Raw Diet questions

[Condo commando]

NEW QUESTION/situation?

Right now I’m feeding my 14week kitten RC Mum & baby which is out all the time and 4 times a day I’m putting out Nature’s menu frozen chicken mince.

I want her to eat as much as she wants as she is so young.

I was told that you should’nt feed raw and kibble together as this may cause bloating.

What to do?

They always say don't feed raw and kibble together. The reason I think it's important is that they are digested at different rates. The kibble takes longer to digest while the raw goes right thru their system. Now we've all heard how raw meat can have salmonella, but normally this isn't an issue since cats have a short digestive tract and the raw goes right thru. However, since the kibble takes longer the body gets confused and slows down for the kibble. Now whatever contamination there was in the meat lingers. They can get sick. If you want to feed both, you have to spread them out so they're not both in the digestive tract at the same time.

An option may be leaving out freeze dried raw instead of kibble. Once Monkey becomes an adult, you can take away the dry and just offer raw 2-3 times a day. It's only when they're kittens that they eat more meals a day.

 

[Sheldon13]

Freeze dried raw is what I do. Then she gets wet raw at night. She’s a grazer and I just wasn’t comfortable leaving her wet food out in the mornings before I left for work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Anita Eccleston]

Thank you guys see again I have been taught something new ! Not to feed raw and dried together !
Xx❤️❤️❤️

 

[Zab]

Wow! Love to learn new things... thank you!

 

[Bailey21]

Does anyone who feeds raw ever have experience with really dark stool? I'm noticing the last few days Yoda poops have been really dark, almost black. I'm going to call the vet tomorrow and ask if theres any concern and see what they think, but I figure someone on here might have some experience? Its not always this dark, its normally regular stool color I would say. I do change his flavour's, when I portion it out he gets 2 flavours over 3 days, and so on. I'm going to try and keep track to see if different meats could be the cause, he's been having kangaroo the last few days which is a very dark meat compared to the rest. Thanks in advance!

 

[Sheldon13]

I’ve never had that issue but I do know that if the poop is too light it has too much calcium. So that makes me wonder if perhaps you need to add calcium? How much do you add now?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bailey21]

@Sheldon13 I actually don't add calcium as I purchase it commercially and the calcium/meat ratio is supposed to be proper. I do add a supplement based on their recommendation (contains Kelp, Alfalfa and Spirulina) as well as Taurine (just to be safe), Herring oil and L-Lysine daily. He also gets a frozen chicken neck once or twice a week (bone in and all). I did some searching through old threads and I do feel a bit better as I read that @Xandria mentioned that when she feeds dark meat and Kanargoo, her boys poop is very dark as well, which is exactly what we feed! So I'm thinking the dark stool is related to which protein he's eating at that time.

 

[Yoda mom]

@Condo commando , @Xandria may have some advise

 

[RoseEllen]

Bruce gets a raw chicken diet with the proper ratios of bone to meat and his stools are also quite dark. It’s never worried me before.. I think it’s pretty normal.

 

[Condo commando]

I don't have experience with kangaroo meat but I do know that when there's internal bleeding it turns poop black so I would try to make sure there's no bleeding. Hopefully it's just from eating kangaroo.

 

[Xandria]

@Bailey21 -- yes, my two have varying degrees of very dark perfect stool. I'm a proud poop mama! LOL

I used to feed kangaroo, but Max turned his nose up at it a while ago, so now it's just camel and venison. But their stools are still dark.

Unless you see them straining or blood in the poop, no worries.

 

[Bailey21]

@Yoda mom @Sheldon13 @Xandria @Condo commando
Thanks for all the replies! I feel much better, I was worried at first but I also didn't feed as much kangaroo as I do now, since its his absolute favorite of all the meats he gets. I now know dark stool is A-OK.

 

[MCLetter]

Hi! Posting my question from another thread here too - can someone please advise (when making my own raw) on what I can use as a substitute for fish oil and chicken livers/hearts (for vitamins A + D, taurine)? Kiki is allergic to both! Thank you

 

[Condo commando]

Can you post your recipe?

 

[MCLetter]

I'm using Xandria's guide from the "Raw Cat Food Information" post that is pinned at the top of this section: Raw Cat Food Information

 

[Condo commando]

I'm sorry but Xandria's guide is very long to read the whole thing and also she discusses options such as feeding meat with bone, without bone, etc.

In short you don't have to feed chicken if your cat is allergic to chicken. Rabbit is very popular. I can't say anymore without seeing your recipe.

