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see your PM box... many are in thought and trying to find things out
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Prey model and bones
- Thread starter chris10
- Start Date
Sometimes I think you over think things and other times I think you are just asking legitimate questions that are difficult to answer.
It seems to me you are trying to gain a complete understanding of what your cat's nutritional needs are and of how you can best meet those needs. Of course there is nothing wrong in that. But, as we are constantly being reminded these days, scientists only have a limited understanding of *human* nutritional needs. Their understanding of, and our ability to extract from them, the nutritional needs of cats is far more incomplete. Given that, the answers to some of your questions are difficult or impossible to answer definitively. We can pull together bits and pieces of information from various sources and then come to some kind of intelligent conclusion based on that information but there is no way of knowing what bit/bits of information we don't have. One of my favorite expressions is "We don't know what we don't know."
In your first post you wrote:
The oft repeated taurine issue is a case in point. For many years pet food manufactures didn't know how important taurine was to a cats diet. From what I've been reading recently, there is mounting evidence that taurine may be more important to dogs than previously believed. What else don't we know about what a cat derives from a truly natural diet that we aren't providing them in either our raw diets or in processed foods?
Achieving a true prey model diet using ingredients other than what is truly a cats natural prey assumes we know precisely what the nutritional components of the natural diet are, how they interact with one another and in what form they must be in to be properly utilized by a cat. We don't have that complete an understanding of human nutrition much less of feline nutrition. How many raw feeders feed fresh, whole heads and what nutritional inadequacy, if any, results from not feeding them?
Do we even know what a cats "natural diet" is? The prey a cat has available to it will vary, in some cases vary a lot, depending on where it lives. How much, if at all, does it matter if a cats diet is primarily composed of birds with few mice or primarily of mice with few birds?
To respond more directly to your question as to whether a diet with 10% chicken bones is adequate, you are assuming you know beyond any doubt what a desirable calcium to phosphorus ratio is. Further, you are assuming that when it comes to consuming bone that calcium and phosphorus content are the only important things to consider. In short, even if chicken bones don't fall within the commonly accepted as desirable calcium to phosphorus ratio, I question whether we know how important it is.
I find the issues you bring up very interesting. If I don't post in reply it is just because I don't know the definitive answer and/or I don't think a definitive answer can known. I hope you keep bringing up such issues though. They are always good food for thought!
I rambled a bit. I hope this post makes some kind of sense...
It seems to me you are trying to gain a complete understanding of what your cat's nutritional needs are and of how you can best meet those needs. Of course there is nothing wrong in that. But, as we are constantly being reminded these days, scientists only have a limited understanding of *human* nutritional needs. Their understanding of, and our ability to extract from them, the nutritional needs of cats is far more incomplete. Given that, the answers to some of your questions are difficult or impossible to answer definitively. We can pull together bits and pieces of information from various sources and then come to some kind of intelligent conclusion based on that information but there is no way of knowing what bit/bits of information we don't have. One of my favorite expressions is "We don't know what we don't know."
In your first post you wrote:
And later :
These statements bring to mind what I think makes over thinking some issues futile. The vast majority of us that feed raw, including some who supposedly follow the "prey model", feed what only vaguely resembles a cats natural diet. Unless we feed fresh, never frozen, *whole* prey of the sort that they would capture themselves, mice, small birds, lizards, etc, we are relying on what could very possibly be incomplete information about what our homemade version should be.
The oft repeated taurine issue is a case in point. For many years pet food manufactures didn't know how important taurine was to a cats diet. From what I've been reading recently, there is mounting evidence that taurine may be more important to dogs than previously believed. What else don't we know about what a cat derives from a truly natural diet that we aren't providing them in either our raw diets or in processed foods?
Achieving a true prey model diet using ingredients other than what is truly a cats natural prey assumes we know precisely what the nutritional components of the natural diet are, how they interact with one another and in what form they must be in to be properly utilized by a cat. We don't have that complete an understanding of human nutrition much less of feline nutrition. How many raw feeders feed fresh, whole heads and what nutritional inadequacy, if any, results from not feeding them?
Do we even know what a cats "natural diet" is? The prey a cat has available to it will vary, in some cases vary a lot, depending on where it lives. How much, if at all, does it matter if a cats diet is primarily composed of birds with few mice or primarily of mice with few birds?
To respond more directly to your question as to whether a diet with 10% chicken bones is adequate, you are assuming you know beyond any doubt what a desirable calcium to phosphorus ratio is. Further, you are assuming that when it comes to consuming bone that calcium and phosphorus content are the only important things to consider. In short, even if chicken bones don't fall within the commonly accepted as desirable calcium to phosphorus ratio, I question whether we know how important it is.
