Thinking Of Making The Switch, But I'm A Little Confused.

[prairiepanda]

Right now Jonesy is on a 50/50 wet/dry diet, which I plan to keep him on until his growth slows down, just to keep costs down with the insane quantities of food a growing kitten consumes. Eventually I'd like to go all-raw, if I can.

I've been thinking about the 83/7/5/5 PMR diet outlined on the CatCentric website, in the form of chunks for the dental benefits. But I'm confused about supplementation with that. The diet outline itself doesn't mention supplementation, but in the sample feeding schedule it is supplemented with sardines, eggs, and crickets. The sardines in particular are problematic for me because Jonesy is allergic to fish. Every home-made raw diet I've looked at has included fish ingredients as a source of omega-3s, among other things. Jonesy even reacts badly to fish oil, so that's not an option (I know micronized fish oils should be free of the allergenic proteins, but I haven't been able to find any that I can afford to use)

I'm able to get farm-fresh free range eggs and grass-fed meats at affordable prices locally, which contain better ratios of the omegas than typical grocery store proteins, so would that suffice in place of using fish oils? Are there any other important components of the fish oil that I would be missing out on?

Also, with regards to taurine, I was thinking about using heart for a large portion of the muscle meat, as I'm able to get hearts from chicken, duck, turkey, pig, sheep, and rabbit, at lower prices than skeletal muscle meat. Should that be enough taurine?

Any other vitamins I should be concerned about, if I'm using muscle meat, bone, liver, and kidney from various animals along with chicken eggs and insects?


I've also looked into diets of just muscle meat and premix supplements, but the TCFeline premix contains krill (and I've confirmed that Jonesy is allergic to shellfish in addition to fish), and importing other premixes such as Alnutrin would end up being way too expensive with the exchange rates and shipping costs.

There's one brand of commercial raw I found locally which has a similar cost to an all-canned diet for an adult cat, and several different proteins, but it's literally just whole ground animals, fur and all. That's Carnivora. Their website suggests that a rotation of their various grinds would average out to a complete diet, somehow. I certainly wouldn't depend on that as a staple, but would it be an acceptable vacation food?

I don't want to just feed him canned food, because all of the locally-available canned food that agrees with him is either too expensive or contains fillers such as rice, peas, or other vegetables.

I still have to experiment to see if there's any other proteins he's sensitive to and find out how he handles raw liver/kidney, but I know he loves chunks of raw meat, so that's a start. So far the only things I've found that he can't handle are fish, shellfish, and wheat. He doesn't like eggs, but digests them just fine so I'm sure I could make them appeal to him by mixing them with plain broth or blood or something.

 

[xeenthequeen]

I made a thread just a while ago asking about supplementing Carnivora. I've decided to supplement with b vitamins (in nutritional yeast and raw egg yolks), iodine (in kelp), omega 3 (fish oil), vitamin e, and taurine. I know flax is a good source of omega 3 but not sure about the bioavailability for cats. I don't think lack of omega 3's causes any immediate nutrient deficiencies but it does improve long term health.

As an aside, while Carnivora advertises as "ground whole carcass" I don't believe this is strictly true. It says on their website that they follow processing procedures for human consumption, implying the carcass would be dressed. The ingredients listed on truecarnivores.com says: "finely ground whole (animal): meat, bones, heart, kidney, liver". I emailed Carnivora asking if they include the thyroid gland but haven't heard back yet. I did find this blog post by someone from Carnivora which implies that thyroid glands aren't present in their foods per Canadian law... anyways, that's why I'm including an iodine source.

 

[prairiepanda]

This is turning out to be more difficult than I anticipated...

Cats can't convert ALA into DHA and EPA the way humans can, so plant-derived omega-3 supplements won't help, unfortunately.

I might pick up some freeze-dried krill to experiment with. Jonesy probably won't be able to handle it, since shrimp makes him sick, but who knows. If he can have krill, it would make my life way easier.

 

[xeenthequeen]

Also a shellfish but you could try green-lipped mussel powder.

