Need help putting together my first raw order

mzalisakay

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So we've been going on 2.5 weeks with nothing but 100% commercial raw. It's been going great. It's pre-made and says complete and balance meal for the ones with the supplements. I have 4 questions but I'm a novelist so here's my story/questions lol....

I bought a bigger 5lb tub and I guess those don't come with supplements unless ordered ahead of time. It's whole cornish hen that has all the bones, organs, and meat included, but no supplement. I asked if there were supplements I can purchase to add (it's a pet deli) and they said that it's pretty complete as is. I thought since it's ground that I would want supplements or at least taurine added. But I figured she knows what she's talking about. Is she correct and I should not worry as much? Because I do switch between cornish hen (not supp), chicken (supplemented) and turkey (supplemented). It's already portioned into 1.5 oz bags so I wouldn't even know how much to add to the little portion & they'd eat it about once a day.

I was thinking of buying Vit E, B-complex, fish oil, and taurine anyways to add to my other order of raw. I ordered more food through a group buy. I need help putting it together or at least see if my general outline of their (the cats') menu is okay.

30 lbs of coarse ground beef

1 lb of spleen

6 lbs of tongue

10 lbs of ground turkey

10 lbs of ground chicken

1 lb turkey liver

I was talking to someone who helped put my order together and she said since I was worried about cats' feces being possibly too light, they may have too much bone in diet. The turkey and chicken are higher than the rec'd 10% so she said do 2/3 boneless protein (ground beef and tongue) and 1/3 poultry with bone. None of them have organs included so she said I should order about 1lb each of liver and spleen/kidney. Again, I asked about supplements and she said at most taurine and fish oil. Does that sound okay as a complete and balanced meal?

This also goes back the 5lb commercial tub of cornish hen. I've read that cornish hen has lots of bone? So if I am already a little concerned about my cat having too much in their diet, I also purchased an additional 6lbs of tongue to add into their bowl whenever they do have cornish hen. I was thinking that sort of... balances it out more?

Also, how do I portion out the liver/spleen and how many times should I feed per week? She said ice cube trays and give them some every couple of days but I feel like... that's too cavalier. I need specific numbers and formulations, LOL. 

I'm all over the place with this lol. But I have 20 lbs of commercial food in freezer and now, approx 3 months worth of food coming in about a month. I'm excited! With this group buy, it put me down to about 0.55 cents per day to feed both my cats :)

Thanks for the help and for reading my novella!
 

ritz

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Cornish hen that has all the bones, organs, etc., is in my opinion a complete meal, supplementation not needed. It don't think it would hurt to add fish oil (for the Omegas) or taurine, but I don't see the need.
When you say chicken (supp) and turkey (supp) is this product from a company or supplemented by you and if so, with what?
And who is grinding the meat? I ask that because if it is in a grocery store, nutrients may be lost in the process. Not quite as much will be lost if you grind your own meat. If a company like Hare Today, maybe not so much depending on quality control.
Also, the company you're getting the ground meat from might be able to tell you the percentage bone. Some commercial raw (Natures Variety?) has more bone than other companies. Some raw feeder do as you do: add some extra meat/protein to decrease the bone percentage.
Regarding bone: first, I take it you have more than one cat.... Ritz does best on about 7 to 8% bone (mainly from rabbit), learned that the hard way. Other cats may do fine on 10%. The key is in the poop: how hard is it? Does it crumby easily? Or not at all?
I don't know about the spleen/liver, someone else I'm sure will. Ice cubes hold roughly one ounce of meat/organ and is a convenient way to freeze smaller sizes of organs for later use.
Good luck! And, lucky cats :)
 

abby2932

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Whenever you feed a ground diet, it should always be supplemented. So if you have a 5lb tub of whole, ground cornish hen, I would not feel comfortable feeding it without supplements even though you are rotating it with other supplemented ground poultry meals.

I have read that a whole cornish hen is approximately 39% bone, much higher than most other poultry. I got that information from this website below. It is an article for feeding dogs Prey Model Raw diets but if you look at pages 21-23, there is a chart of bone percentages for common prey that I find useful and look at from time to time when preparing meals for my cats.

http://puppybutt.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/9/2/7692088/beginners_guide_to_prey_model_raw_rv.4.1.pdf

In regards to your 2/3 boneless meat to 1/3 poultry combination to decrease bone percentage....I would do the opposite. I would make a batch of 2/3 poultry with bones to 1/3 boneless but only because I'm incredibly scared of not giving my cats enough calcium and if your pet deli does not specify the exact percentage of bone in their formula, I would be too scared of diluting the bone too much. If your cats seem constipated or their poop is too light and crumbly, you can always just add some boneless chicken or beef to their dinner to bring down the bone content and adjust your next batch of food to be a little less bone-heavy. It really depends on how much bone your cats can handle. My cats eat about 13-15% bone in their total diet and they are doing great on it but some cats will not do well with that much bone.

