Using Alnurtin + Calcium For Homemade/commercial Mix Diet

[Kelise]

I'm doing a diet change for my cats. I'm switching from an all commercial canned food diet to a homemade/commercial canned mix. I'm using Fancy Feats Classics (beef, turkey, chicken rotation) and for now want to use some chicken breast with Alnutrin + Calcium. I also want to try using eggs/egg whites but haven't figured out the ratio of that yet. I know that the egg stuff can't make up more than 10% of the diet since it is not supplemented like the meat. I've done all the appropriate math for the the diet and am happy with the numbers.

But my question is about using Alnutrin + Calcium. It says to use 1 lb ground organ mix including liver for every 40 lb boneless meat. Is it fine to use just liver? I have some sheep livers in my freezer from the sheep we butchered. I was hoping to use that to test it out with my cats, but now I'm not sure if it's the right thing. I also have other organs too. I also don't own a meat grinder. Does it have to be ground? I'm not too keen on ordering ground organs from Hare Today because I would need to buy 10 lb. I just want to try this out with my cats before I order much of anything, so I am hoping to use the organs I have here already.

 

[Gizmobius]

I use Alnutrin with Calcium and I must've missed where it says the 1lb organ mix. Mine just says to use liver. Their nutrient calculator really helps me when I start to use higher pounds of meat but everything I see on the website and on the back of my Alnutrin just says liver. I do have a meat grinder but I think you could just blend up the livers or chop them very finely to ensure an even mix throughout. I always use beef livers so I would think sheep livers would be fine!

 

[Kelise]

Thanks! I'll try it with the sheep livers, then. I'm gonna order my Alnutrin today. For now, I'm just trying to get them used to the new food. I'm mixing the Fancy Feast with their old food, and am going to start using a bit of chicken breast as a topper tonight to get them used to eating raw chicken breast. I think if I change everything too fast, they might not like it.

 

[prairiepanda]

Sheep livers are fine. It doesn't have to be ground, as long as your cats don't mind chunks. Most people do about half liver, half other organs for the organ mix, to avoid the risk of Vitamin A toxicity. Kidneys are the easiest organ for most people to get besides liver, so it's often just a liver/kidney mix, but other secreting organs are good too. The liver is pretty critical, though.

 

[Kelise]

Hmm. So using all liver is not ideal? I think I have some kidneys. Should I do half liver, half kidneys? And for the future, if this works and stick with it, do I need to order individual organs, or could I order just ground organs from Hare Today? It says it's an even mix of various organs. Would that not be enough liver?

 

[Kelise]

I cut up some raw chicken breast and used it as a topper on their breakfast, and they all ate the pieces! I'm happy about this, because I tried to feed them Rad Cat once and only one ate it. The others looked up at me like, "what the heck is this?". Needless to say, my one kitty got all 3 portions.

I have to say, though... I still feel weird about feeding them raw chicken. I feel like I'm going to make them sick.

 

[abby2932]

Hmm. So using all liver is not ideal? I think I have some kidneys. Should I do half liver, half kidneys? And for the future, if this works and stick with it, do I need to order individual organs, or could I order just ground organs from Hare Today? It says it's an even mix of various organs. Would that not be enough liver?

"Ideal" is to use 5% liver and 5% other organ, such as kidney, spleen, pancreas, etc. But I (personally) don't think there is anything wrong with using up to 10% liver if you can't source the other organ.

I think Vitamin A toxicity occurs when you're feeding a diet that largely or wholly consists of liver. But only 10% is a safe limit. Here is a thread about it, if anyone is bored

Safe amount of vitamin A?

 

[Kelise]

I'll keep that in mind, and take a look at the link when I have the chance. Given that I'm feeding canned food as well, so you think that would change the amount of liver I can use since canned food has vitamin A in it? I actually have a bunch of sheep organs, so that should last me a little bit until I decide what I'm doing.

 

[abby2932]

I'll keep that in mind, and take a look at the link when I have the chance. Given that I'm feeding canned food as well, so you think that would change the amount of liver I can use since canned food has vitamin A in it? I actually have a bunch of sheep organs, so that should last me a little bit until I decide what I'm doing.

