What Is A Good Balance Of Protein Types?

[sarah430]

Still working on the transition to raw for my two kitties. I've been feeding commercial brands that are complete: Vital Essentials and Small Batch. Rad Cat is good too but these others are cheaper. Think I'll stick with them until such time that I decide to start making my own. I'm also still feeding some higher quality canned wet, probably about half their diet but that will become less and less as time goes on.

My question is how many different proteins should I rotate and of the ones I've tried so far are these a good balance? Which others would you suggest I try? Thanks!

Chicken: Like
Turkey: Like
Lamb: Like
Duck: Like
Rabbit: One likes it, one is meh so I'll probably keep trying it
Beef: Dislike
Pork: Maybe - they like it canned I think but I haven't tried it raw - is it even available raw?
Quail: Canned Yes, haven't tried it raw
Fish: avoiding but they don't seem to like it much anyway.

So they seem to like most fowl. Do I need more than one non-fowl protein? Otherwise I think what I've tried so far would work - fowl and lamb plus rabbit maybe. Haven't tried mice yet.....

 

[valentine319]

I believe 3 is good. Careful with raw fish it can cause a b deficiency. I order from hare today so yes pork is available raw. Fowl, lamb and rabbit sound like a good mix.

 

[lalagimp]

My guys like their combo mix. I make them rabbit with turkey. It also has fish oil (don't get it on your shirt), vitamins, taurine, and salt. They really liked their canned duck too.

 

[sarah430]

I believe 3 is good. Careful with raw fish it can cause a b deficiency. I order from hare today so yes pork is available raw. Fowl, lamb and rabbit sound like a good mix.

Thanks! Definitely avoiding fish, raw or cooked. I tried giving them plain sardines and tuna as treats and they were unimpressed. lol

My guys like their combo mix. I make them rabbit with turkey. It also has fish oil (don't get it on your shirt), vitamins, taurine, and salt. They really liked their canned duck too.

Oh great idea! I hadn't even thought of combining. I should do that with the rabbit and see if it goes over better with the one. Thank you!

 

[maureen brad]

I do combine proteins now but , if I were you I would stick to combining only the foods your cats already like. With new proteins, serve them alone just so if there is a problem you can be sure which protein caused it. Some say you should have 5 or 6 proteins in your rotation others say 3 is fine.Most of what I feed my cats is rabbit, chicken and turkey but, I throw in Llama, duck, pork , venison, goat and cavies and cornish game hen a couple times a month too.

 

[abby2932]

I stick to a minimum of 3 proteins as well: rabbit, pork & turkey as their main diet.

When I'm out of town (5 or 6 short trips a year), I have the cat sitter feed them goat & llama.

I don't like to feed ALL proteins just in case one develops a food allergy later on, I will have some novel proteins to offer.

 

[orange&white]

Primarily chicken, pork, beef here. Around the holidays, I get a turkey which never gets roasted...it gets deboned raw and made into cat food.

 

[dorimon]

I believe that the more variety you can offer, the better. Home-prepared or commercial cat food – rotate those proteins! – CatCentric

I feed chicken, turkey, duck, quail, and rabbit. Mouse and cavy were not big hits in our household (mixing with other proteins and/or freeze-dried treat sprinkles and/or lots of coaxing required to get them to eat), so I'm cutting those out of the rotation. I'm also slowly adding pork and beef to the rotation.

 

[sophie1]

I do something similar to Maureen: chicken, turkey and rabbit as "staples", with novel proteins thrown in every now and then. Currently those are cavies, venison, pork, pheasant, and canned or freeze-dried duck. For some reason my cats don't like raw duck, and they've also turned up their noses at goat, lamb, and beef even though they used to love these as kittens.

I make fresh food from Hare Today products, a chicken/turkey mix and rabbit + chicken or turkey, with boneless meat added as scissored-up chunks. I switch up the boneless meats that get added in, so they get a variety of parts as well e.g. poultry breast, thigh, hearts, and gizzards, pork trim, and venison chunks rarely as it's pricey.

I believe the number 3 for protein types comes from Dr. Pierson's website, while raw feeding advocates generally recommend 5. I definitely aim for 5, and also to keep some commercial products in rotation as I want to have them as a fallback for cat sitters, crazy busy times when I forget to defrost food or don't have time to make it, power outages etc. I'm not as motivated as Dr. Pierson who apparently home-cans her own emergency supply.

 

[sarah430]

Thanks for all the info!