Your last question about the organs...if you're feeding a ground diet, *I would think* you would want to feed ground organs too. Your organs should be about 10% of the diet, half of that must be liver). So if you're making a 5lb batch of food,  you would use 4.5lb ground meat/bone that you're buying from your pet deli, 4oz of liver and 4oz of spleen. Mix it all together with your supplements and portion it out.

You can use this baby food mill (or something similar) to grind your organs. It is only $10. It will not grind bones but organs are pretty squishy and easy to grind so I would assume that this baby food mill will do the job for you.

 
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mzalisakay

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@Ritz  The chicken and turkey that are supplemented are from a pet deli shop that does premade ground raw. They grind it in the deli right there every weekend and add their own supplement mix which consists of (Wild Artic Salmon Oil, Organic Safflower Oil, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Alfalfa Powder, Organic Kelp, Organic Dulse Flakes, Vitamin-Mineral Mix w/ Tuarine). It's frozen and I usually go purchase on day of grind.

Hmm, cornish hen according to their nutrient profiles says 19.1 calcium, 13.8 phosphorous and Ca:p ratio would be 1.4

I'm having problem deciphering the poop in general. I'm not sure what's considered too firm and just right and what colors are okay. There's no picture guide anywhere LOL. No consistency guide. I had to watch a video of a raw fed cat pooping the other day to get an idea and the size at least looks the same as my cat. The poop is odorless. It's just a matter of me figuring out how to read the poop so I know when their diet isn't quite right.

I just dumped out all of the litter and forgot to check before dumping. So I had to go back into the 13 gallon garbage bag and dig for poo. Fun time. The one little piece I managed to find was quite firm. It was hard to squish. Or maybe I'm weak... which I am, lol. It wasn't chalky. There was what looked like fur/hair in there when it eventually crumbled. I saw a drop of blood at the ends so I'm thinking it's too firm? 

@Abby2932  Yes, I've read that ground always requires supplement because of loss in at least taurine so that's why I asked. So I will add taurine and fish oil at the least. It just seems so complicated because it's in 1 oz portions now. So I'm not sure on how to approach in adding the right amount of taurine and fish oil. I'm not worried about taurine, apparently they can't overdose. Fish oil though...to figure out what amount they may be getting from other portions and how much to add to each 1 oz serving....maybe I'm over-complicating things.

It's confusing because I'm talking about two different suppliers. The corn hen tub is from one supplier - the deli which has the calcium/phosporous ration of 1.4. I am adding tongue to this whenever I feed it so that their poops aren't so pale. This tub, and the supplemented chicken and turkey are all they're eating right now... and I feel like they're getting too much bone from this premade raw. I mentioned this when talking to second supplier ---

The 30lb boneless beef, 6 lb tongue from the list that I'm mixing with 10lb chicken and 10lb turkey, that's from the second supplier that has the higher recommended 10% bone percentage in the 10lb bags. She said to do 2/3 boneless meat since they already may have too much calcium in their current diet with the tubs. I'm not introducing that until next month when I receive it all. It kind of balances it all out so I'm told. I'll figure out how to read their poop ..... like they're freaking tarot cards. 

But then I wanted complete meals so I asked what else do I need to add besides supplements to this mix since I'm not used to mixing things myself. She said organs were not included. I obviously didn't factor it in correctly because I only got 1 lb of each. And you're right... why the hell wouldn't I just grind that in and consider the 80/10/5/5 model. See? I over complicate things lol. Thanks so much for the help. 

................

Next time I'll factor that in when placing big orders I need to put together myself. Figuring out supplements from that should be easy as well when they're not portioned out into 1 oz baggies. As far as premade, I'm ordering ahead of time to avoid adding supplements myself lol. And adding in a bit of boneless meat on the side since they seem to have too much bone in general for my cats' diets. My kids aren't this difficult LOL
 
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mzalisakay

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Would you ever add more water to all this? Going off of Pierson's recipe, doesn't really apply here, but I'm wondering if I should go ahead an add bone broth or water if it works.
 

ritz

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I've recently learned that just because stool is hard doesn't necessarily mean you're feeding too much bone; other factors may be in play (not sure what those factors are, though--hydration?).
Here is a thread all about poop, size and consistency, with lots of pictures :)

I don't know much about Ca:p ratios, I do know cats with certain medical conditions need to be very cognizant of this.
Good luck!
 
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