Taurine Question

I have been feeding Rad Cat exclusively for the last month or so and I am considering add Taurine just to be on the safe side.  I spoke with Rad Cat the other day and she said if I wanted to supplement some with Taurine that would be okay since you can't overdose a cat on it.  They also recommend not supplementing with anything else since it is a complete food.  I would appreciate any thoughts on this as well as where is the best place to order Taurine and also how do you know how much to add to the food.

I also purchased Nature's Logic Rabbit tonight and I am going to try and see if she likes it.  I hope so because I really like this company and I am hoping to find another protein to rotate to. 

Rad Cat is already supplemented with Taurine, you don't need to add anything to it - it is a complete (and GREAT) diet....

Thank you so much. I just don't want to miss anything and risk her health.

DianeandBooBoo said:

Thank you so much. I just don't want to miss anything and risk her health.

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I know the feeling, but with Rad Cat, you really aren't missing out on anything..... Rad Cat, as far as commercial diets goes, is as good as it gets.
Have you checked the ground meat/organ/bones at Hare Today? They have great meats too! Very fresh and yummy.... You do have to add a supplement, but they sell there too, and it is super easy to add :nod:
Just a thought if you want to vary your diet and proteins.... and ease up the load on your wallet too!

DianeV66 said:

I have been feeding Rad Cat exclusively for the last month or so and I am considering add Taurine just to be on the safe side.  I spoke with Rad Cat the other day and she said if I wanted to supplement some with Taurine that would be okay since you can't overdose a cat on it.  They also recommend not supplementing with anything else since it is a complete food.  I would appreciate any thoughts on this as well as where is the best place to order Taurine and also how do you know how much to add to the food.

I also purchased Nature's Logic Rabbit tonight and I am going to try and see if she likes it.  I hope so because I really like this company and I am hoping to find another protein to rotate to. 

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Because Taurine degrades with freezing, it is a great idea to supplement extra just to be safe. The gal with Rad Cat is right, you can't overdose a kitty with Taurine. With my kitties, I add an extra 500mg+ to a pound of food at feeding time to their raw ground w/bones. This is also approximately how much food my three eat in a day. When purchasing Taurine, get either the powder form or powder in capsules, as these have less fillers (if any) compared to tablets. A few brands I recommend: NOW Foods - Taurine Powder, Source Naturals - Taurine Powder, LEF - Taurine powder, and Jarrow 1,000mg capsules (this is the one I have). You can find these at www.iherb.com, www.amazon.com, www.luckyvitamin.com, www.vitaminshoppe.com, or other online sources.

One thing to note with rabbit meat is that it is naturally quite a bit lower in Taurine than other meats, so I always, always double the amount of extra Taurine when feeding rabbit.

HTH a bit

Rad Cat, Nature's variety, do take freezing in consideration - Taurine actually degrades very little with freezing - the rate it degrades the most is defrosting and leaving at room temperature, and oxidation (contact with the air). When frozen, degradation is actually very slow/minimum. In any case, the commercial diets do take that into consideration, and the amount of Taurine is "as fed". It is up to the OP to supplement it, but it is not necessary - this would be the same as supplementing canned food (which is already supplemented).
And yes...... I did feed both, and had the conversation with both manufacturers. The same should be true for the other commercial brands as well - considering "as fed", I mean.
Now, if you do your own ground food - not commercial, yes, supplementation is necessary because the taurine in the meat degrades in contact with the air (which is why commercial foods come supplemented already).

Carolina said:

Rad Cat, Nature's variety, do take freezing in consideration ...

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But Rad Cat's own website states that they use heart as their source of taurine, therefore wouldn't it stand to reason since it is a ground food, that supplementing taurine is still a good idea? The same goes for Nature's Variety--again it is ground and they use hearts. (They only supplement if canned or kibble.)

http://www.radfood.com/faq/what_does_rad_cat_use_as_a_source_of_taurine

"Logistically, it's impractical to use brain as a primary taurine supplement, but we, at Rad Cat, have chosen to use organ meat with the next highest concentration of taurine: the heart."

Personally, I source hearts from Hare-Today, but I still add additional taurine because I coarse grind my kitties food--and want to ensure they are getting enough taurine because it is such a vitally important "amino acid" i.e. sulfonic acid, that kitties can't produce on their own.

What say you, Carolina? It's almost 4am here, so I hope some of this makes sense.

