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- May 26, 2014
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I read over my post, and realized its WAY to long, so i'm going to condense it into the points of my real question, feel free to read the whole thing if you feel so inclined to have the whole story to what is going on.
i have a female young adult cat, 1 to 3 yrs old, at 9.8 pounds that i recently adopted. was on science diet original from the shelter, was switched over to honest kitchen prowl, is no longer getting any kibble. Also her 1st vet trip is on Friday, i plan to do blood work and make sure she 100% healthy, she has been tested and wormed for internal parasites.
How much supplementation with raw food is healthy when feeding dehydrated food?
How much liver can i give in a week if i'm feeding it as a supplement and not as part of a prey model feeding program?
How do you offset the amount of cat food to feed when you mix food with meat?
If she poops nightly, do i need to be concerned about half bunny poops half log poops?
How slow do i need to make the switch is she eats readily and there's no upset?
What are your views on honest kitchen?
and the long of it all and thanks for any help you can give at all!:
This post is going to be kind of long sorry! sometimes you just need to vent and get it all out there no matter how long winded and crazy you sound! i talk to only one person who thinks raw is a good idea, the rest are like KIBBLE ONLY KIBBLE SCIENCE DIET IT SAYS ITS VET RECOMMENDED RIGHT THERE ON THE BAG....dead serious about that one! BUT as i get to the point, kibble and commercial diets pretty much lead to the early demise of my childhood cat, everything that raw feeders say kibble does pretty much happened to my cat that got me through the death of my father, chronic urinary infections, hyperthyroid, bowel issues, scent glads, hair balls, chronic diarrhea, asthma, you name it, she had it, and it was never once recommended to try and switch her diet, well that's a lie, it was, onto science diet, and 3 months later she was put down because she was caked in diarrhea (sorry about that image), despite her daily bath (yea that's how bad it was) in the end she couldn't even get to the litter box to pee, poor baby. About a year later i started doing research into diet and nutrition and that's when do my great anger, that i learned that even just switching to all canned food could have at least eased her passing. Ironically, she was the only indoor only cat, the only cat eating 100% human provided food, and the other two, that are outdoor/indoor mousers, are still happy healthy and fit, even coming to 13, and 12, and i have no doubt its because most of their diet is animals they catch, canned wet food in the morning, and just a few munches of kibble here and there (yea
we were free feeders, but no one had issues with self regulating so we never thought anything of it )
So i grew up, moved out, got a job, went to school, got a new job, and finally after 5 years since my last cat, i got a new kitty! her name is French Fry, and frankly, shes a brat, but i love her. I hope to switch her to whole prey foods, just because it seems right, i don't know why, it just does. i've done tons of research into recipes, franking prey, commercial raw, and idk, mice and chicks for me, just seem like the best option, and the most natural. I can understand why some people would be freaked out by this option, i cant feed her rat because i have rats and i know i just cant do that, but i plan of feeding mice, chicks, guinea-pig, rabbit, and possibly quail chicks. I wish i could find good readings about feeding whole prey, if anyone has any links please share ! all i can seem to find are websites about raw food, saying that some people take it a step farther and feed whole prey, not really that helpful but ok thanks ! best i can find out is that an adult cat needs about 3 to 5 mice sized items a day.
So on to what is actually going on right now! i adopted her from a shelter that feeds science diet because they give it to them for real cheap, no problem they have to do what they have to do to get all their animals fed right? i have had her for about 10 days. i switched her from the s/d to honest kitchen prowl, feel free to let me know what you guys think about this food if you've tried it at all, i'm not real thrilled about the food honestly and cant say i will buy another box, she is pretty good about leaving the chunks of what is either pumpkin or sweet potato and i pick out the big bits of cranberry before i give it to her. she is 9.8 pounds and a little over weight, not bad but she could lose .5 a pound i think. i'm feeding her currently 3/8th a cup a day in 2 meals, which is about 216 ish cals a day, i probably use more water to make it, i don't measure it out anymore, but i make it soupy so that she gets water, she is also good about drinking from a dish i see her drink water 2 to 3 times a day. for your ease so you dont have to go look it up heres whats in it and a link to nutrient profiles http://cdn.thehonestkitchen.com/media/wysiwyg/content/nutrient-profiles/PROWL-nutrient-profile.pdf :
All ingredients dehydrated: Chicken, eggs, potatoes, sweet potatoes, organic flaxseed, pumpkin, spinach, cranberries, tricalcium phosphate, choline chloride, zinc amino acid chelate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, potassium iodide, potassium chloride, iron amino acid chelate, copper amino acid chelate.
