Alnutrin question

Sophie and Abby you for the great explanations. I would still dilute the rabbit however,  I understand it is 16-20% bone. That is a bone heavy meat.For every 4 lbs bone in I add 1 lbs boneless. I also add Alnutrin for meat and bone for 5 lbs meat. I do that because while the mix certainly has enough calcium if you add only Alnutrin for the amount of meat with bone other nutrients would be lacking.

Maureen Bradley said:

 
I use capsules. The liquid goes rancid very quickly.

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I got the bottle of unscented Icelandic fish oil from Hare Today and keep it in the fridge.  I've had no problems with it going rancid.  It's very well packaged to prevent that. And btw the price is better on Amazon.

Hope your kitties enjoyed the rabbit LTS3!  Mine love the stuff, they come running like kids after an ice cream truck. 

The cats seem to like the HT rabbit grind with Alnutrin just fine I've been adding a small amount to their NV raw. I was worried that they wouldn't like Alnutrin since they're used to Better In The Raw. Forgot to get fish oil when I went to the supermarket today Maybe tomorrow....

Is it ok to add a little more water than called for in the Alnutrin instructions? I added exactly 1/2 cup of water to 2 pre-packaged packets of Alnutrin and 2 lbs of meat and the mixture seemed dry I added a little bit more water but didn't want to add too much and dilute out the Alnutrin.

So the pet store had HT ground goat, ground beef, ground pork, ground rabbit, ground turkey, ground mutton, and ground chicken in stock today. All are meat/bone/organs. I wanted to try the goat but the store's credit card thingy wasn't working and I only had enough cash on hand for the NV I do have to go back at some point when the boneless HT I ordered arrives.

Sophie- I am glad to hear that about the fish oil. Maybe I will try it when I go through my bottle of capsules. I like getting most everything in one place.

LTS3- Glad your cats like the HT rabbit. My cats had that for dinner tonight also. Yes, you can certainly add more water to the food. I add a little more at each meal.

Hi, everyone. I just joined today and have been reading as many posts as I can, but I have a question that I haven't seen the answer to: 

If one feeds a good raw mix, why do you need to add something like Alnutrin? I just bought the ground meat/bones/organs from Hare Today, but didn't think I needed the supplement. Is the raw ground missing something? 

Can I skip it while I'm transitioning my cats to raw? They are on canned only right now, with little pieces of pork chop or steak the past couple of days. I bought 20 lbs of meats (5 ea of chicken, beef, llama, and rabbit with fur). The next order I can include the supplement. Shipping is prohibitive. 

Thanks for your ideas!

EWG56 said:

 
Hi, everyone. I just joined today and have been reading as many posts as I can, but I have a question that I haven't seen the answer to: 

If one feeds a good raw mix, why do you need to add something like Alnutrin? I just bought the ground meat/bones/organs from Hare Today, but didn't think I needed the supplement. Is the raw ground missing something? 

Can I skip it while I'm transitioning my cats to raw? They are on canned only right now, with little pieces of pork chop or steak the past couple of days. I bought 20 lbs of meats (5 ea of chicken, beef, llama, and rabbit with fur). The next order I can include the supplement. Shipping is prohibitive. 

Thanks for your ideas!

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The pre-mix contains vitamins and minerals that are missing in a meat/bone/organ grind, such as taurine. There are different brands of pre-mixes available. Alnutrin has two, one for bonless, organless meats and one for meat with bones and organs. I was using Better In The Raw, which is for boneless organless meats. Alternatively, you could follow a recipie, such as the one at Catinfo.org, and add in the different supplements needed to make the food a complete diet. I find a pre-mix easier to deal with than various supplements.

If you are doing the prey model form of raw diet (80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, 5% other secreting organs), then you would not need to add in any supplements.

Since your cats are on canned food, you can give the Hare Today meats as is and as a treat or a small amount mixed into the canned.

