BoneLESS Frankerprey - Anyone does this?

Hi
For some reason Lucky can not digest bones - her vet does want her on raw, however he doesn't want her to have any bones whatsoever. She also has Juvenile periodontal disease.... and for teeth health, an frankeprey diet would help....
She got quite sick when I introduced her a food with bones (ground) - while she was doing fantastic on foods supplemented with human grade bone meal.

My research also indicates that it might be safer/better for Bugsy, due to his IBD, to keep at least the majority of his diet the same way - boneless, which currently it is. I feed him some bones - but the majority is still commercial either supplemented with Calcium, or with human grade bone meal.

Is there anyone here who feeds a Frankerprey diet without bones successfuly?
How do you supplement your diet? Calcium? Bone Meal? Egg Shells?
How did you figure out the quantities?

Thanks!!

If you're feeding whole meat pieces--as I understand frankenprey to be--you can't really add calcium. You could add it to ground food, though. Maybe if you did one meal of ground meat with calcium added (enough for the whole day) and the other meals prey-model? And I've heard that some people who have dogs who can't eat bone will give a calcium tablet to the dog every day. I don't know how that would work for a cat. . .dosing would be tricky and I don't know if they absorb the pills like a dog does.

Well, as you well know, I have no experience with this. :lol3: But in my transition to Frankenprey, because I'm still "iffy" on bones, and mine are still just working on chewing, I'm at least transitioning with boneless. I'm going to use baked, powdered eggshells (1/2 teaspoon per pound of meat), figure out the amount needed per meal, and just sprinkle it on. We'll see how that goes when we get there... :lol3:

If you take a look at the pictorial on catnutrition.org you'll see that Anne includes large meat chunks with her ground and supplemented mix. Maybe you could do something like that?

http://www.catnutrition.org/pictorial.html 

mschauer said:

If you take a look at the pictorial on catnutrition.org you'll see that Anne includes large meat chunks with her ground and supplemented mix. Maybe you could do something like that?

http://www.catnutrition.org/pictorial.html 

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I could..... But she does use bones.... which defeats the purpose of what I am looking for. I am looking for serving chunks, at the same time providing the Calcium they need, including to balance the phosphorus in the meat itself.... via supplementation - not bones (Lucky can't have ANY bones for the time being)

I am curious if someone here is already doing this... I saw a thread somewhere of a new member who was doing some of the like. It is pretty much what Laurie will do, actually.....
I am trying to find actual feeder feedback - experiences would be AWESOME!!! - and hopefully where they got their information for supplementation and such.... it is not easy to find/calculate....
I might unlike Laurie, look into other sources of Calcium..... don't know..... which is the purpose of the thread :lol3:

Carolina said:

I could..... But she does use bones.... which defeats the purpose of what I am looking for. I am looking for serving chunks, at the same time providing the Calcium they need, including to balance the phosphorus in the meat itself.... via supplementation - not bones (Lucky can't have ANY bones for the time being)
I am curious if someone here is already doing this... I saw a thread somewhere of a new member who was doing some of the like. It is pretty much what Laurie will do, actually.....
I am trying to find actual feeder feedback - experiences would be AWESOME!!! - and hopefully where they got their information for supplementation and such.... it is not easy to find/calculate....
I might unlike Laurie, look into other sources of Calcium..... don't know..... which is the purpose of the thread

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I had in mind that you could leave out the bone and add calcium.

mschauer said:

I had in mind that you could leave out the bone and add calcium.

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Right....... That is right.... but how much? and of which Calcium? that is the information I am looking for..... Eggshells have a certain qty of Calcium, which differ from bone meal, which differs from Calcium carbonate. So the qty for ea would vary when supplementing the meat...

