Raw Diet Has Me Confused

[Klee27]

Hi guys,
My cat has been eating raw for about a year now. He eats Rad Cat in the morning and a complete diet from a local raw pet food deli. He has eaten raw from Hare Today before as a treat, but I have just ordered some raw to make my own raw food. Buuut it's a lot more confusing then I expected .

From Hare Today I purchased:
-whole ground mouse
-4 lbs of boneless (duck, chicken, turkey, rabbit- 1lb of each)
-bone in ground pheasant (1lb) and goose (1lb)
-Alnutrin for boneless raw
-Alnutrin for bone in raw
-1lb ground duck organs including liver

So first off, I know the bone in grinds I picked are higher than the 80/10/10 rule. Do I need to lower the bone by adding some of the boneless? If so, how much and should I be adding the boneless in after I add the alnutrin and the organs?

I know I need to add fish oil, but there are so many different opinions on what kind and how much. I can't decide between krill oil and salmon. How much should I be adding to the raw diet? Do I add the oil when I mix everything together or should I just add fish oil to the food daily?

Is there anything else I need to add or need to know?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Furballsmom]

There will be members with lots of info, but have you had a chance to look at catinfo . org?

 

[Ardina]

First of all, welcome to TCS! I'm sure others will chime in, but I can answer some of your questions.

The Alnutrin for meat and bone is for raw mixes that are 80% boneless meat, 10% bone, and 10% organ. The Alnutrin with calcium is for boneless meat and organ mix (1lb boneless to 0.8 oz liver)

I also buy meat from Hare Today, and they usually list the ratio breakdown.

- Whole ground mouse: This one will be at the ideal ratios already (the ratios were developed based on the mouse). So you can just add Alnutrin for meat and bone and the fish oil. Typically, I'll partially thaw the whole chub (just enough to where I can mix it and work with it) and dump it into a mixing bowl. In a separate, smaller bowl, I'll dissolve the alnutrin into water (the instructions will say how much) and add the fish oil. Mix the alnutrin/fish oil slurry into the meat, portion the mix into smaller containers (typically a day's worth), and freeze. Then thaw the smaller containers one at a time to feed.
- Boneless meat (duck, chicken, turkey, rabbit): You can do the same as the for the mouse, but use Alnutrin with calcium and add enough duck organ mix to get the right ratio. Of note, Hare Today's duck organ mix isn't actually all organ for raw feeding purposes. It's an even mix of heart, gizzard, and liver, and heart and gizzard are actually considered muscle meats. So it's 33% organ for your purposes. If the recipe calls for 1 lb of boneless meat, you'll need 0.8 oz liver, so add 0.8*3 = 2.4 oz of the duck organ mix. For this reason, I buy the rabbit organ mix, which is 75% organ (kidney/liver).
- Bone in ground pheasant (1lb) and goose (1lb): You're right, these mixes are too bone heavy, so you'll have to dilute it. For the goose, the site lists it as 80% meat, 16% bone, and 3% organ. To dilute it to 80/10/10, for each pound of goose mix, you'll need to add 0.48 lbs of boneless meat and 0.13 lbs of organ (0.13*3 = 0.39 lbs duck organ mix). For the pheasant mix, it's a 75/20/5 mix, so for each pound of mix, you'll need to add 0.85 lbs boneless meat and 0.15 lbs organ (0.15*3 =0.45 lbs duck organ mix). This boneless meat can be pretty much anything - the boneless mixes you got from Hare Today, chicken thigh/breast meat from the grocery store (make sure it's not "enhanced" or "broth added"), boneless beef, pork, etc. So once you've got the ratios right, add the alnutrin for bone and meat and the fish oil slurry, mix, portion, and freeze. If you're interested in the math behind the numbers I gave you, pm me, and I can explain the math/send over the spreadsheet I made.

Fish oil: I use salmon oil, but that's just because I happened to get a bottle of it before I did my research. Krill oil is considered better because krill isn't as high up the food chain and is less likely to accumulate mercury. But, if you're getting a high quality oil that's been distilled and purified, salmon oil shouldn't have mercury contamination issues. I use the feline-nutrition recipe, which calls for 800 mg of fish oil per pound of meat. The recipe is halfway down the page: Easy Raw Diet Feeding for the Busy Person - Feline Nutrition Foundation.

This may seem overwhelming at first, but I promise you it gets easier after you do it once or twice. I started out on commercial raw for my cats, switched to using Alnutrin with Hare Today mixes, and I now mix my own supplements and use both Hare Today meats and grocery store meats. Let me know if anything is confusing.

 

[Klee27]

Thank you so much!!! That does help a lot! I wish I had known about the ground duck organs =/ so if I use 2.4oz duck organ for the boneless meat do I still need to add more liver?
This is definitely not as simple as I expected haha!

My other question is about treats. I give my raw fed kitty freeze deied raw chicken liver, heart, minnows, frozen raw chicken necks, and frozen raw pinky mice. Do I need to be taking these treats into account in regards to his daily diet? Will offering these treats be too much liver, bone, etc?

 

[Ardina]

Thank you so much!!! That does help a lot! I wish I had known about the ground duck organs =/ so if I use 2.4oz duck organ for the boneless meat do I still need to add more liver?
This is definitely not as simple as I expected haha!

My other question is about treats. I give my raw fed kitty freeze deied raw chicken liver, heart, minnows, frozen raw chicken necks, and frozen raw pinky mice. Do I need to be taking these treats into account in regards to his daily diet? Will offering these treats be too much liver, bone, etc?

If you use the 2.4 oz duck organ per pound of boneless meat, you should be all set. No need to add more liver. As for treats, just make sure that they make up less than 10% of your cat's diet.

 

[Klee27]

Thank you SO much. This is very helpful!! Do you think that stores like Whole Foods would be a good place to get more boneless meat? Should I grind it at home before I add it to the bone in meat?

Also, if I decide to use krill oil or anchovy oil instead of salmon oil should I still add 800mg/lb of meat?

 

[orange&white]

Thank you SO much. This is very helpful!! Do you think that stores like Whole Foods would be a good place to get more boneless meat? Should I grind it at home before I add it to the bone in meat?

Also, if I decide to use krill oil or anchovy oil instead of salmon oil should I still add 800mg/lb of meat?

You can buy additional boneless meat at Whole Foods or any grocery. You don't need to grind it, unless your cats won't eat chunks of meat. Boneless meat is fairly fast and easy to slice into pieces.

This is about the size I cube most of my cat mixes' boneless meat.

 

[Ardina]

Since your cat is already eating pinkies and chicken necks, adding boneless meat in the form of chunks should be fine. It'll save you the trouble of grinding it, and it'll be better for dental health.

I get my boneless meat from the local grocery store. I don't get organic meat, but I just make sure that it doesn't have any broth added or "flavor enhancements." One word of warning - don't buy ground meat at the grocery store for your cats. They have a much higher bacterial load because of increased surface area, which is apparently fine for human consumption because they assume we'll cook it.

I think 800 mg per lb meat should be fine, regardless of type of fish oil.

 

[Klee27]

Perfect, thank you so much!
I have kind of a stupid question about fish oil. All of my research says that it's best to use fish oil capsules. But I can't find any fish oil that comes in 800mg capsules, only 1000. Would it be okay to just add 1000mg per pound of meat?

 

[Ardina]

1000mg should be just fine. I usually make 5-6 lb batches at a time, so I just divided and thus ended with a not so practical number.

Some things have to be precise, like the amount of organ. Other things like taurine and fish oil can be in excess without causing issues.

 

[orange&white]

The EPA and DHA content is what your looking for mostly in the fish oil (that and no other vitamins added). When I was shopping brands, I found many of them contain 180mg EPA and 120mg DHA regardless of the overall mg label (800, 1000, etc). I ended up with a "1030mg" fish oil that has those EPA/DHA amounts I mentioned.

The felinenutrition.org recipe makes about 6 pounds of food and uses 4000mg of fish oil, so I add one capsule per 1.5 pounds of food I'm making.

I think Dr. Pierson is using a lot more fish oil these days than she used to, so hopefully that means there is a fairly wide margin of safety in keeping the supplements balanced.

 

[Tobermory]

There’s a really handy calculator where you enter how much meat you have and the percentage of meat, bone and organ in it (easy with Hare Today products since they provide those percentages). It then calculates what you need to add to get your 80/10/10 balance. Dilute Bone Content