I've been seriously considering mixing my own vitamins/supplements to add to raw meat for my boys, and I've been comparing the Feline Nutrition and CatInfo recipes, but for both of them, there's one common thing. There's not enough vitamin D? Going off the USDA Food Composition Database the vitamin D will be coming from the chicken thigh (.01IU/g), the skin (.24IU/g) and the egg yolk (2.18IU/g). So with roughly 1,200g thigh, 136g skin, and 68g yolks, the total vitamin D in the recipe is around 193. Which is 117.3IU/kg. AAFCO minimum is 280g.
Then I remembered to change it into dry basis, so assuming 72ish% moisture, there is then 418IU/kg DB, which is enough, but it makes me question my calculations because that then puts the vitamin A amount at almost 50,000IU/kg which seems like a lot (AAFCO min is 3,332IU/kg DB and max is 333,300IU/kg) so even though it's not near the upper limit for daily vit A, could that have long term negative effects?
And then there's the matter of the amount of calcium? Both recipes have you add around 20g of bonemeal or eggshell powder. And at roughly 34g Ca/100g powder, that's around 7g of Ca in the recipe, turn that into %wet basis based on the weight of the whole recipe, then dry basis based on the amount of moisture, and you get around 1.5% Calcium DB (AAFCO minimum is 0.6%). There's no max on Ca, so the number itself isn't what's bothering me, but rather the ratio of Ca
, because the amount of phos in the recipe is approx .7% (AAFCO min is 0.5%), which means the Ca ratio is over 2:1! That seems like way too high of a number for cats based on what I've read, even though it's in the normal range for humans.
Basically, has anyone done a chart to work the numbers out themselves for how much of each nutrient/vitamin is in the recipes? I'm eager to try mixing my own supplements, but I can't do that until I know for 100% certain that the recipe is balanced for their health. And I'm like 95% sure I have errors somewhere in my calculations because I'm not a math genius, but I'm not quite sure where. Because other than those few vitamins/minerals the recipe is meeting the AAFCO minimums (or getting very close, Iodine was a bit low), and comes out to around 43Cal/oz (1.5Cal/g) with 18% protein (62% DB), 8.6% fat (30% DB), and 0.3% carb (1% DB).
Anyone able to reassure me about the balanced quality of the recipes in regards to Vit D, A, and Ca ratio? I just want my boys to have a healthy and balanced diet!
Then I remembered to change it into dry basis, so assuming 72ish% moisture, there is then 418IU/kg DB, which is enough, but it makes me question my calculations because that then puts the vitamin A amount at almost 50,000IU/kg which seems like a lot (AAFCO min is 3,332IU/kg DB and max is 333,300IU/kg) so even though it's not near the upper limit for daily vit A, could that have long term negative effects?
And then there's the matter of the amount of calcium? Both recipes have you add around 20g of bonemeal or eggshell powder. And at roughly 34g Ca/100g powder, that's around 7g of Ca in the recipe, turn that into %wet basis based on the weight of the whole recipe, then dry basis based on the amount of moisture, and you get around 1.5% Calcium DB (AAFCO minimum is 0.6%). There's no max on Ca, so the number itself isn't what's bothering me, but rather the ratio of Ca
, because the amount of phos in the recipe is approx .7% (AAFCO min is 0.5%), which means the Ca ratio is over 2:1! That seems like way too high of a number for cats based on what I've read, even though it's in the normal range for humans.Basically, has anyone done a chart to work the numbers out themselves for how much of each nutrient/vitamin is in the recipes? I'm eager to try mixing my own supplements, but I can't do that until I know for 100% certain that the recipe is balanced for their health. And I'm like 95% sure I have errors somewhere in my calculations because I'm not a math genius, but I'm not quite sure where. Because other than those few vitamins/minerals the recipe is meeting the AAFCO minimums (or getting very close, Iodine was a bit low), and comes out to around 43Cal/oz (1.5Cal/g) with 18% protein (62% DB), 8.6% fat (30% DB), and 0.3% carb (1% DB).
Anyone able to reassure me about the balanced quality of the recipes in regards to Vit D, A, and Ca
ratio? I just want my boys to have a healthy and balanced diet!