She has like, little bunny poops, and then a long normal(?) log poop, she goes every night, no odor, always very firm and dark brown, and there wasn't a change from when she was on the s/d to her being completely on the honest kitchen.
ok so down to the nitty gritty of where i'm lost at, one i'm not real sure that her diet is complete or balanced, call it general distrust in the human race when it comes to mass feeding animals. one it doesn't say if its whole chicken, bone in chicken, or just chicken breast, two there's no organ meat or byproducts listed, so well no organs. so that's the 1st thing i want to add in, and now i will admit i moved too quickly i was excited about having her home (i had to wait nearly 2 weeks before bringing her home!) so my concern is unbalancing a diet that isn't balanced, i know that sounds weird but it makes sense in my mind. so about 3 days after i got her i went to the store and got some chicken heart and livers, everything i can find about how much to feed is based off of feeding 100% raw on a prey model, unless i'm just reading things wrong, if so please correct me ! so i'm totally lost as how much to feed, i know hearts are considered muscle meat, and that too much liver can be dangerous so that's where things get complicated because i'm not averaging out food i'm making, i'm supplementing pre-made food that has added supplements to it. so i bagged up the bits into 15 "meals" of 3 hearts and half a liver, it comes out to about 24 to 30 grams of hearts, and 30 to 40 grams of liver each meal. and then i had some left over bits and pieces of both which i fed to her as a snack, she wolfed that do like she was starved for weeks leaving only a small tip of heart. so i would LIKE to feed her 2 of these bags a week, mixed with the honest kitchen to make for her full days worth of food. BUT i have no idea, i'm totally lost about if this is even acceptable or even safe supplementation because everything i find is about supplementing with muscle meat, or saying that supplementing will trow off the "balanced" diet your feeding your pet and they will die. i cant go to the vet about nutrition, we don't have a holistic vet near by, and frankly, even then, i just don't trust vets about nutrition anymore.
then a day or two later i fed her some chicken "scraps" (really its fine meat but my husband is super anal about even the smallest amount of fat or a tiny vein in his chicken that you have to cut out large chunks of it), which i would like to feed to her when ever we have chicken, other wise it just gets thrown out, again mixed with the honest to make for a full days meal, which she threw up! which totally freaked me out in all honesty, so i backed up, went back to s/d and honest and slowed down, i haven't feed anything but cat food and treats to her, which is dehydrated turkey breast, shes been on just the honest for 2 or 3 days, and id like to get into feeding her the organs and the chicken and working my way up to her first mouse. but i've hit this wall of fear of messing things up worst than just feeding commercial food, and id like a pat on the back, someone to tell me its ok and things will work out, and not look at me like i'm nuts when i say cats eat mice, that's what they are built to do. so any advice, tips, tricks, or reads (ive already read catinfo.org like 20 times, going over their obesity section again right now actually) is very much welcome!
i have a female young adult cat, 1 to 3 yrs old, at 9.8 pounds that i recently adopted. was on science diet original from the shelter, was switched over to honest kitchen prowl, is no longer getting any kibble. Also her 1st vet trip is on Friday, i plan to do blood work and make sure she 100% healthy, she has been tested and wormed for internal parasites.
How much supplementation with raw food is healthy when feeding dehydrated food?
How much liver can i give in a week if i'm feeding it as a supplement and not as part of a prey model feeding program?
How do you offset the amount of cat food to feed when you mix food with meat?
If she poops nightly, do i need to be concerned about half bunny poops half log poops?
How slow do i need to make the switch is she eats readily and there's no upset?
What are your views on honest kitchen?
and the long of it all and thanks for any help you can give at all!:
This post is going to be kind of long sorry! sometimes you just need to vent and get it all out there no matter how long winded and crazy you sound! i talk to only one person who thinks raw is a good idea, the rest are like KIBBLE ONLY KIBBLE SCIENCE DIET IT SAYS ITS VET RECOMMENDED RIGHT THERE ON THE BAG....dead serious about that one! BUT as i get to the point, kibble and commercial diets pretty much lead to the early demise of my childhood cat, everything that raw feeders say kibble does pretty much happened to my cat that got me through the death of my father, chronic urinary infections, hyperthyroid, bowel issues, scent glads, hair balls, chronic diarrhea, asthma, you name it, she had it, and it was never once recommended to try and switch her diet, well that's a lie, it was, onto science diet, and 3 months later she was put down because she was caked in diarrhea (sorry about that image), despite her daily bath (yea that's how bad it was) in the end she couldn't even get to the litter box to pee, poor baby. About a year later i started doing research into diet and nutrition and that's when do my great anger, that i learned that even just switching to all canned food could have at least eased her passing. Ironically, she was the only indoor only cat, the only cat eating 100% human provided food, and the other two, that are outdoor/indoor mousers, are still happy healthy and fit, even coming to 13, and 12, and i have no doubt its because most of their diet is animals they catch, canned wet food in the morning, and just a few munches of kibble here and there (yea
So i grew up, moved out, got a job, went to school, got a new job, and finally after 5 years since my last cat, i got a new kitty! her name is French Fry, and frankly, shes a brat, but i love her. I hope to switch her to whole prey foods, just because it seems right, i don't know why, it just does. i've done tons of research into recipes, franking prey, commercial raw, and idk, mice and chicks for me, just seem like the best option, and the most natural. I can understand why some people would be freaked out by this option, i cant feed her rat because i have rats and i know i just cant do that, but i plan of feeding mice, chicks, guinea-pig, rabbit, and possibly quail chicks. I wish i could find good readings about feeding whole prey, if anyone has any links please share ! all i can seem to find are websites about raw food, saying that some people take it a step farther and feed whole prey, not really that helpful but ok thanks ! best i can find out is that an adult cat needs about 3 to 5 mice sized items a day.