I find the issues you bring up very interesting. If I don't post in reply it is just because I don't know the definitive answer and/or I don't think a definitive answer can known. I hope you keep bringing up such issues though. They are always good food for thought!
I rambled a bit. I hope this post makes some kind of sense...
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to the above .. yes you made sense and very well written IMHO ...
Taurine was Proven nessessary for dog health in the mid 1990's ... of couse like cats they seem to keep uping the "essential " amount . Which is happening for humans also ie vitamin D ....
Chris I do not think you have over thought this but all through school I was told to look at the BIG picture not my microscopic parts pieced together .
Some of us were born to see the BIG others the TINY parts
Taurine was Proven nessessary for dog health in the mid 1990's ... of couse like cats they seem to keep uping the "essential " amount . Which is happening for humans also ie vitamin D ....
Chris I do not think you have over thought this but all through school I was told to look at the BIG picture not my microscopic parts pieced together .
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #24
Mschauer thanks for responding with an intelligent post. Some points you make are ones I have briefly thought about but for some reason didn't find their way into my final thought process. Probably because numbers were favoring my theory. I will probably never understand fully what a cat truly needs. This questioning mainly came from me hearing/reading about the prey model guidelines and applying it to information I already knew about chicken. It didn't seem right to me so I started researching a bit more and posed these questions to you guys and others. I am only trying to focus on one part in the diet. Which is not the whole picture and may or may not be important. But I like to question things. We may not come remotely to a conclusion because of lack of info or different opinions. But we are able to think outside the box for a bit and explore something that may go against the norm.
Anyway this possible theory is still in the works as others are checking with other smart people to see if I am nuts or not.
Again thanks for sharing your thoughts
Anyway this possible theory is still in the works as others are checking with other smart people to see if I am nuts or not.
Again thanks for sharing your thoughts
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I havenâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t responded here, Chris because you and I talked about this so extensively on the other forum and I am in total agreement with you that all indications point to a lower calcium content in chicken bones than in standard feline prey.
All we need to know to answer for sure is the actual bone percentage of an unprocessed chicken. Whoâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d have thought such a number would be so hard to come by?
Until we do know, I'm thinking the best thing to do is to feed more than 10% of the full diet when using chicken bones as part of the 80 / 10 / 5 / 5 breakdown. I've actually been doing this anyway because feeding only 10% chicken bones was not enough to maintain stool consistency for two of my five cats. Thanks to you raising this question, Chris, I now have a possible explanation for that.
By the way, Mschauer, et al., I have located (with the help of the yahoo group) the oldest and most cited document in support of the raw-feeding percentage guideline: Tissue Percentage of Common Prey.
All we need to know to answer for sure is the actual bone percentage of an unprocessed chicken. Whoâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d have thought such a number would be so hard to come by?
Until we do know, I'm thinking the best thing to do is to feed more than 10% of the full diet when using chicken bones as part of the 80 / 10 / 5 / 5 breakdown. I've actually been doing this anyway because feeding only 10% chicken bones was not enough to maintain stool consistency for two of my five cats. Thanks to you raising this question, Chris, I now have a possible explanation for that.
By the way, Mschauer, et al., I have located (with the help of the yahoo group) the oldest and most cited document in support of the raw-feeding percentage guideline: Tissue Percentage of Common Prey.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #26
Ditto. After all of the searching I have done. I am surprised with all the info they have on chickens I haven't been able to find one solid piece of info about the skeletal mass of a whole chicken. Hopefully someone will get lucky.
If someone hasn't already maybe one of you can present this theory to one of the popular raw yahoo groups. I really don't like how chatting takes place on yahoo groups so I am not going to join any. But I have heard there are other knowledgeable people on them.
I emailed a few of the chicken producers what the bone percentage is in a live chicken...hopefully they get what I mean and know the answer
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #28
This came from furryfriends
http://books.google.com/books?id=651...hicken&f=false
quickly skimming through it, on page 4 it shows that chickens live weight has a bone% of 22%. I calculated a rough 25% on a previous post. Still have to go through it to see what else is written.
http://books.google.com/books?id=651...hicken&f=false
quickly skimming through it, on page 4 it shows that chickens live weight has a bone% of 22%. I calculated a rough 25% on a previous post. Still have to go through it to see what else is written.
It depends on the definition of "live wieght". From one of the first paragraphs it looks like the skin (thus feathers) is excluded from the live wieght percentage.
