is in the mix. Even the occasional chicken brain when they get heads as a treat. I'm wondering if they are getting enough iodine - I doubt it's in the organ mix...
 

mschauer

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The only thing I'm still unsure about is whether or not to supplement. Having done homemade ground raw, I was really careful about supplementing appropriately, but I'm at a bit of a loss for prey model raw. Nothing is ground, so there shouldn't be much nutrient loss. Perhaps some loss from freezing? I'm giving egg yolks for B vitamins and sardines for omega 3 fatty acids. They're getting about 5-6 oz of heart per week for taurine. And I'm feeding them a mix of chicken organs - liver, pancreas, spleen, kidney, and whatever other unidentifiable organ is in the mix. Even the occasional chicken brain when they get heads as a treat. I'm wondering if they are getting enough iodine - I doubt it's in the organ mix...
Unfortunately when it comes to a PMR diet whether supplementation is needed is extremely controversial. There are those who will insist that as long as you are following the 80/10/10 formula nothing else is needed. And there are those who will say some supplementation is needed but disagree on exactly what is needed.

I don't do PMR so I mostly stay out of discussions regarding it.
 
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Ardina

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Unfortunately when it comes to a PMR diet whether supplementation is needed is extremely controversial. There are those who will insist that as long as you are following the 80/10/10 formula nothing else is needed. And there are those who will say some supplementation is needed but disagree on exactly what is needed.

I don't do PMR so I mostly stay out of discussions regarding it.
Thanks for the insight, mschauer! I think I'll do some more digging around and see if I can find a satisfactory answer. For now, I think I will supplement taurine - I have a huge tub of it and it's water soluble, so I may as well.
 

Cindus

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The only thing I'm still unsure about is whether or not to supplement.
I'm in a similar situation, their meals being about half ground (from Hare Today) and half supermarket boneless muscle-meat, hearts, and gizzards, all cut into sizable pieces -- and mixed with a tablespoon of canned, otherwise they're less likely to eat it. I also just bought whole rabbit chunks from HT. I've decided to supplement but I'm not sure if I should use a complete formula, or do it piecemeal. My main concerns are that a) the organ meats are ground, and b) they mostly only get liver. That's why I bought the rabbit, as it includes non-liver secreting organs.

If this was any other kind of project I'd just happily experiment. But my cats' health is at stake. I'm just glad this forum is around and that it's so active. I'm always taking notes and doing more research. :)
 
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Ardina

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I'm in a similar situation, their meals being about half ground (from Hare Today) and half supermarket boneless muscle-meat, hearts, and gizzards, all cut into sizable pieces -- and mixed with a tablespoon of canned, otherwise they're less likely to eat it. I also just bought whole rabbit chunks from HT. I've decided to supplement but I'm not sure if I should use a complete formula, or do it piecemeal. My main concerns are that a) the organ meats are ground, and b) they mostly only get liver. That's why I bought the rabbit, as it includes non-liver secreting organs.

If this was any other kind of project I'd just happily experiment. But my cats' health is at stake. I'm just glad this forum is around and that it's so active. I'm always taking notes and doing more research. :)
I completely agree with you - we can't just experiment with our cats' health, so we need to get it right. Having done ground homemade raw from Hare Today before, I have a good idea of what supplements need to be added for a ground mix. I used to use this recipe (halfway down the page): Easy Raw Diet Feeding for the Busy Person. And I also added a manganese supplement to the recipe after getting mschauer's input and nutritional analysis.

This is how I'm breaking down the supplements for the prey model raw diet:
- Raw egg yolks: they each get one yolk weekly, which is less than the ground recipe calls for. Debating on whether I should give them each two egg yolks per week.
- Taurine: They're getting about 20-25% of their muscle meat requirement from lamb and chicken hearts, which are high in taurine. The rest of their muscle meat is hardworking muscle - chicken legs and beef chuck, also high in taurine. I'm going to supplement taurine regardless because it's so critical to health and it's completely water soluble, so excess will get excreted in urine.
- Fish oil: They each get 1.5 oz of tinned, low sodium sardines weekly. This should be enough to balance their omega 3 to 6 fatty acids.
- Vitamin E and B: Found in egg yolks - perhaps another reason to increase to 2/week. Vit B also is in liver.
- Lite iodized salt: This is one thing that I'm certain that I need to add to their diets. The chicken organ mix I'm feeding them has pretty much all the abdominal cavity organs, but it doesn't contain thyroid, which means they have no source of iodine. I recently saw a post by a member who had been feeding unsupplemented homemade raw and her cats developed a goiter, likely from iodine deficiency.
- Psyllium husk: This is optional and mostly to smooth the transition for cats with sensitive stomachs. My cats have been eating raw for a while and do fine, so I'm going to omit it.

With this supplementation and feeding my cats a variety of proteins, I'm hoping any nutrient deficiencies/excesses will balance out. I'm also interspersing with whole prey every now and then (quail, day old chicks). We'll see how things go.

It's definitely work, but it's amazing how playful my cats have become. They've been on raw for over a year, but somehow having actual chunks of meat to tear apart and pretend to kill is making them very kittenish. :D
 

kittyluv387

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Yeah you definitely should supplement taurine. I was reading up on raw feeding again and read that the mouse (ultimate cat food) has much more taurine than other types of hearts. Also read somewhere else that there's taurine in meat but when it gets ground bacteria forms and breaks down the taurine in muscle meat.
 

mschauer

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Not saying these are super credible, but something to think about. And at the least the cats can pee out the excess easily.

Taurine Content in Raw Food for Cats
No Bull, Taurine Is a Must for Kitty
What About Cats?
Yeah, the first and third one are ignorable for just being bloggers. The second one is at least semi-credible but it doesn't say anything about bacteria in ground meat degrading taurine. In looking for some credible information all I have been about to find is that bacteria in the gastrointestinal system can degrade taurine. That is quite different from saying bacteria on the surface of meat (and which gets mixed in when the meat is ground) can cause taurine degradation. BUT, I'm still looking.
 

kittyluv387

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Yeah, the first and third one are ignorable for just being bloggers. The second one is at least semi-credible but it doesn't say anything about bacteria in ground meat degrading taurine. In looking for some credible information all I have been about to find is that bacteria in the gastrointestinal system can degrade taurine. That is quite different from saying bacteria on the surface of meat (and which gets mixed in when the meat is ground) can cause taurine degradation. BUT, I'm still looking.
Great! We're lucky to have you here!
 
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