Is this diet balanced?

Hi,

My 8 month old BSH has had ongoing allergy symptoms - scratching and over grooming etc. so I've recently switched him to a raw diet (against the advice of my vet who wanted to put him on the Hills z/d) and I wanted to check that I'm doing the right thing.

The only problem I've really had is getting him to eat bones, not helped by the fact he doesn't really like chicken. So I have been giving him calcium carbonate (which I'm aware is about 40% elemental calcium).

His diet currently is:
100-200g of kangaroo fillet or mince per day
2g elemental calcium per day (3 x 1.5mg calcium carbonate tablets crushed)
500mg krill oil per day
1 lamb kidney once a week
2 chicken livers once a week
84g tinned sardines once a week

Does this sound like it is nutritionally balanced?

Thanks,
Olivia

Hi, I am not sure about Kangaroo but, fish tends to hyperallergenic and may cause worse problems. My cat Remy just had to eat rabbit for 7 weeks and then we started re-introducing other foods. Turns out he has no food allergy. Chciken and other poultry does tend to be what cats are usually allergic to. My vet said to switch to 1 novel protein ( rabbit) and stick with it for 7 weeks and the slowly add other foods.I hope your kitty feels better soon

MsLiv said:

Hi,

My 8 month old BSH has had ongoing allergy symptoms - scratching and over grooming etc. so I've recently switched him to a raw diet (against the advice of my vet who wanted to put him on the Hills z/d) and I wanted to check that I'm doing the right thing.

The only problem I've really had is getting him to eat bones, not helped by the fact he doesn't really like chicken. So I have been giving him calcium carbonate (which I'm aware is about 40% elemental calcium).

His diet currently is:
100-200g of kangaroo fillet or mince per day
2g elemental calcium per day (3 x 1.5mg calcium carbonate tablets crushed)
500mg krill oil per day
1 lamb kidney once a week
2 chicken livers once a week
84g tinned sardines once a week

Does this sound like it is nutritionally balanced?

Thanks,
Olivia

Click to expand...

I'm not an expert on feeding this way anymore, and I'm in the U.S., so am also not used to grams (vs ounces), so cannot answer your question, but I CAN tell you that for the organ meats, they need to be a percentage of the overall.   So to say you feed 1 lamb's kidney and 2 chicken livers doesn't really mean anything unless we know how much they weigh in comparison to the kangaroo.  (at least that's the way I always did it) 

Have you seen this thread?  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264154/raw-feeding-resources   There is invaluable information within that thread to anyone feeding raw. 

Agree with indebtedness. Need to know weight of organs and you need to do percentage calculations. Regarding bone, you can feed egg shell instead. Some excellent threads about that too .

Ok, let me clarify the question. I have read heaps of information already and am having trouble working out what is correct and whether my calculations are accurate, That is why im asking for advice.

I've since changed the measurements a bit, and here they are in lb and oz:
- One lambs kidney is about 1.76 oz, same for 2 chicken livers so bit over 3 oz a week
- 200g of kangaroo mince a day which is about 3lb a week
- 5 calcium carbonate tablets a day which works out to be 0.77oz elemental calcium a week
- he also gets a small amount of kangaroo fillet by itself so I'm working to a slightly higher ratio of 1.5:1

I was using this nutrition calculator here as a guide http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/RecipeBasicnonmetric.htm

The % work out to be 93% kangaroo mince and 7% offal (the kidney and liver with half being liver).

The amount of calcium seems to be quite a lot though, more than what a human would have. Does that sound correct?

Ok let me clarify the question. I have read heaps of information already and wanted some assistance to confirm what I am doing is correct.

The current percentages he is getting is 93% kangaroo mince with 7% offal (kidney and liver which half is liver)

I have since changed the measurements slightly from the original post:
- 3lb of kangaroo mince a week
- 3.6oz offal (lamb kidney and chicken liver, half of which is liver)
- 0.77oz elemental calcium a week

One of my main concerns is that the calcium seems far too high, based on the fact that humans have only need half that amount. Or do cats need much more calcium than humans? Also are egg shells better than using calcium carbonate tablets (I have a mortar and pestle which works great for grinding).

I have been using knowwhatyoufeed . com site which has a nutritional calculator as a guide.

Forgot to add he also gets 0.12 oz of krill oil a week (how do I edit posts?)