"this carcass porportion of a live animals wieght is classically calculated as dressing percentage and can vary considerably"
"this carcass porportion of a live animals wieght is classically calculated as dressing percentage and can vary considerably"
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #30
How does everyone interpret table 1 on page 4? Does the carcass %'s reflect the overall bird, meaning there is 22% of bone in the entire bird. Or does carcass represent only the parts in a dressed chicken, like the usda info, after the non essentials are taken out. If it was the second option then that would mean bone is about 16.94% of the whole bird. Though using usda data and putting in non carcass data from this source, bone comes out to 26% for entire bird.
page 17 "More than 99% of the body calcium is in bones"
page 17 "More than 99% of the body calcium is in bones"
I have made an appointment with the Poultry Science unit on my university's campus. He is an associate dean in our college of agriculture. I'll ask him about the percentages of bone in chicken, and tell him some of the stuff the USDA has told me, plus the websites y'all linked. I think he should also know about the calcium and phosphorous contents of those bones.
Is there anything really specific you wanted me to ask chris10 or anyone else? Sharky already PMed me a few, just checking in to see what else.
I tried getting in touch with the small animal nutrition specialist at the vet school, but I think this is around the time admissions is going on, and he's on the board so he's a little bit busy right now. However, I think someone at the poultry science unit can answer a few of these questions.
Poultry Science
Here's a link to the website. They have pdf files of annual newsletters dealing with poultry. I don't have the patience or time right now to thumb through these and thoroughly investigate yet.
Is there anything really specific you wanted me to ask chris10 or anyone else? Sharky already PMed me a few, just checking in to see what else.
I tried getting in touch with the small animal nutrition specialist at the vet school, but I think this is around the time admissions is going on, and he's on the board so he's a little bit busy right now. However, I think someone at the poultry science unit can answer a few of these questions.
Poultry Science
Here's a link to the website. They have pdf files of annual newsletters dealing with poultry. I don't have the patience or time right now to thumb through these and thoroughly investigate yet.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #32
pm'd
thanks for the link
thanks for the link
Hi, stumbled across this discussion while seeking info on how much bone is in a chicken. Did the question ever really get answered?
Reading through the entire thread, I'm struck by these thoughts - yes, this may be over thinking things for the average raw feeder, but that doesn't make the original inquiry invalid at all. Rather, it points out the need for MORE info!
When comparing the bone percentages of prey, it's easy to forget that the available data is collected from a human consumption point of view. So, the meat is removed from the carcass by cutting off the easily accessible bits, and the discarded 'refuse' is all the gristle, meat that's between bones, joint knuckles, and especially in the hollow bones of chickens - incredibly nutritious marrow.
We're also limited to the measurement by weight, not volume, so the comparative density between tough, flexible mouse bones and the lightweight, airy matrix of chicken bones gets lost.
As someone mentioned, 10% chicken bone isn't enough for stool production in some cats; over my 6 year, 6 cat experience with raw feeding, I've arrived much closer to 16%, and ultimately find that grinding the bones that are in the meat I'm feeding is the best method of arriving at a balance.
What I would love to find is a complete nutrition breakdown for prey animals, similar to a detailed nutrition statement for human foods. The lab I found that could handle that task wanted over $1000 for the testing, which is a bit out of my budget!
Thanks for a very interesting thread.
Reading through the entire thread, I'm struck by these thoughts - yes, this may be over thinking things for the average raw feeder, but that doesn't make the original inquiry invalid at all. Rather, it points out the need for MORE info!
When comparing the bone percentages of prey, it's easy to forget that the available data is collected from a human consumption point of view. So, the meat is removed from the carcass by cutting off the easily accessible bits, and the discarded 'refuse' is all the gristle, meat that's between bones, joint knuckles, and especially in the hollow bones of chickens - incredibly nutritious marrow.
We're also limited to the measurement by weight, not volume, so the comparative density between tough, flexible mouse bones and the lightweight, airy matrix of chicken bones gets lost.
As someone mentioned, 10% chicken bone isn't enough for stool production in some cats; over my 6 year, 6 cat experience with raw feeding, I've arrived much closer to 16%, and ultimately find that grinding the bones that are in the meat I'm feeding is the best method of arriving at a balance.
What I would love to find is a complete nutrition breakdown for prey animals, similar to a detailed nutrition statement for human foods. The lab I found that could handle that task wanted over $1000 for the testing, which is a bit out of my budget!
Thanks for a very interesting thread.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #34
Thanks for you thoughts. This topic really didn't come to an actual conclusion. With the information available to us I can only offer it as a theory and let people decide for themselves. Hopefully a concerned raw feeder will win the lotto and acquire the information that we all desire.
You may already have these links but most use http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ to find bone percents
And when looking at prey some use http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/zoo/Who...nal02May29.pdf
I hope this topic was able to answer your question or at least give you a rough idea.
