Question On How To Test Raw Food

[stormrunner1981]

My cats are 10 and 12 and I'm wanting to switch to a raw diet for health reasons. I want to order prepackaged foods from Darwin's pet food - but you have to order 20lbs to start with. That is a lot of waste if the cats don't like it.

I was wondering is there something I can pick up to test them on raw chicken before taking the leap to prepackaged foods?

Also 20lbs seems like a lot of food? Would a small freezer hold it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ardina]

First of all, welcome to TCS! It's awesome that you're considering switching them to raw.

From what I remember, you can get a 10 lb "sampler" from Darwin's for $15 to make sure your cats are willing to eat it. It forces you to set up autoship to do that, but you can easily cancel it by emailing them. You can also try some frozen raw if any local stores near you carry it, including RadCat, Primal, Stella & Chewy's, and a few others.

The 10 lb sampler fit pretty easily in my freezer (normal sized top section of the fridge), but I eventually switched to making homemade raw, so I invested in a chest freezer and now store 30-40 lbs at a time.

 

[Neo_23]

Try calling your local pet stores that carry the products and ask if they have samples or contacting the companies to see if they can provide you with samples.

Also.. if you're just curious as to whether they will eat raw chicken then maybe just give them a little bit of your own next time you're preparing a meal?

 

[LTS3]

Try calling your local pet stores that carry the products and ask if they have samples or contacting the companies to see if they can provide you with samples.

Sometimes independent pet stores have samples of raw food available, usually freeze dried but sometimes frozen.

It's usually easiest to start with freeze dried raw first and then slowly move to frozen or homemade raw. Give that a try.

 

[stormrunner1981]

First of all, welcome to TCS! It's awesome that you're considering switching them to raw.

From what I remember, you can get a 10 lb "sampler" from Darwin's for $15 to make sure your cats are willing to eat it. It forces you to set up autoship to do that, but you can easily cancel it by emailing them. You can also try some frozen raw if any local stores near you carry it, including RadCat, Primal, Stella & Chewy's, and a few others.

The 10 lb sampler fit pretty easily in my freezer (normal sized top section of the fridge), but I eventually switched to making homemade raw, so I invested in a chest freezer and now store 30-40 lbs at a time.

I tried to do the sampler and It says I have to order the 20lbs of food at same time. Could be an online glitch I'll give them a call tomorrow.
Unfortunately, I live on the Mississippi Coast and the closest raw food is the Instinct raw dog food in the petco fridges. I'm afraid of it having something in it the cat can't eat though.

Also.. if you're just curious as to whether they will eat raw chicken then maybe just give them a little bit of your own next time you're preparing a meal?

Would that be alright? Husband is worried about what is in human consumer meat and we wanted to make sure it was alright first.

 

[Neo_23]

Would that be alright? Husband is worried about what is in human consumer meat and we wanted to make sure it was alright first.

I don't make home-made raw myself, but I know a lot of members on this site who make their own raw food just buy meat from the super market. I will let one of these people give you a more informed answer though.

I think orange&white will know more.

 

[Ardina]

Would that be alright? Husband is worried about what is in human consumer meat and we wanted to make sure it was alright first.

That should be fine as long as it's not ground meat (much larger surface area for bacterial multiplication) and doesn't have added sodium, garlic, onion, or herbs (watch out for "flavor enhanced" meats).

 

[LTS3]

Would that be alright? Husband is worried about what is in human consumer meat and we wanted to make sure it was alright first.

Just check the package and make sure the meat hasn't been enhanced with broth or salt solutions or flavorings or anything. Sometimes they are and there's teeny tiny print on the label indicating this.

 

[stormrunner1981]

I found a site that sells radcat that ships it. So I may try that instead of darwin at first. Depends on if I can get the sampler or not after I call.

Thank you everyone for your time. *crosses fingers* Now to just see how well my cats do on this diet. - I plan to still give them kibble with it for some time as we have huge bag of the stuff, but plan to switch them completely in a month or so.

 

[orange&white]

Would that be alright? Husband is worried about what is in human consumer meat and we wanted to make sure it was alright first.

Raw pet food producers are using human consumer meat. They don't have some kind of magic meat source that's better. RadCat uses all free-range and grass-fed animal products, so they command a premium, but that would be the same as you sourcing natural meats from your farmers market for homemade.

You pay for the convenience of having a commercial raw company procure, process, freeze, package, distribute and advertise the product.

If you'd like to try making homemade with grocery meats, just look for fresh whole meats with the furthest expiration date. You want to be as picky in your meat selection for your cats as you are for yourself. Don't use pre-ground meats as there are too many opportunities for increased bacteria load. When buying poultry, a label that says it may contain up to 4% water is fine. If is says "solution" or "brine" or "broth", don't buy it for your cat. (It's really hard to find turkeys that aren't already brined, even if they say "all natural".)

After that, you just need to practice normal good meat handling hygiene in the kitchen. Work with meats as cold as possible and try to keep everything cold until you've finished a batch and it's ready to freeze.

If you don't want to jump into homemade, it is still perfectly fine to let you cats' sample any meats you are cooking for your own dinner (before you add any seasoning).