It can't hurt to supplement some taurine, of course. But my understanding is that the nutritional analysis of the commercial raws from NV and Rad Cat (and Nature's Menu and a few others) are based on an "As Fed" basis, which accounts for the degradation due to freezing and oxidation. :dk:

I bought some of Nature's Logic Rabbit, and NONE of my three like it.  I even called the company to see if they had had any complaints about it, since mine totally rejected it, even when I mix it with pork .  If I mix any more than 10% NL rabbit with any other protein, it gets rejected.  (let along if I serve it by itself).  But, then again, only TWO of mine liked Radcat, and then, after awhile, they became less enchanted with it.  Mine are all just way too finicky.  Anyway, Nature's Logic just kept giving me ways to try to get them to eat raw, totally ignoring the fact that I mentioned they were already eating other brands with seemingly no issues. 

Hope you have better luck

LDG said:

It can't hurt to supplement some taurine, of course. But my understanding is that the nutritional analysis of the commercial raws from NV and Rad Cat (and Nature's Menu and a few others) are based on an "As Fed" basis, which accounts for the degradation due to freezing and oxidation. :dk:

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http://www.radfood.com/site/856/LabAnalysis.pdf

As you can see on Rad Cat, at the very minimum, it twice exceeds the AAFCO guidelines - Lamb. On Chicken it is 3 times as much, and Turkey, more than 4 times as much.
As I said before, it is up to the OP, but this food is complete, and these are safe levels.

Okay, okay, I surrender Carolina and Laurie; you've convinced me it is probably not necessary. Except...I'm going to continue adding extra taurine to my ground home-brewed food (even though I add 10% hearts to the mix), which I think you both would agree with...er...well...maybe.
 

Well, Rad Cat's taurine is well above AAFCO minimums. For homemade ground, I'd probably supplement taurine. Probably a longer time between prep and freezing; it probably takes longer for the food to freeze...other factors I may not know to consider. :dk: I feed a kind of frankenprey (no bones, I supplement calcium; I also cut up their meat, I don't serve it in just chunks. I do cut it up just before feeding but...), and their diet is currently 14% hearts, but I supplement taurine.

I was thinking of ordering some meats from Hare Today but I was wondering if they ship it frozen and you thaw to feed it you can't refreeze it so what do you do?

I put the NL in Boo's dish for breakfast and she walked away...lol  I swear she won't anything but RadCat for which I am grateful since I do feel it is a fantastic food.  Later for dinner I mixed a tiny bit into her RadCat and she ate everything.  I would really love to find another meat for her but she is a girl that knows what she likes

Still on the fence about the Taurine but RadCat says it is more than sufficient and they also said I could add some if I really wanted to.  

LDG said:

Well, Rad Cat's taurine is well above AAFCO minimums.

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Oh yes, Laurie--I was agreeing with you that supplementing taurine shouldn't be necessary for RC or NV. I guess my sense of humor and me "surrendering," etc. didn't come through as they should have. I'm so sorry if I offended you!

No worries, I wasn't offended! :lol3: The limits of text communication.

DianeV66 said:

I was thinking of ordering some meats from Hare Today but I was wondering if they ship it frozen and you thaw to feed it you can't refreeze it so what do you do?

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When I get meat w/bone from Hare Today, it may already be partially unfrozen because of where I live. What I've always done is either put all the chubs of meat in my kitty freezer right away, or unthaw one chub enough to be able to slice through it, portion into daily sliced sizes, which in my case is a pound or so of meat a day, then re-freeze in quart-sized baggies. I then add my supplements at feeding time.

I have also completely unthawed chubs, mixed in my supplements, portion as above, and re-freeze.

HTH a bit,

I guess I live close enough for the HT meat to arrive frozen. But I always mostly dethaw, add the supplement, bag into meal-sized portions (for all the cats, not individual meals for each cat), and refreeze. :nod:

LDG said:

I guess I live close enough for the HT meat to arrive frozen. But I always mostly dethaw, add the supplement, bag into meal-sized portions (for all the cats, not individual meals for each cat), and refreeze.

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Yup, that's what I do--bag a days worth for my three, not individual meals (didn't want anyone to think I bagged individual meals ; that would be quite interesting, LOL). In the winter, all stays frozen fine, but in the summer the food may be partially unfrozen, but still cold.

DianeV66 said:

I was thinking of ordering some meats from Hare Today but I was wondering if they ship it frozen and you thaw to feed it you can't refreeze it so what do you do?...

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WhollyCat said:

Yup, that's what I do--bag a days worth for my three, not individual meals (didn't want anyone to think I bagged individual meals ; that would be quite interesting, LOL). In the winter, all stays frozen fine, but in the summer the food may be partially unfrozen, but still cold.

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:lol3:

Of course, the point Jules and I are making is that it IS ok to refreeze the food. I think everyone that feeds raw does it - there's really not a way to get around it, or too much food would just go to waste. :nod: