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Help needed regarding calcium and raw feeding for kittens

Letitia

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Hello experts! I'm back again with another raw question.

Based on some things I've read regarding kitten nutrition and on the stools my kittens are producing, I've determined that I need to bump up the calcium in my kittens' diet. We are using the Hare Today Ground Chicken/Bones/Organ which is 80/10/10. I would like to increase the calcium, as I've seen that the recommendation for kittens is 17% bone. Also, stools have been a little dark and loose, so increasing the calcium a bit makes sense.

I've ordered Pure Encapsulations Calcium MCHA to add to my mix, but am unsure how much to add to get closer to that 17% number. Each capsule has 250 mg of calcium, and I want to get this right since too much calcium would be as bad as not enough.

Thank you for any help you can provide!
 

Condo commando

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Well, I have the nutrient requirements of cats so if you can tell me how much calcium is in your grind, I can help you calculate how much calcium to add.

OK, I know you don't have the calcium content. The point I'm making is bone-in food is only calculated in terms of % of bones. If you want to use CALCIUM instead of BONES, you have to use boneless meat and add a calcium supplement. I make my chicken recipe using boneless chicken, with a recipe that I got from petdiets.com

I'm not aware of a different bone % for kittens. Maybe someone else can speak to that.
 

Letitia

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I read about the increased calcium requirements for kittens in several places, one being perfectlyrawsom.com. I know anyone can write anything, so I'm trying to proceed carefully! I am also going by the current state of their stools.

From Hare Today's website, I see that 1 pound of the 80/10/10 mix I use has 3190 mg of calcium. Does that help you help me? :D
 

Condo commando

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Here are the nutritional requirements. There are 2 - AAFCO and NRC. I use NRC.
 

Attachments

  • AAFCO and NRC from Dr Gaylord.pdf
    9.3 MB · Views: 19

Letitia

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@Letitia where do you see the calcium? I'm curious because I buy the ground rabbit from Hare Today and I've never seen that. Can you post a link?
On all of the product pages there are a bunch of red tabs, Description, Analysis, Reviews, etc. Click on More Info for your product and you will see all the nutritional analysis for your product. I would have given you link, too, but they have more than one ground rabbit product! Anyway, they list the number of grams of calcium per pound, so you just covert to milligrams.
 

Condo commando

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On all of the product pages there are a bunch of red tabs, Description, Analysis, Reviews, etc. Click on More Info for your product and you will see all the nutritional analysis for your product. I would have given you link, too, but they have more than one ground rabbit product! Anyway, they list the number of grams of calcium per pound, so you just covert to milligrams.
Ok I see it now - I had never clicked into all those links before so thank you.

As far as I know the only way to know the nutrient data is to send a sample to a lab. Now I'm going to have to shoot them an email to ask if that's what they did. Very interesting.
 
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Condo commando

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From Hare Today's website, I see that 1 pound of the 80/10/10 mix I use has 3190 mg of calcium. Does that help you help me? :D
I'm not sure exactly where you're looking but let me try to explain.

Take a look at the recommended allowance in the pdf I attached a couple of posts ago. I pasted just below the column headings that I'm looking at. Note: DM is dry matter basis , ME is metabolizable energy and BW is body weight. You'd have to scroll down to calcium and calculate the total calcium that you need, and then subtract the amount of calcium per the Hare Today website. The remainder is what you would need to add to come out to the recommended amount.

Be sure that you know what Hare Today is saying....in other words, is the number they are providing a "dry matter" basis amount or is it "as fed"? That makes a big difference.

Finally, be very mindful that your calcium to phosphorus ratio is within the acceptable range.

1641576802120.png
 

Letitia

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Messages
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At the top of the column where the Calcium amount is, the heading is "Recipe", which sound like the "As Fed" to me, but I will have to call Hare Today to be sure. This is all getting very hard for me to be sure I'm doing everything right. Do you have any experience with any of the online consulting services that have Veterinary Nutritionists who review recipes? I think this might be the only way I get some peace of mind!
 

Condo commando

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At the top of the column where the Calcium amount is, the heading is "Recipe", which sound like the "As Fed" to me, but I will have to call Hare Today to be sure. This is all getting very hard for me to be sure I'm doing everything right. Do you have any experience with any of the online consulting services that have Veterinary Nutritionists who review recipes? I think this might be the only way I get some peace of mind!
Yes, I used petdiets.com

The vet I worked with was Dr. Laura Gaylord. You may or may not get the same one but all the vets there have a specialty in nutrition. What Dr. Gaylord told me is the vet that started petdiets.com has spent years doing nutrition consulting for pet food companies, and more recently she decided to expand the service to pet parents. Vets like Dr. Gaylord also have their own practice and they do this consulting as a side thing. I had my zoom chat with her at the beginning and after that we communicated by phone call or email. For her email is easier because during the day she'd be with patients, but a couple of times she had an opening in her schedule and she called me. I ended up paying her for a second consultation and I didn't even need more recipes but I wanted time to talk with her. You just don't get that information anywhere else. Not even close.

They have ready made diets that only cost $25 for the first one and less for each additional one if you buy them together. If you have a healthy cat this is the way to go. However this is only for normal healthy cats.

If you decide to get a consultation I would love to compare notes. I'm sure I missed some things but maybe you will pick them up and vice versa, so comparing notes would benefit us both.
 
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