The Nature's Made 1200 mg fish oil seems to be on sale everywhere this week: $5 at Target, BOGO at the pharmacies. Have to go get it later this week. More snow coming later tonight into Tuesday morning.

It's not that the grinds are missing taurine etc, but some nutrients tend to be destroyed or leached out in the grinding & freezing process.  We only know that one study at UC Davis with ground (presumably frozen) rabbit resulted in severe taurine deficiencies in some of the cats.

Once your cats are on a significant portion of raw you shouldn't delay supplementing more than a few weeks.  You can always order the Alnutrin separately.  Or dive in and get the individual supplements.  It's no more difficult than following a recipe (e.g. check out catnutrition.org) and you can get everything you need locally.  And for about half the price of Alnutrin!

Speaking of which thanks for the tip about nature made fish oil!

Thank you both for the answer. Just another thought that popped into my head: Why are we adding salmon/krill oil? Cats in the wild don't eat fish oil. What is depleted in the ground that is in the whole prey? This whole thing makes scientists of us all, and I can see why people might just give up and feed canned or dry. 

A little history on me: In 2007 I was on the frankenprey bandwagon. I got my neighbor and best friend to convert her dog to raw. We bought a freezer to share, and we shopped at the Asian market. I had 5 cats at the time, and it was a grueling but adventurous journey to convince them to eat raw. Then in February 2008, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I was so flummoxed and depressed, I couldn't take it any more, and went back to kibble. I could kick myself for doing that, but I was having difficulty wrapping my head around my OWN diet changes. I couldn't handle finicky cats, too. 

A few months ago I found Dr. Pierson's catinfo.org site and started on canned. I still free fed kibble. That was fine until I realized my 9mo old kitten was actually FAT. They went full canned,and now I'm back full circle to feeding raw again. This time I'm trying the ground because it appears more like canned in consistency. Once they are fine on that, I fully intend to introduce the frankenprey. 

I am so appreciative of this forum. Thank you for being so patient and answering the same questions over and over again!

Originally Posted by Abby2932  
 

All of the whole, ground animals above should have an acceptable amount of Meat/Bone/Organ in the grinds. All you have to do is add:

• 4 grams of Alnutrin (for Meat/Bone/Organ) to each 1lb of meat 
• 2,000mg or 3,000mg of fish oil (fish oil, salmon oil, krill oil are all acceptable forms of essential fatty acids) for each 1lb of meat
  • The reason you need to add fish oil is because Alnutrin does not include it in the premix. If you look at your BITR premix and all commercial (raw and cooked) cat food, you will see fish oil in the ingredients. Alnutrin does not include this and it is essential for balancing out the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio

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From Catinfo.org:

Fish oil is a good source of essential fatty acids... if your cat does not like fish, it is ok to use only 2,000 mg.  Do NOT use cod liver oil!  There is already plenty of vitamin A and D in the liver we are using.

Thanks! 

We use Alnutrin for our five cats raw turkey diet. We were adding fish oil, but, after talking to our holistic vet, she said she would not use the fish oil for the Omegas. Instead, she suggested using Chia seeds because they also offer the same Omegas, without the risk of mercury tainting fish oils. She said unless we can actually get proof of the source of the fish oil and the purity of it, it's not worth the risk. Our cats don't like fish flavored anything so we were fine using the Chia seeds instead.

 **In using them, make sure to SOAK them for about 10 minutes in a little water, you will see them "plump" up nicely. The reason for soaking them is because our vet explained chias absorb fluid, and we don't want that going on inside our cats, so simple soaking takes care of that, and gives them a good dose of the Omegas.

 She said a few times per week is good, and to give 1/4 tsp per cat as the dosing...Our cats don't even notice them in the mixture at all, so it's working fine and they are healthy cats, healthy fur, eyes, have never been sick.

 We have been on the raw diet plan for three years now...I hope this tip helps for those who do not want to use Fish oil for whatever reason...I know using the chia seeds is a nice option for those who are vegetarians too, even though our cats are carnivores...