 

[MCLetter]

@Xandria any advice you can offer here? I know your Max is also allergic to poultry, so curious what organs you replace with to get the best amount of taurine! Thanks for any info

 

[Xandria]

@MCLetter -- hi there. You can add powdered taurine (I might have linked to the NOW supplement in my document, otherwise you can google it). You can also add powdered vitamins too. Instead of fish oil you can use egg yolk, but honestly, I'm not sure what amounts would be required. You may want to get in touch with these people too: Recipe: Feline Nutrition's Easy Raw Cat Food - Feline Nutrition Foundation

I hope that helps!!

 

[MCLetter]

SO helpful! Thank you very much @Xandria

 

[Rainy19437]

Re: Raw diet and Sphynx cats

There are lots of places you can buy commercially prepared raw--you can buy online and have it shipped to you from any number of sources, or can buy it frozen from many pet stores. It comes in patties and medallions with the feeding amounts listed on the packages. One of these is called Nature's Variety I believe. Pros: It's easy for you--just take out the desired frozen amount then thaw and feed. It isn't messy. Cons: Expensive and my cats refused to eat it.

You can buy dry mixes that you add to ground meat and water. This was the first kind of raw my cats would eat--and they LOVED it! I ordered "My Natural Cat" from a place called feline instincts out of Texas. I bought the powder which contained all the vitamins, minerals, etc. my cats needed, then added that to water and ground meat of my choosing--I either had to add raw liver or buy the liver powder already added to the mix, and also a small amount of salmon oil to every recipe, which I could also order directly from feline instincts. I used ground turkey and it was not too bad as far as cost went, but then they raised their prices and I got more cats, so it felt cost prohibitive to me, so I stopped. The only con for me with this was the cost. It was easy to prepare, took only about ten minutes to make a two or three week supply and I froze it into individual servings in flattened freezer baggies in my freezer, so it didn't take much room.

Then I visited a site called Mystre Bengals and they had a recipe for raw with some great videos on how to prepare it and gave the recipe. They use meats they buy right from Wal-Mart, so I wasn't having to import all kinds of hard to find meat. I bought the grinder, the meat cleaver, the cutting board, a gazillion baggies, all the meat and sat down to make my first batch. I had about ten whole chickens, several packs of leg quarters, heaarts, gizzards, liver, tripe, etc. etc. and got started chopping and grinding. Chopping whole chickens and leg quarter for hours at a time is extemely painful after awhile if you're not used to it--I had ground raw meat in my hair, on my ceiling and walls, all over the floor--from stem to stern. But, by gosh, I had a freezer full of individual packs of raw meals. This recipe called for beef to be added, and didn't say that many cats can't eat beef until they are quite used to raw...so mine immediately gobbled up the food and then promptly vomited it all over my house! After awhile, they didn't want to eat it. I contacted the guy on the bengal site and he told me to try making a smaller batch without the beef and try them again...this time it was better, and this method was way cheaper. But the labor of it was just too intense for me. This old body of mine ached for a week after I chopped all those chickens and the mess was not good. I have subsequently read that you should buy a meat hammer and smash the bones before you grind them and that makes the whole process so much easier than trying to hack through them with a meat cleaver like I did. To this mixture I added a vitamin/mineral supplement called Kitty Bloom which took care of the taurine and vitamin requirements my cats needed.

Fast forward to now: I stopped feeding raw altogether for awhile, but decided to go back to it. I use a service called "My Pet Carnivore" that offers many kinds of whole animal proteins already ground or chopped. With this, I can approximate what would be a natural cat diet in the wild. I buy the rabbit, chicken, turkey, goose, whiting, and am going to try some of the pork this time. The meat is already ground or chunked and the animal has been ground whole--so the organs and bone to muscle ratio is as nature intended it to be. They bring the meats packeaged in deli containers to various drop off points around a several state radius and then I pick it up at the drop off points--the cost for the delivery is $10. I buy about 50-70 lbs. a month. But I have 8 cats. I add Kitty Bloom to this also--just to make sure I have all my bases covered. This is by far the easiest way for me, is most healthy, and believe it or not, more economical than kibble and canned. I have eight cats, and am presently feeding 10-12 cans of wet food a day plus at least 20 lbs. of kibble a month. Even if I use the cheap kind of wet food--at 50 cents a can, that's $6 a day for the wet food alone--that's $180. a month right there. Add to that the $40 I spend on the dry food, that's $220. a month. I just made out my order for this month--51 pounds of meat and the cost will be $148.63 including delivery fee to the pick up place. That is a saving of $80 a month for me this month and my cats will be the healthier for it.

I will post another post to answer the other questions as best I can, as this one is getting long.

 

[Rainy19437]

Thank you