Raw meat recepies

[blakat]

Hello. Can anyone help me to find the correct and nutritionally balanced recepie to make raw meat cat food?
I've been feeding my cats raw meat food by using turkey thighs and some chicken as a protein source for the last 3 years and, all of a sudden, my 6 years old female supposedly developed IBD or/and some sort of intollerance and adversion to that food: she started vomiting, won't eat (not even her favorite food or treats)...she was put on dry hydrolized proteins diet but I quickly swiched her back to wet food but only the canned one (Nature's Variety LID Lamb majority, tried the Venison and a bit of the Salmon too) as she still refusing any raw turkey or chicken food. I'd like to go back to raw meat only as soon as possible though but I'd like to try a recepie that uses different source of protein like rabbit and possibly lamb and venison?!
For example: if I'm using a 2 lb. whole ground rabbit/bones and organs ( from Hare Today), exactly how much extra muscle meat do I need to add? And, no additional liver, chicken hearts and salt is needed, correct? How much fish oil?.....
I've always use the recepie from CAT NUTRITION.ORG but, as I'm comparing it to the Dr. Pierson's one at CATINFO.ORG, I see big differences in the ingredients amounts.....very confusing and frustruating.
Which recepie is the most correct and balanced?
Please help! Thank you

 

[mschauer]

Neither of the catinfo or catnutrition recipes is "more correct". They are just different. Just like your diet is probably quite a bit different from mine. Whose diet is arguably better depends on the standard you use to judge them. The same is true for our home-made cat foods. When you speak of "balance" I assume you are referring to being nutritionally balanced as per AAFCO recommendations. If so, neither the catinfo nor the catnutrition recipes adhere to those recommendations so, by that standard at least, neither is balanced. But, both have been used by many people are many years with  no known adverse affects so are assumed to be safe to feed.

Has your cat been actually diagnosed with IBD? If so you might want to consider not feeding bone. It is hard to digest. She might do better with a calcium supplement instead. I'm just guessing here. I don't know for sure that bone would cause her problems if she has IBD.

As to how much boneless meat to add to bone-in meat to reduce the bone content you can use my online calculator to figure out how to add to reduce the bone content to what you want:

rawcalc.org

For example, the Hare Today web site says their ground rabbit/organ blend is 15% bone. If you want to get that down to 10% you would need to add 2.2 lbs of boneless meat to 4.4 lbs of the Hare Today blend.

calc.jpg

• mschauer
• May 12, 2015

The above is assuming you don't want to bother with keeping the organ % at 10%.

If you do want to keep the organ % at 10% you'll need to add more organs also:

calc2.jpg

• mschauer
• May 12, 2015

 

[nansiludie]

I feed Dr. Piersons recipe as it is a well-balanced diet. I use chicken, no rabbit. I figure that she's made her recipe for her cats for a long time and its safe. I also know that she is a Vet so I trust her opinion. She does have it listed where you could use bone meal, which is dry powdered bone as a calcium supplement. That is if you decide to not grind your own bone. Please do not use any pre-ground meat from a grocery store. I am sure Haretoday is fine but none from any grocery stores as the bacteria in it is very high. I grind my own meat and bones.

I just checked on catnutrition and the recipes aren't actually all that different at all. Just catnutrition has raw glandular supplement added whereas Dr. Piersons does not but she adds in chicken organs. That was my impression.

 

[ldg]

I like the recipe at Cat Nutrition, because it is set up to use with different meats. But I like rotating everything. If I made ground, I'd rotate recipes, not just proteins. But that's me.

 

[mschauer]

I like the recipe at Cat Nutrition, because it is set up to use with different meats. But I like rotating everything. If I made ground, I'd rotate recipes, not just proteins. But that's me.

What do you think about not feeding bone to an IBD kitty? Does it matter?

 

[nansiludie]

I wouldn't think it would, in fact the opposite as it helps to firm the stool. Perhaps removing half the bone instead of a quarter, but I'd prefer trying some bone in the recipe.

 

[ldg]

What do you think about not feeding bone to an IBD kitty? Does it matter?

I wouldn't think it would, in fact the opposite as it helps to firm the stool. Perhaps removing half the bone instead of a quarter, but I'd prefer trying some bone in the recipe.

Nansiludie - the problem with that approach is that one feeds bone in a certain ratio with meat to achieve a proper Calciumhosphorus ratio. It would be detrimental to long term health to just randomly use less bone (calcium).

As to bone vs alternatives, it is very cat dependent. But think of it like this: adding vinegar when making bone broth helps remove more of the minerals. It takes an acidic system to properly digest bone. This is NATURAL for a cat - but our cats don't start there, and managing that process of returning to a "proper" state of acidity is important with IBD cats, due to their sensitivities and issues with inflammation and nausea that are aleady present.

When transitioning to raw, with 20/20 hindsight, I can say that my older cats took about 9 months to completely adjust to the raw diet. And for most of that, I used eggshell with chunks, though I started with ground with bone. None of my cats have IBD, but we did have reason to get x-rays done on a couple of cats, and both had bone from top-to-bottom in the x-rays. The vet and I concluded this was normal (she'd never seen it before, none of her clients feed raw, LOL). So ... after a year feeding raw with bone, is there less bone in a cat on x-ray? No idea.

I just know that some cats don't produce enough acid at first, and the bone can cause stomach upset. This is just trial and error with IBD cats. Bone-in ground? Kitty is uncomfortable or nauseous. Alnutrin with eggshell? Kitty is comfortable.

This doesn't mean that if you start with eggshell, you need to only ever use eggshell.

And the one thing no one has ever tried - that I know of - is using the calcium hydroxyapatite (freeze dried bone) instead of eggshell as the whole (or ground) bone alternative. It's more expensive, and people with IBD cats usually have already spent thousands at the vet by the time they turn to trying raw feeding, so keeping costs down is often a consideration. But it seems to me that if one wanted to use real bone, using the freeze dried bone powder would make it easily digestible.

 

[nansiludie]

There is such a thing as freeze dried bone powder? Do you have a link? I'm interested in this. Why I suggested less bone is because it depends on the type of bone you are using. I use a combination of thigh and leg bones. I know some use chicken wings. I think it greatly depends on what type of meat and bone you would be using.

 

[mschauer]

 
There is such a thing as freeze dried bone powder? Do you have a link?

Calcium Hydroxyapatite

 

[nansiludie]

Thank you