Raw Feeding Grinding Recipe Portions

[jenniator]

Hello everyone!

First I wanted to say thank you for all the help from everyone while I'm trying to learn all about the raw diet. I know I have a lot of questions lately, but it's because I'm trying to learn as much about the raw diet as possible and not make any mistakes.

I have good news. Me and my husband were able to get a grinder this month so we could use the grinding method and use bones. We ordered the Andrew James Premium Electric Meat Mincer Grinder for 100 euros. Hopefully it's a good grinder. We also got all the vitamins besides the raw glandular supplement. Were still looking for the glandular supplement, but we are unable to find it. We checked a pharmacy and they didn't carry it. I did find a ImmoPlex Glandular, Nutricology on ebay, but it is a little expensive (12 euros). I would appreciate suggestions if anyone knew a cheaper place to get the Glandular or a cheaper brand maybe. I hope the raw diet turns out good and not too expensive. just the vitamins alone cost 30 euros not counting the meat.

For my Main Question/Concern

I plan to use this recipe to make our cat food.
www.catnutrition.org/recipes.html

I did have a question though. I was thinking of making this recipe in bulk (About 3 times the amount) and freezing it so we have enough to last for a while. I was thinking about using 2kg of chicken thighs/drumsticks/or chicken wings with bones along with 400 grams of chicken heart, 200 grams of chicken liver, and the supplements. I was thinking to make twos other batches (Depend on what isn't too expensive and I can find) of turkey, lamb, duck, beef, pork, or rabbit. I'm still deciding which proteins to pick. But I was wondering do I use the same portion for other meats? Like if I pick turkey, lamb, duck, beef, pork, or rabbit, do I use 2kg of meat with bones, 400 grams heart, and 200 grams of liver or do I need to use different portions with different meats? If I use beef, do I need to specifically use beef heart/liver or can the 2kg of beef be mixed with chicken heart/liver? Also I was wondering if someone could recommend me some good cuts to use for different proteins. Like I know that if I pick chicken, it's best to use Chicken thighs or Drumsticks, but I have no clue what is best for the other meats. I really appreciate all the help and hope my questions are not too much trouble. Hopefully you all could understand the way I explained my questions and what I meant.

 

[peaches08]

Glad you found a grinder!  That's going to be one of the biggest investments in this whole thing.  The other is a deep freezer so you can stock up on meats when on sale (I'm assuming you can find sales in the Netherlands?).  I have never ground up rabbit so I can't answer about that one, but I know pork and beef bone are too much for most grinders.  That's a HARD bone.  You're better off looking at eggshell or MCHA for calcium.

I use the Nutricology Immoplex Glandular supplement.  However, I didn't add that until 1.5 years after starting raw.  So don't sweat that just yet.  @LDG uses individual supplements (kidney, thymus, etc), so that may be an option for you.  Or if you can find them as organs, even better!  I cannot source much in the way of organs, despite living in a resort area known for fine dining (organs/rare meats/etc are common to fine dining).  I use the recipe from www.catinfo.org, which is very similar to the one you're looking at using (actually, my understanding is Anne is the one who got Dr. Pierson to start raw).

Anyway, more about organs, the liver I can always find is chicken livers so when I use other meats (pork) I use chicken liver.  The only heart I can source is beef and my cats literally left the kitchen when I was cutting it up, so I don't use it.  I use powdered taurine instead.  So, I left it at meat/skin/bones, liver, and supplements.  Because of IBS I didn't add egg yolks until about 1.5 years later too.

When using chicken, I use chicken thighs because it has the highest meat to bone ratio.  Drumsticks provide less meat and more bone.  For a whole ground rabbit, you need to add 20 to 25% more muscle meat of some kind to dilute out some of the bone, so 400-500g more muscle meat.  When using boneless meats (beef, pork) I add eggshell because I save the old eggshells and grind them myself.  I then use the same recipe but instead of 2 kg meat/bone, it's 2 kg meat.

Oh, and I make food in bulk too.  www.catinfo.org uses lbs (what I'm used to), so when making 15-18 lbs of food I add the appropriate amount of supplements per 3 lbs.  So for 15 lbs of meat/bones/skin, I look at the recipe and see that I multiply the amount of B-complex by 5.  And so forth.  I then refreeze the completed recipe and thaw out what I need a few days at a time.

Hopefully that helps!