So on to what is actually going on right now! i adopted her from a shelter that feeds science diet because they give it to them for real cheap, no problem they have to do what they have to do to get all their animals fed right? i have had her for about 10 days. i switched her from the s/d to honest kitchen prowl, feel free to let me know what you guys think about this food if you've tried it at all, i'm not real thrilled about the food honestly and cant say i will buy another box, she is pretty good about leaving the chunks of what is either pumpkin or sweet potato and i pick out the big bits of cranberry before i give it to her. she is 9.8 pounds and a little over weight, not bad but she could lose .5 a pound i think. i'm feeding her currently 3/8th a cup a day in 2 meals, which is about 216 ish cals a day, i probably use more water to make it, i don't measure it out anymore, but i make it soupy so that she gets water, she is also good about drinking from a dish i see her drink water 2 to 3 times a day. for your ease so you dont have to go look it up heres whats in it and a link to nutrient profiles http://cdn.thehonestkitchen.com/media/wysiwyg/content/nutrient-profiles/PROWL-nutrient-profile.pdf :
All ingredients dehydrated: Chicken, eggs, potatoes, sweet potatoes, organic flaxseed, pumpkin, spinach, cranberries, tricalcium phosphate, choline chloride, zinc amino acid chelate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, potassium iodide, potassium chloride, iron amino acid chelate, copper amino acid chelate.
She has like, little bunny poops, and then a long normal(?) log poop, she goes every night, no odor, always very firm and dark brown, and there wasn't a change from when she was on the s/d to her being completely on the honest kitchen.
ok so down to the nitty gritty of where i'm lost at, one i'm not real sure that her diet is complete or balanced, call it general distrust in the human race when it comes to mass feeding animals. one it doesn't say if its whole chicken, bone in chicken, or just chicken breast, two there's no organ meat or byproducts listed, so well no organs. so that's the 1st thing i want to add in, and now i will admit i moved too quickly i was excited about having her home (i had to wait nearly 2 weeks before bringing her home!) so my concern is unbalancing a diet that isn't balanced, i know that sounds weird but it makes sense in my mind. so about 3 days after i got her i went to the store and got some chicken heart and livers, everything i can find about how much to feed is based off of feeding 100% raw on a prey model, unless i'm just reading things wrong, if so please correct me ! so i'm totally lost as how much to feed, i know hearts are considered muscle meat, and that too much liver can be dangerous so that's where things get complicated because i'm not averaging out food i'm making, i'm supplementing pre-made food that has added supplements to it. so i bagged up the bits into 15 "meals" of 3 hearts and half a liver, it comes out to about 24 to 30 grams of hearts, and 30 to 40 grams of liver each meal. and then i had some left over bits and pieces of both which i fed to her as a snack, she wolfed that do like she was starved for weeks leaving only a small tip of heart. so i would LIKE to feed her 2 of these bags a week, mixed with the honest kitchen to make for her full days worth of food. BUT i have no idea, i'm totally lost about if this is even acceptable or even safe supplementation because everything i find is about supplementing with muscle meat, or saying that supplementing will trow off the "balanced" diet your feeding your pet and they will die. i cant go to the vet about nutrition, we don't have a holistic vet near by, and frankly, even then, i just don't trust vets about nutrition anymore.
then a day or two later i fed her some chicken "scraps" (really its fine meat but my husband is super anal about even the smallest amount of fat or a tiny vein in his chicken that you have to cut out large chunks of it), which i would like to feed to her when ever we have chicken, other wise it just gets thrown out, again mixed with the honest to make for a full days meal, which she threw up! which totally freaked me out in all honesty, so i backed up, went back to s/d and honest and slowed down, i haven't feed anything but cat food and treats to her, which is dehydrated turkey breast, shes been on just the honest for 2 or 3 days, and id like to get into feeding her the organs and the chicken and working my way up to her first mouse. but i've hit this wall of fear of messing things up worst than just feeding commercial food, and id like a pat on the back, someone to tell me its ok and things will work out, and not look at me like i'm nuts when i say cats eat mice, that's what they are built to do. so any advice, tips, tricks, or reads (ive already read catinfo.org like 20 times, going over their obesity section again right now actually) is very much welcome!
