Fresh Pet

[janettandamber]

I have been told fresh pet is about as good as the raw diet. Has anyone tried. It is at walmart in the pet section in a refirator. Spelling not good. My 2 love it.

 

[susi794]

I have seen it, but it has many vegetables and possibly grain in it. There isn't any bone in it--is there organ meat and added taurine or any taurine at all? Please be mindful that in a raw diet they get the calcium and phosperous from the bone, Vit. A from liver, and taurine from the organ meat and some of the muscle meat as well. Are you also giving a good supplement? It might be fine--just look for taurine and calcium.....if you don't find any, make sure you give them a good multivitamin/mineral supplement.
Hugs,
Susi

 

[janettandamber]

Susi, thank you for answering. I checked the indregients and it has the Taurine and phropous and other vitamins and mineral. I buy the one in the cups and the one in the bag that is also frsh. Should I mix a can product in with it. Also I am going to grocery store and buy a whole chicken and see if they will grind it. Anything I need to add to that?
Jeanette

 

[SphynxKid]

They just started selling this "Fresh Pet" at my grocery store too! I looked at it as a possible compromise to my scheduling issue with the raw. The one I saw was the turkey and liver flavor and from what I recalled didn't have many vegetables. I was going to go investigate more closely tomorrow on my day off actually. If I can find something better than canned wet food that agrees with my sensitive kitties, and that is "relatively" comparable to RAW, I'll at least try it. They love turkey and liver!

Jen

 

[susi794]

Susi, thank you for answering. I checked the indregients and it has the Taurine and phropous and other vitamins and mineral. I buy the one in the cups and the one in the bag that is also frsh. Should I mix a can product in with it. Also I am going to grocery store and buy a whole chicken and see if they will grind it. Anything I need to add to that?
Jeanette

The whole chicken you get from the grocery store isn't whole--it has been gutted and parts are cut off--it might also have chemicals in it--meat tenderizers, antibiotics, etc. If you can find a butcher or an oriental market, or a farmer or buy free range or organically grown chickens that would be better. But if the grocery store is the only option you have, buy a container of chicken liver and add that to the grind. If the chicken comes with the giblets, use them too. I will be very surprised if they will grind it bones and all for you---if you want to go this route, then you should prob. get a grinder. If the Fresh Pet has the taurine and the calcium/phospherous, then that sounds fine. Is there organ meat in it? That sounds like it might be an easy solution for you.....it's too expensive for me with all my cats, but if your cat likes it and it covers all the nutritional needs it sounds good to me. Why not bring the label into your vet the next time you go and check with your vet that it is nutritionally complete, so you know for positive. I am really not an expert at all about what needs to be added when you don't use the whole prey method.
Keep us posted about how it goes.
Hugs,
Susi

 

[janettandamber]

Susi, can they eat ground beef and can I mix cat food to it?

 

[susi794]

Beef isn't something I would start off with--it makes my cats vomit and some cats never can handle it. It's common for them to vomit it. It doesn't have all they need anyway....my advice is to either go the whole make it yourself recipe way where you grind your meat and bone and add liver and other organ meat, or buy a commercially available raw food like Nature's Variety medallions or the kind where you add a dry supplement to ground meat like Feline Instincts My Natural Cat. Dr. Spock is a great reference for raw feeding, as is khaleesi. You can search my rather long posts in the raw food section--I posted lots of links that might be helpful to you--I also saw on the board tonight, some links posted by Dr. Spock. I think you need to decide on a plan, research which way you want to do it, but please make sure your cat is getting all they need. It would be a shame for them to get sick when you are trying to do the best for them.
Big hugs,
Susi

 

[Monchchichi]

Susi, can they eat ground beef and can I mix cat food to it?

I wouldn't add RAW to kibble. However everyone is different. With the research i've done it's dangerous. Kibble can take 12-14 hours to digest where raw is 5-6 hours. If you mix them you have the chance of the raw sitting in the intestines and bowels too long which isnt good. Alot of prepackaged raw has warning labels about it right on the package.

 

[Fester]

I am cautious about Walmart products that aren't extremely well known brands on their own.
Before I ruffle feathers, here is my reasoning:
Walmart, just by being probably the biggest retailer creates a vast demand... using pet food as an example, there are about 3-4 Walmarts for every Petsmart. This means that just to stock the shelves, a manufacturer will need to at least double production.
Producing quality food (sanitation and all) doesn't scale up easily. it's too easy to miss things that didn't make a difference until your factory started running 24/7, for example.

I personally avoid any food product at Walmart that isn't a well known brand, or has been there less than a year. Just paranoid, I guess.

 

[janettandamber]

I wouldn't add RAW to kibble. However everyone is different. With the research i've done it's dangerous. Kibble can take 12-14 hours to digest where raw is 5-6 hours. If you mix them you have the chance of the raw sitting in the intestines and bowels too long which isnt good. Alot of prepackaged raw has warning labels about it right on the package.

I meant can cat food like natures variety

 

[susi794]

Don't mix dry with raw....I would never stir up canned with dry either. You got good advice from monchchichi--about the digestion rates. You can mix some of the raw with some of the wet foodwhile you try to transition, but please don't mix it with the dry.
Fester, I don't think Freshpet is that new if it's what I am thinking of....several of our local grocery stores sell it in the pet section. It comes in tubes that you slice off, right? I think there are also pouches too.

janettandamber, I would stick to something like Freshpet or Natures Variety medallions until you are ready to tackle making your own recipes or doing something else. That way all the guess work is covered and hopefully the nutritional needs of your cat are being met. When in doubt, take the label of the food to your vet and ask if it's a decent food. Or send the list of ingredients to one of our experts on raw feeding and ask them. Don't let it overwhelm you--it's not that difficult once you get the hang of it. And your cat will benefit so much from it!
Hugs for even being willing to give it a go.....you're a good mommy!
Susi and the gang

 

[SphynxKid]

They just started selling FreshPet in my local grocery store, and I actually investigated it before I saw this thread, and like I said, thought it might be a better alternative for us too. It apparently comes in a wet-like canned food that comes in containers similar to yogurt containers, and then a ground meat product, which has chicken, and then some veggies in it (peas and carrots). I bought some of each today. Neither of them have grains in them. My Fluffy scarfed up the meat product. We didn't try to plain wet fod yet, but she took down the meat like it was going to run out soon! so, we'll see! Moses was not interested in it, but he rarely eats wet food anyway, as Fluffy never eats the dry, so I think we'll be alright in that department!

Jen