The Great Protein List

Hi all! I thought it might be fun if we all listed the types of raw proteins we have fed to our kitties and if they loved, liked or disliked it. Then I will go through and tally it all up to see if there might be any general favorites or dislikes. Maybe a large percentage of cats like chicken but dislike beef? Who knows - but it would be fun to get some informal data on the subject. (Don't forget the different cuts of meat, for example chicken breast vs chicken thigh, and all the different organ meats!)

I will start with the raw proteins my three kitties have tried and what they think about them!

Chicken Thigh: all 3 love it

Chicken Breast: 1 loves, 2 like

Chicken Gizzards: 2 love, 1 like

Chicken Liver: 3 love

Turkey Thigh: 3 love

Turkey Heart: 3 love

Cornish Hen (whole): 2 love, 1 like

Duck (whole): 1 love, 2 dislike

Rabbit (whole): 3 love

Pork Chop Tenderloin: 2 love, 1 dislike

Pork Heart: 3 love

Interesting question! For my picky cat:

Chicken thigh - hates
Chicken breast - hates
Chicken heart - meh
Chicken liver - loves
Chicken gizzards - hates
Beef - loves
Pork - meh
Turkey thigh - hates
Cornish hen - hates
Lamb - meh
Shrimp - loves
Squid - loves

Awesome thread. I am pretty new to raw, but here is what I have to contribute.

Chicken breast: love
Chicken gizzard: love
Chicken thigh: love
Chicken liver: sometimes
Chicken neck: sometimes
Chicken whole: love
Egg yolk: meh
Sardine (canned, whole): hate
Turkey breast: love
Turkey whole: love
Turkey heart: love
Rabbit whole: love
Pork tenderloin: hate
Beef: hate
Shrimp: hate

Yay, glad you guys like the idea! I always wondered if there may be general commonalities between what cats like and don't like...even though they all have their own unique tastes. I will stop gathering your data when I have a good sample size...50 cats? 100 cats? Depends on how many answer. But I will let you know the sample size and then the number of cats that have tried that protein, and how many loved/are indifferent to/hated it. To make things a bit easier I will just compile the "meh, sometimes" type answers in to the indifferent category.

I will also take suggestions if you have idea to make compiling the data and showing the results a bit more scientific/accurate. Graphs?! Woah, it's getting all technical now, haha.

I don't specifically feed raw, however, I do give them raw occasionally.  So, here is what my stats are:

Chicken breast - 2 love

Chicken thigh - 2 love

Chicken drumstick - 2 love

Chicken Wing - 2 love

Egg Yolk - 2 like

Sardines - (canned, whole) - 2 love

Shrimp - 1 love, 1 hate

Salmon - 2 love

Beef - 1 love, not sure about the other, hasn't had it yet

Duck - 1 hate, not sure about the other, hasn't had it yet

I forgot stuff.

Egg yolk - loves sometimes, hates other times (I know that's not helpful, but seriously sometimes she devours it all and other times she won't touch it. I can't figure it out!)

Sardines - cans or pouches, no salt - loves

Well, I can bump the sample size. :lol3: I feed 8 cats raw food. For your data sheet, you can note that three of them love everything EXCEPT eggs / egg yolk - raw OR cooked. They're not picky, and they eat (almost) anything. Ming Loy will eat a dust bunny - but not egg yolk. :dk: So of 8 cats, I have ONE that likes egg yolk. Hates the white. All 8 refuse to eat egg white (again, raw or cooked).

Thus I feed four meals of ground whole animal weekly, because I can slip 1/4 raw egg yolk in that, so they each get 1 whole egg yolk a week.

So that covers the egg yolks. The rest is info for the other five cats.