I don't necessarily need any of the other stuff - the eggs, vitamins, etc.... I am really looking into straight chunks if all possible - supplementing the calcium, which is what they won't be getting. The rest will be in the meat and organs, since they won't be ground.... At least that is my hope :nod:

Carolina said:

Right....... That is right.... but how much? and of which Calcium? that is the information I am looking for..... Eggshells have a certain qty of Calcium, which differ from bone meal, which differs from Calcium carbonate. So the qty for ea would vary when supplementing the meat...
I don't necessarily need any of the other stuff - the eggs, vitamins, etc.... I am really looking into straight chunks if all possible - supplementing the calcium, which is what they won't be getting. The rest will be in the meat and organs, since they won't be ground.... At least that is my hope

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I understand what you are trying to do. You can get the calcium amount from any ground recipe. (Edit: I meant any ground *boneless* recipe.)  Just leave out the other supplements and use chunks instead of grinding.

From Dr. Pierson's web site:

However, many people are either unwilling or unable to purchase a grinder so I am finally 'giving in' and will state that if you are going to use 3 pounds ofboneless meat and skin, then the amount of bone meal (NOW brand linked below) to use is 2 1/3 tablespoons.  That is 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon....or....7 level teaspoons.  (1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons)

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I think you will find proponents and opponents of each of the sources of calcium. I've been experimenting with MCHA which is freeze dried bone. Since it is freeze dried almost the full nutrient profile is retained. 

mschauer said:

I think you will find proponents and opponents of each of the sources of calcium. I've been experimenting with MCHA which is freeze dried bone. Since it is freeze dried almost the full nutrient profile is retained. 

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Very interesting!! Can you crumble that into a powder? Do you have a link for it?

Carolina said:

Very interesting!! Can you crumble that into a powder? Do you have a link for it?

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It comes in capsules. I use NOW brand. It is the cheapest I've found. The source is New Zealand or Australian grass feed calves so there should be little chance of toxins. I'm pretty sure that these bones are the byproduct of veal production so you might want to take that into consideration if you have a moral issue with veal production. As far as I can tell NZ and Aus are the only sources of MCHA.


Freeze dried bone is referred to by a lot of names. The full scientific name is microcrystalline calcium hydroxyapatite. I've also seen it referred to as MCH. It is found in many products used as calcium supplements like Jarrrow Bone Up:


It isn't as commonly used as a calcium supplement because it is more expensive than the synthetic sources and, because it is much more than just calcium you have to take a lot more of it to get the same amount of calcium. For instance, whole bone contains about 0.6 g of Phosphorus for every 1.0 g of calcium. 

If you do a Google search for products other than NOW be careful to only look at products that are MCHA and no other supplements. You'll find many products with vit D added, for instance. The NOW product only has added what is needed to provide the MCHA in capsule form.

The form of calcium in MCHA has been shown to be most easily absorbed and it is believed that many of the other nutrients in whole bone that are preserved in MCHA aid the body in better utilizing calcium for bone building.

This might be of interest:

http://www.oralchelation.com/technical/calcium2.htm

Nature's Menu has some interesting things to say about various calcium sources (scroll to the bottom):

http://www.naturesmenu.com/site/493564/page/270161

Very very interesting!! How are you calculating the qtys for the recipes?

Carolina said:

Very very interesting!! How are you calculating the qtys for the recipes?

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Well,  therein lies the rub. I've written a computer program that produces a nutrient analysis of a recipe using data in the USDA nutrient database and other sources. With it I can determine how much is needed to offset the high levels of phosphorus in the other ingredients to achieve the ideal 1:1 ratio of calcium to phosphorus. I've only just started using the MCHA but generally it takes between 40 and 60 capsules (edit: .. per 10 lbs meat + organs). With the NOW product that adds about 40 cents / lb.

As you can imagine opening that many capsules can be a real PITA especially when making approx 60 lbs of food like I did last weekend. I've found a food processor does a good job of breaking open the capsules a batcg at a time. I'd love to find a source in free powder form but haven't found it yet.

If you decide to use it I can give you a better idea of how much to use with a given meat source provided I have access to the nutrient profile of the meat. The USDA is pretty complete in that regard for the meats we use in cat food including rabbit.

Googling "ossein hydroxyapatite", which is yet another name for MCHA, will bring up more science based info.

Other adventures in calcium supplementation....

Carolina found eggshell supplement: http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html

It says to use 6.1 grams per 2.4 pounds of meat. That means 0.159 grams per ounce of meat. I don't know how much that means. If eggshell weighs anything like L-lysine, that's about 1/3 of 1/4 of a teaspoon. The question is - if chewing a chunk of meat with eggshell powder sprinkled on, do they eat the eggshell powder? I haven't successfully added digestive enzymes to the fresh meat and had all of them eat it - to the point where I no longer add the digestive enzymes to fresh meat.

LDG said:

Other adventures in calcium supplementation....

Carolina found eggshell supplement: http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html

It says to use 6.1 grams per 2.4 pounds of meat. That means 0.159 grams per ounce of meat. I don't know how much that means. If eggshell weighs anything like L-lysine, that's about 1/3 of 1/4 of a teaspoon. The question is - if chewing a chunk of meat with eggshell powder sprinkled on, do they eat the eggshell powder? I haven't successfully added digestive enzymes to the fresh meat and had all of them eat it - to the point where I no longer add the digestive enzymes to fresh meat.
 

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Yeah, that's the problem I see. If you just sprinkle chunks of meat with the supp a lot if it is going to fall off. How will you know if they are getting enough?

mschauer said:

Yeah, that's the problem I see. If you just sprinkle chunks of meat with the supp a lot if it is going to fall off. How will you know if they are getting enough?

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If you serve 2 frankerprey meals and one ground..... can you add the extra calcium (missing on the previous 2 meals) to the ground? and balance it out daily? Or each meal has to be balanced for phosphorous/ca content individually on its own at the time of feeding?

Carolina said:

mschauer said:

Yeah, that's the problem I see. If you just sprinkle chunks of meat with the supp a lot if it is going to fall off. How will you know if they are getting enough?

Click to expand...

If you serve 2 frankerprey meals and one ground..... can you add the extra calcium (missing on the previous 2 meals) to the ground? and balance it out daily? Or each meal has to be balanced for phosphorous/ca content individually on its own at the time of feeding?

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That's essentially what I was suggesting in my first post. A combination of ground and chunks. Most raw feeders embrace the "balance over time" approach. They feed some entirely boneless meals and other bone in meals which is basically what you are suggesting. Personally I'm not a fan of the "balance over time" approach because you have to be very careful to make sure you really do get balance over time. Making sure you get balance on a daily basis would be easier than the balance over a week or more that a lot of raw feeders try to do.
 

mschauer said:

That's essentially what I was suggesting in my first post. A combination of ground and chunks. Most raw feeders embrace the "balance over time" approach. They feed some entirely boneless meals and other bone in meals which is basically what you are suggesting. Personally I'm not a fan of the "balance over time" approach because you have to be very careful to make sure you really do get balance over time. Making sure you get balance on a daily basis would be easier than the balance over a week or more that a lot of raw feeders try to do.

 

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I was under the impression that in the pictorial you were suggesting to mix the ground and the pieces of meat in the same meal - which is not the way I want to go..... :dk: Maybe I got that wrong.....
I am not a fan of overtime balancing either - but if it is ok to do daily.... I would be somewhat open to that..... I do feed equal meals (in weight anyway, so it would be easier to manage - somewhat). That way the probiotics, extra calcium could go in there.....
I will try to put the enzymes on the pieces to see what happens.....
Decisions decisions.....

Carolina said:

I was under the impression that in the pictorial you were suggesting to mix the ground and the pieces of meat in the same meal - which is not the way I want to go.....

Maybe I got that wrong....

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That is what the pictorial shows but the result is the same if you feed just the ground at some meals and just chunks at other meals. Which is what you just asked about.