 

[lalagimp]

I always knew Tommy would eat raw meat just by him hanging around the kitchen. The question for me was would he eat processed raw food, so I started with the Nature's Variety raw medallions from Petco. The ones for dogs lack the taurine to be a complete meal for a cat, so you can try to see if he'd eat any, but not make it a regular part of his diet. You could try asking Petco if they were order you a bag for cats. You can also tell Nature's Variety via email that you're interested in trying this diet, and they would send you some coupons. I did that for Tom. I told them we'd been using kibble for years but he'd ran into some health problems and it was detrimental that we change his diet, and they gave me 4 coupons for dollars off per bag.
Well, he ate the NV raw medallions without any grief given, so I started gathering my supplies and started making his food. I would order from Darwin's but our finances are giving us hell lately and I save hand over fist just making it myself using rabbit and turkey. I make 20+ lbs at a time and put a bunch of ice cube trays of food in a cardboard box I reinforced with a ton of packing tape, and I keep it on it's own shelf in our upright freezer downstairs.

 

[maureen brad]

Stormrunner- It is great that you are going to give raw a try.If you happen to live in CA then there is a Petfood Express somewhere near you. They will give you free samples of the raw they carry. I think Rad Cat is a good place to start. I am sure you can fir 20 lbs in the freezer. I have the top 2 drawers of my freezer for the jars of raw I put together. That holds 18 lbs. I have a spare stand up 4.5 cubic foot freezer in my home office ( I know, strange place for it) I also use that one for the jars I need to store. Last year I bought a small chest freezer and I can store about 40 lbs . I use cloth shopping bags to keep thing sorted. because of course a chest freezer is deep and that way I can just grab a handle and lift the bag out. I buy in bulk and make 30 lbs a month . Good luck to you. I hope your cat likes the food, it can take time but is worth it.

 

[sophie1]

A rule of thumb is that 35-40 pounds of efficiently-packaged meat should fit into 1 cubic foot of freezer space, less (like 20 lbs) for round containers such as chubs and jars. Just about any full size fridge/freezer should handle 20 lbs, and my counter-depth bottom freezer can squeeze in 31 lbs as long as I'm not storing much else. Clear out your freezer before the order arrives, and have a friend on speed dial if you need to borrow some freezer space.

Nature Variety medallions and Rad Cat are good to start with as they're easy to find, and stores will take them back if your cat won't eat them. But, they're so pricey that you probably won't want to keep using them. Darwin's is a nice compromise between price and convenience, and their packaging is space-efficient to boot - if only they carried rabbit!! My Pet Carnivore and Hare Today have wonderful products & variety at pretty much the lowest prices you'll find, but you need to mix products to balance out the bone percentage and add supplements. I developed a strategy of alternating products to get the right balance and adding supplements at feeding time, which I find to be much more sustainable than the defrost/mix/repack/refreeze procedure. Example: feed 1 lb whole ground chicken, then 1/2 lb hearts/liver/gizzard (refreezing half the 1 lb chub), then 1 lb cut up or ground boneless chicken thighs or other boneless meat of choice. Supplements + water get added to the whole ground chicken only. This cycle takes about 4-5 days for my two big cats, combined weight 27 lbs.

Bonus: when I switched to adding salmon oil at serving time, my cats' fur got noticeably silkier and the dandruff on one of my cats disappeared. Freezing salmon oil apparently does quite a bit of damage to its nutritional value.

 

[Ardina]

sophie1 Ooh, I like your feeding method. I do get tired of doing the defrost, mix, portion, and freeze thing. Unfortunately, my cats hate organ meats, so the only way to get them to eat it is to grind it finely and mix it into the ground muscle meat, so the taste is disguised. I'll try your suggestion about the fish oil though. I didn't realize how much got degraded with freezing.

 

[sophie1]

Ardina: Yay, I'm not the only one! I got so tired of doing that, and there are times when my job gets crazy and I just can't. I have to hand it to Lisa Pierson for keeping it up for 10+ years, not to mention some of the "founding cat mamas" on this board.

The one concern I'd have with the alternating-product method is that some cats might get constipated on the whole undiluted chicken. I suggest mixing the organs with the whole chicken grind instead, just in case. BTW I'm assuming it was the fish oil that was responsible for the improved fur/coat quality, but I suppose it might also be due to not freezing any of the other supplements, and also to not defrosting/refreezing most of the ground products. I cut the vitamin E in the Lisa Pierson recipe in half also, because as a fat-soluble vitamin it can be overdosed, and my cats should be getting plenty from the extra liver they get as treats.

 

[Ardina]

I figured that since I have to mix in the organs into something to disguise the taste, I might as well just mix in everything and make it so it's balanced at every meal. I've been doing this for about 8-9 months now, and I'm getting more efficient at it. Also helps that Mishka isn't so much of a stomach black hole anymore as she grows out of young kittenhood. So my mixes are lasting a month and a half instead of 3-4 weeks. I've been managing to keep it up even with my busiest work schedules, so hopefully I'll be able to keep it up. I've been tempted to switch to commercial or even something easier like ez complete with boneless meat, but it's so much more expensive.