Chicken breast: 4 love, Lazlo is so-so
Chicken thigh: 4 love; Lazlo is so-so
Chicken wings bone-in: 2 love them; 2 like them; 1 hates them.
Chicken hearts: 4 love them; Spooky hates them
Chicken gizzards: 4 love them; Spooky hates them
Chicken liver: 1 LOVES LOVES LOVES it ( :lol3: ), the other four hate it fresh.
Chicken liver freeze dried: 4 love it; Spooky hates it
Ground whole chicken: everyone hates it

Turkey breast: 4 love it; Lazlo hates it
Turkey thigh: 4 love it; Lazlo likes it
Turkey hearts: 4 love them; Spooky hates them
Ground whole turkey: everyone hates it.

Duck: everyone hates it
Ground whole duck: everyone hates it
Duck hearts: 4 love them; Spooky hates them
Duck gizzards: 1 likes them; 3 are so-so; Spooky hates them
Duck liver (I've never purchased it, but there's often chunks of it in the duck hearts): the one that loves chicken liver loves duck liver; the other four hate it.

Cornish hen bone-in (everyone gets some white and some dark meat): 4 love it; Lazlo is so-so

Pork loin: 4 love it; Lazlo hates it
Ground whole pork: Spooky loves it; 2 like it; 1 can be tricked into eating it with toppers; Lazlo hates it
Pork liver: all 5 hate it
Haven't tried pork hearts yet

Beef: Lazlo loves it; 1 hates it; 3 are so-so; Sheldon likes it, but can't keep it down unless it is 50% or less of a meal.
Beef liver: Lazlo so-so (went through a phase where he loved it both raw or cooked); 4 hate it fresh.
Beef liver freeze-dried: 2 love it; 3 like it. This is how I get liver into Spooky.
Beef kidney: Tuxedo loves it; 4 hate it.
Beef pancreas (ground, fresh): 4 love it; 1 likes it.
Beef pancreas (freeze dried): 5 love it.

Lamb: Everyone likes it, no one loves it. Sheldon can't keep it down unless it is 50% or less of a meal.
Ground whole mutton: everyone hates it. (Never tried the ground lamb, as it is boneless). When transitioning, they all liked the commercial lamb ground stuff though.
Lamb pancreas (freeze dried): 5 love it.

Venison: Essentially the same as beef. Lazlo loves it; the one that hates beef will eat SOME venison but not a whole meal of it (is so-so on it); 2 like it; and Sheldon likes it, but can't keep it down unless it is 50% or less of a meal.

Rabbit: 4 love it; Lazlo likes it.
Ground whole rabbit: 3 love it; 2 like it.
Rabbit liver: Flowerbelle loves it; 4 hate it.
Rabbit kidneys: Tuxedo loves it; 4 hate it.
Rabbit heart: Only Sheldon likes it; the other 4 hate it.
Rabbit lungs: 5 are so-so.

Whole quail: 1 loves it, 2 hate it, 2 so-so but will eat it.
Ground whole quail: 5 hate it

Goat: 1 loves it; 4 like it. Again - Sheldon can't keep it down unless it's 50% or less of a meal.
Ground whole goat: 1 loves it; 1 hates it; 3 are so-so with it (Sheldon has the same issue keeping it down).

Ground whole goose: everyone hates it
Ground whole llama: 4 love it; 1 likes it
Ground whole pheasant: everyone hates it
Ground whole mouse: Spooky loves it, four hate it
Ground whole cavie: Spooky loves it; four hate it
Ground green tripe: 4 hate it; 1 VERY iffy with it (sometimes eats it, sometimes doesn't)

Tinned sardines: 2 like it; 1 so-so with it; 2 hate it
Frozen ground sardines: 2 like it; 1 so-so with it; 2 hate it (same as tinned).

Shrimp: we don't feed it because Tuxedo loves it so much, he cries for only shrimp for MONTHS after he's had some. We stopped eating shrimp ourselves because of it. Everyone but Spooky loves shrimp.

Beef brain (freeze dried): 5 love it
Beef thymus (freeze dried): 5 so-so with it
Beef kidney (freeze dried): Tuxedo loves it; 4 hate it
Beef spleen (freeze dried): 5 like it.

The freeze-dried meat toppers we use:

chicken breast
chicken liver
beef liver
salmon
shrimp

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Wow Laurie! You have fed a lot of different proteins. That's amazing. It seems a fairly general consensus that ground whole anything is not a big hit in your crew.

Well, when we first got the freezer and I placed my first order(s) with Hare Today, I ordered a smorgasbord of things for them to try.

AND... it's because they didn't like ground that I HAD to move to prey model raw. :lol3:

BUT... because I need to get egg yolks in them, I went back through the ground food options once they'd been eating raw for some time. They still hate most of it. I basically feed them ground rabbit and llama; once a week they get ground goat, but a number of them don't finish it, and Shel cant' have a full meal of it, so a number of them end up getting llama basically twice a week. I order the ground pork mostly for Spooky, because she's on her own menu plan.

Whenever we have a red meat, I just make everyone's meals 50/50 red meat/white meat (because of Sheldon's intolerance to a whole meal of red meat), and then they get that meal twice in the same day. It took me long enough, but I FINALLY realized that Lazlo's issues eating those meals are that he likes the red meat, and the white meat not so much - or not at all. So I always add a little extra red meat to the portions I freeze, so I can make Lazlo's meals all beef, venison, or goat when we have it.

But basically they get 3 meals of red meat a week, 3 meals of hearts a week, and 3 meals of gizzards a week. They get four meals of ground food weekly. Spooky eats mostly ground food. They get offered two bone-in meals a week (quail, rabbit, or cornish hen); chicken wings as a dental treat sometimes. Two (well three, if you include Spooky) really don't like eating bone-in PMR, so I cut the meat off the bone for them at those meals. Chumley LOVES it. He always gets the quail heads; no one else will eat them. The rest of the meals are chicken or turkey breast or thigh. Oh - and one meal of pork weekly. They get their liver or kidney once a day. I have four cats that don't eat liver: they get 10% liver. I have four cats that don't eat fresh liver: they get freeze dried liver.

At some point I'd like to try pinkies for them, but they're expensive.

Bottom line? Everyone says variety is the key to feeding raw. Most are referring to variety in proteins. But I don't limit it to that. :lol3: I provide a variety of types of raw food (ground, PMR, and whole prey where possible), and variety in calcium sources (eggshell, freeze dried bone, and fresh bone).

...and because they're not eating much of a variety in organs, I add the freeze dried stuff. I sprinkle a capsule of something (beef brain, spleen, pancreas, thymus) at each late night meal. Though Chumley gets thymus twice a day, every day. I can't afford the thymus peptide extract supplement for him ( http://www.worldantiagingstore.com/brands/dr-mulli-pharma/thym-uvocal-thymus-200-mg-90-capsules). Young bovine thymus is supposed to be very good for slowing down the progression of the FIV virus, so figure this is a good alternative. :heart2:

Three raw fed (partial) cats. Unless otherwise noted all meats are fed in PMR chunks

Mazy, Jennie, Queen Eva

For the record Jennie loves it ALL, but for the purpose of this poll, I've labeled her under like except for her extra special loves

Whole duck, cut up

Duck dark: 3 love
Duck gizzard: 3 love
Duck liver: 3 love
Duck heart: 3 love
Duck white: 3 love
Duck wings: 3 love
(what I call) bone mash: 3 love

In fact they all three go absolutely CRAZY over the duck I bought and cut up for them. It was worth every expensive penny and I am hoping I find another before this one gets used up.

Chicken breast: 3 like
Chicken gizzard: 1 love (Jennie), 2 like
Chicken liver: 3 like
Chicken thigh: 1 love (Mazy) 2 like


Whole Cornish hen, cut up
Cornish hen (all meat and organs chunked together) 1 love (Mazy) 2 like
Cornish hen wings 1 love (Jennie) 1 like (Queen Eva) 1 learning (Mazy)
Cornish hen 'bone mash': 2 love, 1 learning (Mazy)

Turkey breast: 3 like
Turkey gizzard: 1 love (Jennie) 2 like
Turkey thigh: 1 love (Mazy) 2 like

Beef: 1 love (Queen Eva) 1 like, Mazy doesn't eat beef

Rad Cat frozen ground (only Mazy and Queen Eva get this)
Chicken: 2 like
Turkey: 1 love (Mazy) 1 like
Lamb: 1 like (Queen Eva, Mazy doesn't eat lamb)

Freeze dried Stella&Chewy's
chicken: 3 like
duck&goose: 3 like

PureBites freeze dried chicken breast: 3 love

Dr Harvey's freeze dried turkey hearts: 3 love

Bravo freeze dried turkey hearts: 3 like

Bravo freeze dried duck hearts: 1 like, 2 dislike

Dr Harvey's freeze dried tripe: 1 love (Jennie) 2 dislike

Egg yolk: 3 likes, but they always need a topper to start.

Interesting thread!

Beef:

ground - 1 love, 1 like, 1 hate

strips - 1 like, 2 hate

liver - 3 hate

lamb ground  - 3 hate

duck ground - 3 hate

duck hearts - 1 tolerates if covered in FortiFlora, 2 hate

rabbit ground -  3 hate

goat ground - 3 hate

chicken:

breast strips - 2 like, 1 meh

thigh strips- 1 like, 2 meh

ground - 2 like, 1 meh

hearts - 1 like, 2 hate

gizzards - 3 hate

liver - 1 loves, 1 meh, 1 hate

turkey

ground - 1 love, 1 meh, 1 hate

thigh strips - 1 love, 1 likes, 1 hate

tenderloin strips - 1 love, 1 like, 1 hate

Pork

Ground - 3 hate

tenderloin or chop strips - 2 like, 1 meh

canned sardines - 3 hate

egg yolks - 3 hate

I think that covers what we've tried so far

LDG said:

Beef brain (freeze dried): 5 love it

Beef spleen (freeze dried): 5 like it.


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Where to you get these items?  I get the feeling they are in powdered form from a comment in a later post, but I even googled them and didn't get anything.  But since you these seem like a winner, I'm interested!!

And the lamb or beef pancreas. The pancreas, in fact, is their favorite. (It's a fatty organ - as is brain, which they also really love).

These are "glandular" supplements! There are many to choose from - the key to the search is using "glandular supplement" rather than freeze dried.

These are the products I use: http://www.nutricology.com/Glandulars-p-1-c-267.html The animals come from NZ (where there has never been a case of mad cow disease, for those worried about the beef brain).

I buy them on Amazon.

I rotate spleen, beef brain, pancreas, and thymus. No one's wild about the thymus, but they eat it. I give one capsule to each cat - just sprinkle it on their food.

They're expensive, so I don't always get the chance to stock up before I run out, which means it's not always something they get. But when we can afford it, we buy them (and stock up on them).

I was hoping that as there are four that hate fresh liver, but love freeze dried liver, that I would be able to substitute freeze dried kidney for fresh kidney. That's what put me on the hunt to begin with. But it didn't work out. Those that hate kidney, also hate the freeze dried kidney. :lol3: But this way, at least they're getting a rotation of other organs, and the 80/10/5/5 guideline isn't for liver and kidney - it's for liver and other secreting organ. I haven't done the math, but for everything except the beef brain (which are half-sized), I figure 7 capsules a week, and they're actually getting their 5% "other secreting organ" equivalent.

LDG,

You mentioned in another thread that your guys love ground pancreas.  I got some ground pancreas and spleen, as well as chicken and beef liver from mpc to use in the Blue Ridge Beef blends I got that don't have organs (beef/tripe, venison, quail).  Do your guys eat the pancreas by itself??  That stuff was really disgusting...lol.  It gagged me trying to mix it into the meat.  Tripe is a piece of cake compared to that stuff!!  All three are loving the venison tho...

I still have some organs in the freezer, so will order just enough meat to use them up next month.  I gotta admit tho.....i think I'm staying primarily with MPC and avoiding mixing the organs.....it is so much easier, and I'm lazy.  

Ok....here is my list so far:

Ground chicken....2 vote ok,1 votes no,  needs topper

Chicken thigh strips - 3 vote ok, sometimes love it

Chicken hearts - 3 vote ok, but don't push it

Chicken gizzards - 3 vote ok

Ground turkey - 3 vote no

Ground duck - ok, needs topper

Ground beef/tripe - 3 usually love it

Ground rabbit - 3 love it

Ground guinea hog (pork) - 3 love it

Ground quail - 3 vote ok, but sometimes no

Ground venison - 3 love it so far

Freeze dried turkey, chicken, liver - 3 love it

S&C Duck/Goose - 2 likes, 1 hate

S&C Chicken - 3 like, 1 wants it mushed up

S&C Turkey - 2 vote ok

Ground BRB kitten mix (beef, chicken, egg, bone, liver - 3 vote ok

Canned salt free, water packed sardines - 3 say ok, but once a week is enough

Salmon oil....they didn't like the Alaska brand so much, but do like the Lakse Kronch (but it is hard to find)

They don't like getting the same protein 2 meals in a row.  I mix 3 proteins every other weekend, and rotate them.  

LDG said:

And the lamb or beef pancreas. The pancreas, in fact, is their favorite. (It's a fatty organ - as is brain, which they also really love).

These are "glandular" supplements! There are many to choose from - the key to the search is using "glandular supplement" rather than freeze dried.

These are the products I use: http://www.nutricology.com/Glandulars-p-1-c-267.html The animals come from NZ (where there has never been a case of mad cow disease, for those worried about the beef brain).

I buy them on Amazon.

I rotate spleen, beef brain, pancreas, and thymus. No one's wild about the thymus, but they eat it. I give one capsule to each cat - just sprinkle it on their food.

They're expensive, so I don't always get the chance to stock up before I run out, which means it's not always something they get. But when we can afford it, we buy them (and stock up on them).

I was hoping that as there are four that hate fresh liver, but love freeze dried liver, that I would be able to substitute freeze dried kidney for fresh kidney. That's what put me on the hunt to begin with. But it didn't work out. Those that hate kidney, also hate the freeze dried kidney. :lol3: But this way, at least they're getting a rotation of other organs, and the 80/10/5/5 guideline isn't for liver and kidney - it's for liver and other secreting organ. I haven't done the math, but for everything except the beef brain (which are half-sized), I figure 7 capsules a week, and they're actually getting their 5% "other secreting organ" equivalent.

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Thank you! Are they very high in calories? ( I started to go into why I am asking here but deleted it, I won't derail this thread, will start another discussion.)

Great! Thanks so much all of you...keep it coming!

HarleyDiva said:

LDG,

You mentioned in another thread that your guys love ground pancreas.  I got some ground pancreas and spleen, as well as chicken and beef liver from mpc to use in the Blue Ridge Beef blends I got that don't have organs (beef/tripe, venison, quail).  Do your guys eat the pancreas by itself??  That stuff was really disgusting...lol.  It gagged me trying to mix it into the meat.  Tripe is a piece of cake compared to that stuff!!  All three are loving the venison tho...

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Really? I was only able to order ground (beef) pancreas from Hare Today twice (it's always on backorder, usually for weeks or a month). I was still gagging a bit bagging up kidney, but the pancreas didn't bother me. It's fatty and globby, but I don't remember it smelling strong. :dk:

otto said:

Thank you! Are they very high in calories? ( I started to go into why I am asking here but deleted it, I won't derail this thread, will start another discussion.)

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I just checked, and they don't provide calorie information. But I can't imagine it's a lot of calories - it's not much volume. :dk: I haven't had to adjust the amount of food I feed Ming Loy, and she's really my gauge.

LDG said:

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Really? I was only able to order ground (beef) pancreas from Hare Today twice (it's always on backorder, usually for weeks or a month). I was still gagging a bit bagging up kidney, but the pancreas didn't bother me. It's fatty and globby, but I don't remember it smelling strong.

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It didn't smell....it was the consistency that made me gag.....lol. I think I am intolerant of globby  ;-)  MPC had several varieties of pancreas.  I got beef and goat pancreas, and goat spleen (haven't opened that one yet).