Whole-animal grinds - beef and mutton

I would appreciate hearing opinions about whole-animal grinds of larger mammals, specifically beef and mutton grinds. mypetcarnivore has them at a reasonable price. Would you add liver?

I use Dr. Pierson's recipe for rabbit and do not add liver, but I don't know if the larger animals would have the same ratio of muscle to organ meat. I feed the beef and mutton in addition to rabbit because my cat developed an allergy to chicken after a while, and I am afraid that sticking to rabbit might cause the same problem.

I read the ingredients in the products you mention, and it specifically mentions liver, along with this language: "The average prey animal has about 10% to 15% bone, about 10% organs, and the rest muscle and fat and connective tissue. That is Mother Nature's model and therefore our model ratio for all of our Whole Ground products." Personally I would not add liver. However, I would dilute the ground with a piece of meat/lamb because it is a little high in bone for my cat.
Do know that I fed prey model raw, and my expertise isn't in whole ground. Though I do like the idea of feeding whole animal ground, including fur, so Ritz would get a taste of other organs, like gulet and pancreas. She is an advertous eater, likes chicken heads, didn't know what to do with a chicken foot.

The only thing about those is they only come in a coarse grind, not a fine grind. And since they are larger animals, the bones in the coarse grind will be larger/denser and difficult for cats to eat.

I've actually heard from someone on this forum that the course grind of chicken and rabbit from Hare Today has large/dense bones that their cats leave behind. That was disappointing for me because I was interested in getting the coarse grind rabbit so my cats could get a little "chewing action" from it. But I didn't end up getting it.

However, if you are familiar with coarse grinds and your cat can handle it, I would not be concerned with adding liver. The mix says it comes with meat/bones/organs so you should be fine. 

I do agree with and commend you for wanting to add other proteins to your cats diet. Variety is very important. It is a bummer that My Pet Carnivore only offers 2 fine-grinds (turkey and rabbit). Is your cat allergic to all poultry or just chicken? Would you be able to try the turkey?

Ritz and Abby, thank you for responding. Your advice is very helpful.

Abby, I have tried both the fine and coarse grinds from mypetcarnivore. I prefer the coarse. My cat leaves the larger bones behind, but he does seem to be chewing/tearing the larger pieces of meat. I add boneless beef (chuck roast) in large chunks, both to dilute the bone and to make him work instead of gulping down his food. I plan to try the rabbit and beef chunks from mypetcarnivore next time, because like you, I am looking for "chewing action" and dental cleaning, and the chunks would provide that.

On a related note, I found some veal kidney at the international market recently. It was a lot chewier than I expected - it looked almost like gizzards in the center. For some reason, the regular price of veal organs was less than half the price of the beef organs, which makes no sense. Heart seems to be chewy too. I tried (on kitty) both goat and lamb, and both seem chewy.

Our vet initially recommended that we avoid all poultry. I am very carefully reintroducing chicken - the very occasional neck or wingtip, for dental benefits. Quail is very expensive around here, otherwise I would try it. Trying turkey is a great suggestion. Thank you!

In case others are reading who may not know: heart is considered a muscle meat, not organ. It has a fair amount of taurine (a good thing).