 

[orange&white]

I generally get advice that since I'm using chunks of meat, not ground, that I don't need to supplement my cat mixes at all. That theory is that the supplements somehow "leak out" of ground meat faster when going through the thawing/freezing/grinding cycles. It never has made sense to me that there would be that much difference. I do make all-chunk mixes and use supplements: Taurine, B-Complex, Vitamin E, Lite Salt, egg yolks and EPA/DHA fish oil. It may not be necessary, but it makes me feel better as "insurance". Those supplements are hard to "overdose".

@valentine319 uses a micro-distilled fish oil with her cat who is horribly allergic to fish. Something with the processing procedure removes all the fish protein, and leaves a pure Omega-3 oil. She's had very good results with it after several months of use.

If you are able to get grass-fed and free-range meats, they have a more natural balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fats, so you shouldn't have to use an Omega-3 supplement. It is the grain-fed, factory-farmed, mass-produced feedlot meat that is very high in Omega 6 and very low in Omega 3. The "modern diet" for livestock has changed the fat profiles of the meat. That is the meat most of us feed for affordability and why we also supplement Omega-3.

If you are using quite a bit of heart in your mixes, you shouldn't need taurine. I include chicken hearts in all my mixes, but still add some taurine (like I mentioned, for "insurance").

I'm not familiar with Carnivora's products, but if they are grinding whole animals then their products likely have too much bone content. The idea with a "whole prey model" raw diet is that you're feeding unground "whole" prey...literally. Cats will eat the organs, muscle, and most of the bone. But chickens and any animals larger than chickens will have bones which are too thick and hard for a cat to eat, so they would not eat 100% of the bone. They would leave larger bones uneaten. Whole ground rodents and whole ground rabbit would have ratios of meat to bone that should be more appropriate.

 

[prairiepanda]

Thanks for the info! I had looked into the fish oil that @valentine319 uses, but it's pretty expensive in Canada. I've been trying to find similar products that use the same distillation process, but all of the ones I've found are either more expensive or contain other ingredients that I wouldn't give to a cat.

I'll probably supplement other vitamins, though. Even using chunk meat, the fact that it's already been bled out and dead for 2 weeks or more, and in some cases kept frozen for extended periods already, makes it pretty different from freshly killed prey.

I bought some Carnivora to try, but Jonesy hates it. He was excited at first, but I think the texture put him off. He'll eat it mixed with canned food, but not on its own. He might just need a slower transition to it, but that won't really work for vacation food. Guess I'll stick to home-made.

 

[Sibguy]

I was thinking of carnivora but the percentage of calcium is way higher then phosphorus on there whole prey Patties?
I'm very new to raw and it's damn hard to find a correct path.

 

[prairiepanda]

Yeah, the Carnivora patties would probably have to be supplemented with muscle meat if fed as a staple diet. Unfortunately the company hasn't said what kind of ratios they have for organs/bones/etc so it would be hard to find a good balance.

I noticed that Primal makes whole grind chubs with slightly better calcium/phos ratios and specifies the meat/bone/organ percentages, but I haven't been able to find those chubs anywhere so I don't know how the cost would compare to Carnivora.

 

[Sibguy]

Yeah, the Carnivora patties would probably have to be supplemented with muscle meat if fed as a staple diet. Unfortunately the company hasn't said what kind of ratios they have for organs/bones/etc so it would be hard to find a good balance.

I noticed that Primal makes whole grind chubs with slightly better calcium/phos ratios and specifies the meat/bone/organ percentages, but I haven't been able to find those chubs anywhere so I don't know how the cost would compare to Carnivora.

I found a old thread with someone who got the percentage from carnivora and it was really high in bone something along the lines of 75 percent bone.

With the help of orange&white I now feel like I have the home made part down pat. I will definitely make home made with chicken thighs and when the days get a little busier feed commercial from Big Country Raw. They are sold near by and has a blend ratio of 80/10/10 with all the needed amino acids.

 

[prairiepanda]

Big Country Raw is only available in Ontario though, unless I buy 100lbs and shell out $100+ for shipping. For frozen food I would prefer to buy locally if I can.

It's looking like home made is the best route. I'll make an appointment with the nutritionist at my vet clinic to talk about supplementation.

 

[xeenthequeen]

For some reason I can't upload a mobile screenshot but Carnivora responded to my recent email inquiry about bone percentages. They said the combined average for the whole carcass patties over time is 15% bone.