Submitted for your approval: frankenprey menu for kittens

[stealthkitty]

After doing the research, here's the basic menu I've planned for 2 nine-week old kittens weighing ~25 ounces. Suggestions welcome.

Based on the frankenprey calculator (Excel spreadsheet) from catcentric.org, and working on the assumption that a kitten should consume ~8% of its body weight (using the higher-end figure according to catcentric.org), I've come up with these figures per kitten, per week:

Meat, skin, etc: 11.5 oz
Bones: 1.44 oz
Liver: 0.72 oz
Other secreting organs: 0.72 oz

Feeding 4 times a day gives a total of 28 meals a week. I plan to feed the organs and bones (in the form of chicken wings, for the time being at least) together in a meal 5 times a week, and once a week they can have an egg or two as a meal (cooked white, raw yolk, salmon oil on top). That leaves 22 meals in which to serve the meat, which would average out to about half an ounce per meal, per kitten.

Each week I can update these figures using their current weight, since they are growing so fast. If they clean their plates, they'll be offered more to eat, to make sure they aren't going hungry. And we'll use as wide a variety of meats as we can.

A couple of questions: How much salmon oil should they be given? And how many eggs?

 

[ldg]

The numbers look good to me! And they should be able to manage four meals a day.

One or two egg yolks a week is good - the one egg as a meal a week is probably perfect. You may want to give them an egg yolk as a treat once a week, but probably isn't necessary.

As to the salmon oil, the dose for adults is 500mg a day, so for young kittens, I'd probably use just 1/4 of that as they're only nine weeks, and bump it up to 250mg when they're about 6 months, and then 500mg when they're a year.

But the main thing here, IMO, is your plan to keep track of their weight.

In the end, you can adjust amounts based on how much their eating. At this age, the 8% - 10% is just a guideline. Really, they should be allowed to eat as much as they want. Of course, you need the starting point to figure the amounts of bone and organ. But this seems like a good starting point, and you can adjust as needed.

 

[stealthkitty]

Thanks for the feedback! Now that I understand the above, this diet looks very simple.

Tonight we gave them liver, spleen and a chicken wing, in two courses. Organs first, so they don't get filled up on chicken and leave them behind, and a plate for each cat so one doesn't gobble all the liver. When they saw what was on the plates, they jumped up and ran to them like teenagers attacking pizza!

I've never seen that reaction, not even when we've fed them canned Friskies! This is only the second time they've eaten organs. They must have good memories from the first time. *happy dance*

When we gave them the wing, I swear at least one of them was purring very softly.

A question about the bones. If the cats were bigger, I would be giving them the wings whole. But since they are so little I've been chopping the wings into more managable pieces to ensure they eat the bones and don't just tear off the flesh. Does anyone have any advice about that? Maybe it would be better to give them only wing tips for right now?

 

[ldg]

:lol3: Aw I love it! My kitty, Flowerbelle, would live on just liver if she could. :lol3:

I know Auntie Crazy advocates just feeding the last two pieces of the wings anyway. If you can feed them just the wing tips, and use the rest of the wings yourselves, that might make sense for now. In the wild, they'd be eating birds, mice - small mammals. So think bones of that size. :nod:

My cats were all MUCH older when we started feeding them raw. They didn't really know what to do with wings. :lol3: (Well, two of them did). I did feed them only those two smaller pieces of the wing, but I ended up cutting them up into bite sized pieces at first. Well - I still have to for some of them.

But if they're crunching and chewing without a problem... just use your best judgment, really. You're there, seeing how they manage.

 

[auntie crazy]

Thanks for the feedback! Now that I understand the above, this diet looks very simple.

Tonight we gave them liver, spleen and a chicken wing, in two courses. Organs first, so they don't get filled up on chicken and leave them behind, and a plate for each cat so one doesn't gobble all the liver. When they saw what was on the plates, they jumped up and ran to them like teenagers attacking pizza!

I've never seen that reaction, not even when we've fed them canned Friskies! This is only the second time they've eaten organs. They must have good memories from the first time. *happy dance*

When we gave them the wing, I swear at least one of them was purring very softly.

A question about the bones. If the cats were bigger, I would be giving them the wings whole. But since they are so little I've been chopping the wings into more managable pieces to ensure they eat the bones and don't just tear off the flesh. Does anyone have any advice about that? Maybe it would be better to give them only wing tips for right now?

LDG is correct, I recommend feeding cats just the tip and center portion of chicken wings, and I always cut the wings into fourths: the wing tip, the center portion of the wing cut between and parallel with the two bones, and the third, largest portion.

I de-bone that third portion - called a drummette - and feed as a separate meal.

Cats can be easily discouraged, so you want their encounters with this "new" food to be as positive as possible. Pre-breaking the bones for a few meals is a good idea whenever introducing a cat to bone-in meals. Of course, you're feeding kittens who are by nature more curious and open to new experiences, so you can probably ease them onto whole wing pieces fairly quickly.

AC

 

[stealthkitty]

Thanks, AC. I'll try cutting the wing as you say and see how they do with it. For now, they've only been given the center portion of the wing, the one that you divide in two. (I meant to buy wings with tips but brought home the wrong package.) They are going to get turkey for lunch today; I'm curious to see how the like it!

 

[korina]

I might need to start cutting my wings into thirds.

So far I gave them turkey wings, and chicken wings twice.they have eaten all the meat once on turkey wing, but chicken wings they havent touched.  I think they really look for the meat, and as its more hidden in a wing, they move on.

The other problem is them running with it and eating it on dirty floor or carpet, cutting into pieces might stop that.

I hear scissors can cut through wing bone, but if you like fancy kitchen gear check out these poultry shears.


Also, I am trying cornish hen tommorow, was at grocery store and forgot how tiny they are.  Plus they are sold frozen which is hard to find in grocery store.

I am trying to train them to eat the bones, so cornish hen might work out.  (if you have safeway where you live, they have a good sale on em)

 

[stealthkitty]

That's a good idea to use kitchen shears! Going to have to look for a pair myself.

So far, we haven't had problems with them running off with the bone-in food and I do think it's because the pieces are smallish. One growls once in a while, and I suspect that if they were dealing with larger pieces they would run off with them. As an experiment, I'm going to give them one wing cut in half between the bones and see how they do with it.

(Side note: it's funny that the one who does the growling is the littler one, the one that's always the one pinned to the floor when they're playing! Guess he's got a little toughness in him too!)

 

[korina]

Ha my girl stella was a growler, I think she got over it.

However I cannot get the pair to eat the same say whole wing at the same time.

Mine didnt run off with it till a little later.

Anyways, heres a video of the growl, this was prob the first raw part I fed, its a turkey neck, I think this was at 5months old:

 

[stealthkitty]

They just had their supper of organs and meaty bones. For the bones, they were each given half of a wing tip and half of a wing, sliced between the two bones, and the flesh off the drumette. The little one (!!!) ate all of his tip and flesh, and most of the wing, leaving only the thicker part of the bone at the end. The other ate part of his tip and the flesh, but left the wing portion untouched. Lesson learned: I'm going to keep cutting the wing into smaller pieces so they eat it all, and try giving them whole wing tips to chew on for the benefit of their teeth.

 

[vball91]

That is so great though that they are both willing to tackle bone! That means you probably won't have to supplement calcium. And the dental benefits! That's one of the main reasons I would like mine to eat frankenprey, but I'm a long ways away from introducing bone to my 7 year old. Oh, if I had only known and started raw when I first got her like you are doing. Great job all. Keep up the good work. The growling from little kittens must be so cute.