The canned cat food should have enough liver to balance that meal in the can. Therefore, when you are preparing your homemade meal, you want to add 5-10% liver to balance your recipe.

 

[Kelise]

Hey, I have another question. My Alnutrin is coming today, so I want to thaw some meat and organs.

I bought unfrozen chicken breast from Costco and froze it. Each packet contains 2 breasts. I only wanted one breast to try out, but the packet was frozen. I thawed the whole packet in the fridge for about 24 hours, cut up one breast to feed to my cats, and refroze the other one. Now I want to thaw the twice-frozen one and use it with the organs and Alnutrin. But is this dangerous? Once it has been thawed once, am I not supposed to refreeze it? I'm afraid of making my cats sick.

 

[Kelise]

Same question for liver. I have at least 1 whole frozen sheep liver (found some kidneys, hearts, lungs as well) and it is bigger than I remembered. Frozen, it weighs 1 lb 13 oz. That's even to make almost 8 lb of raw mix. I want to make sure they are going to eat the mix before I make 8 lbs of it. And if I did make 8 lbs, could it be refrozen? The organs would have to be thawed out, used to make the mix, and then the mix refrozen because I probably wouldn't be able to use it fast enough. Is that safe?

 

[abby2932]

When I order food from Hare Today, it arrives frozen. I thaw it one time so that I can supplement it, portion it into meal size freezer containers & I refreeze it (since I make a batch for a month at a time). I remove one freezer container every day to thaw and serve for meals. So technically, my cat food is frozen twice and thawed twice before my cats eat it.

I think you will be fine. Next time (to cut down on the amount of times you are freezing & thawing) when you buy chicken breast (or have any meat/bone/organ), try to portion it separately before you freeze it. This way, when you're making a batch of food, you only have to pull out 1 frozen chicken breast instead of a pack of them.

 

[Kelise]

Thanks for the info!

I broke pieces off of the frozen organs and thawed those, just how much I needed for the one chicken breast. Worked fine.

Now I have a different question. Tonight was the first night I offered my cats the chicken breast/organ/supplement mix. I used 60 g canned food and 20 g ground meat mix. They didn't want to eat it by itself, but they ate it fine with some canned food. The problem is, one of my cats did not keep it down. About 30 minutes after eating it alllll came back up, and fairly violently. Why? I had already been feeding her some cut up raw chicken breast with her canned food and she was fine with that. Was it the organ?

 

[abby2932]

I can't imagine that it would be the organs...for the simple fact that there had to have been such a tiny amount in there. If you only had 20g of the balanced raw food mixed in the total meal (80g total) there should have only been roughly 2g of organ meat. That is such a miniscule amount...less than 3% of the mixed meal was the organ meat.

My cat, Malibu, always has that violent reaction to red meat (beef, lamb & venison) so I can't feed that to him. HOWEVER, he is totally fine when I make my turkey batch with lamb kidney. My batch would be 95% turkey meat/bone/liver and 5% beef kidney. No problems keeping it down.

Since you know that she tolerates the raw chicken well enough, I would suggest maybe feeding a bit less at a time. Maybe her tummy was too full? I think the 80% canned / 20% raw is a good number to start with but instead of feeding 80g all at once, try 40g first and another 40g later and see what happens.

 

[Kelise]

I'll try that in the morning. 80 g of food is no unusual for her. That's often what I feed all three of them. I'm not sure what happened, but it looked quite unpleasant. She vocalized in a way that I haven't heard since she was sick with her hair blockage.

I'll try a smaller meal tomorrow morning. BTW, what I used was 33.3% raw (20 g raw/60 g canned). Do you think it should be less meat than that?

Also, how long is the raw meat mix good in the fridge for? I made about 1 lb. If I can't feed it off fast enough to be in a safe window, I can give the rest to my dogs (I think? Does the supplement make it unsafe for them even if they each only get a little?). I took the meat and organs out of the freezer last night and put them in the fridge. So they have been fridge-temperature for about 24 hours now.

 

[Kelise]

Okay... One of my other cats did not keep it down either. He just puked it up everywhere a second ago. There must be something wrong here. The other cat didn't get any, because he was sick this morning from getting into the cat treats. So both cats that ate the raw meat didn't keep it down.

 

[Kelise]

So sorry for the triple post, but I'm fairly alarmed and want to keep this up to date.

Cat #1: Vomited violently and large volume (all stomach contents) 30 minutes after eating. Is fine now.

Cat #2: Vomited about 2 hours after eating. Vomited about 4 or 5 times over the night. He seems to have stopped now. It was just bile coming out after the first two pukes.

Cat #3: Only got a small spoonful of the meat and is fine.

I'm afraid there is something wrong with the meat that made them sick. I'm very uncomfortable feeding food I can't guarantee is safe. Should I throw that batch out? What can I do to prevent his?

 

[abby2932]

Oh goodness...you have every right to be concerned. I would also be freaking out a bit. I'm honestly at a loss. Will you outline your recipe for us?

For example, you should have used roughly 80% chicken breast, 10% sheep heart/lung and 5% sheep liver & 5% kidney with the appropriate amount of Alnutrin + Calcium...does that sound right? Did you just cut everything up really small or did you grind it somehow?

I honestly don't know why they are vomiting it up. When I transitioned my cats in 2014, I did the same as you. Their first meal was 75% canned mixed with 25% commercial raw (Rad Cat). I did that for a week, then went to 50/50. After a week of 50/50, I went to 75% raw and 25% canned. The final week was 100% raw. The only time I've had regurgitation issues is because Malibu is intolerant to red meat.

What I would do in your situation is pick up some commercial raw and try to transition that way. This way, you can test to see if it's just your batch or if they have the same reaction to other raw food as well. I'd probably give them a day or two eating just canned food to get some nutrition in since they've been throwing up.

Oh, and to answer your question, I think the Mac amount of time raw meals can be left in the fridge is 3 days.

 

[Kelise]

I think I'm going to have to throw that batch out. I really hate to do that. I suppose I could cook it, but I just don't know if it's safe. I think this must be bacteria related, somehow. I did thaw that chicken breast 2x.

Padfoot (the cat who threw up multiple times) threw up another time while I was sleeping, and wasn't too enthusiastic about eating this morning. He only ate about half of his portion.

Brook (cat that threw up 30 mins after eating) seems fine, fortunately, and ate fine this morning.

Tank (who only got a spoonful) has diarrhea but is eating fine.

I fed them all veterinary gastrointestinal Rx canned dog food this morning (I don't have any for cats. It's just for a meal or two, should be fine).

I'm afraid to feed them raw meat now. =/

For my recipe, I followed the instructions on the bag of Alnutrin + Calcium. It says to use 4 parts raw, boneless meat to 1 part organ mix including liver. My organ mix was about 50% liver and 50% kidney. And of course the appropriate amount of Alnutrin. I used an electric meat grinder and ground the chicken breast and organs together, then added the Alnutrin and mixed.

What would be the point of using commercial raw for the transition? It's quite a bit more expensive and shown to have just as much bacteria.

 

[EmmiTemmi]

For my recipe, I followed the instructions on the bag of Alnutrin + Calcium. It says to use 4 parts raw, boneless meat to 1 part organ mix including liver.

See, this is really confusing for me, because I also use Alnutrin + Calcium, but that is most definitely NOT the instructions on mine. Even the website says:

"Add together:
1 pack (or 6.7 g) of Alnutrin with Calcium or Alnutrin with EggShell Calcium (Pre-packaged)
1/2 cup (or 120 g) of water, can be adjusted as needed.
Mix lightly, then add
1 lb (or 454 g) of ground raw chicken meat (boneless, skinless)
0.8 oz (or 23 g) of ground raw chicken liver
Mix well. Divide into storage containers and freeze unused portion"

So your instructions are adding a lot more liver/organ than what my package says... How are our instructions so different? Is there a different Alnutrin + Calcium with different make instructions?