Suitable meat mix for my two adult cats

Hello,

For several reasons, I have decided to put my cats on a raw meat diet. I own two adult (4 year old) spayed girls. Until now, they were mostly on kibble, but at least one of them absolutely loves raw meat and always gets a bit when I am cooking for myself.

The problem is, I am on a budget. I'm a PhD student living on a scientific grant, most of which is sadly spent on rent since I need a place big enough for two quite active kitties to run around.

I am considering three options:

1. buying meat from the grocery store and making my own mix - Probably the best solution, but meat here (Germany) is quite pricey. Also probably very messy in my small kitchen and I'm worried I wouldn't formulate the food properly.

2. buying premade BARF from this website: (https://www.zoobedarf-hitzegrad.de/katze/barf/gefluegel/) In German, unfortunately. The prices for the complete raw food are quite reasonable at 5 €/kg for chicken and 6 €/kg for duck. I have read that a cat should be fed roughly 2-4% of its ideal body weight in raw food, which results in about 135 grams per day for a 4.5 kg cat. That would cost me around 40 € per month for both cats, which is reasonable I think. I am however worried about the suitability of the food, since I don't know exactly what is in there!

3. buying a different meats from the same website, without supplements and making the mix myself: This is I think the cheapest option. The company sells all sorts of frozen meat intended for pets, as well as complete supplements (CarniZoo). I thought about buying a mix of minced chicken carcasses, livers, beef mix and minced 1-day-old chicks + the supplements. Does this sound like a good mix? It would be a bit messy, and I would have to thaw the meats, mix and portion them and then refreeze them though.

The website seems to have good reviews and the people there are quite helpful and reply to my questions, but ofc they are a bit biased when I ask them how good their food is

Any suggestions from someone wiser than me? Maybe a fourth option? I'd like a good cost:simplicity:healthiness ratio. Would a diet consisting of supplemented minced chicken carcasses be ok? What about whole day old chicks? The company recommends mice, but those are out of my budget...

Cheers!

About the pre made BARF food. If you copy and paste each ingredients list to this page https://translate.google.com/m/translate it should translate for you so you know what you're getting. Just make sure you enter the right languages in first

There are people here who can advise you on the 'frankenprey' model of raw feeding, if you'd prefer to go down that route (personally, I'm too squeamish to even think of trying it )

I've only taken a quick look at that web site but as far as your option #3 I don't think the minced chicken carcasses is suitable for use with the CarniZoo supplement. The supplement contains calcium and the mince appears to include bone. Mixing the two would result in a food very high in calcium. The supplement appears to be for use with boneless meats which likely will cost more than the bone-in options.

Thanks, that's what I thought! The idea was to have a bit of variety. Buy the basic chicken mix and use the supplements, then give them some carcasses/day old chickcs/livers/hearts on certain days. I like the idea of frankenpray, but it would be a bit difficult to pull off at the moment, with my small kitchen and lack of equipment (moved in a month ago and cats just joined me!) I have also been using google translate since I am not German, but it has its limits

Otherwise do you think sites like this can be trusted? In theory, if I buy the basic beef mix RIndermix performance
Or Rindermix Premium
It seems most of their meat contains 0.3 g per 1000g of calcium, though!

They have a lot to choose from and while it is tempting to just buy the cheapest meat they have, I don't want it to result in an unbalanced diet... I'm not sure what larynx, lung and udder fall under. It might be easiest and safest to just buy their complete BARF.

I bought a frozen package of beef cat mix the other day just to test the waters and strangely, the cats wouldn't touch it. Then when I started carving up a chicken breast for myself they were all over me. Maybe they eat only the best quality muscle meat XD Or the meat was a bit off, I had it in the fridge for more than 24 hours to thaw...

As another person who's not fed raw before, I would say it's safest to start with a ready made diet. It will also give you a chance to find out what meats they like best.

If you do want to jump straight in, mschauer is one of the most knowledgeable people here about making your own raw cat food.

Good luck, whatever you decide

SPombe said:

 
Thanks, that's what I thought! The idea was to have a bit of variety. Buy the basic chicken mix and use the supplements, then give them some carcasses/day old chickcs/livers/hearts on certain days. I like the idea of frankenpray, but it would be a bit difficult to pull off at the moment, with my small kitchen and lack of equipment (moved in a month ago and cats just joined me!) I have also been using google translate since I am not German, but it has its limits

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If by "basic chicken mix" you mean meat only then I'd say your plan sounds pretty good. 

Otherwise do you think sites like this can be trusted?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how we could know if they are trust worthy. I don't see anything on their web site that raises a red flag.  

  In theory, if I buy the basic beef mix RIndermix performance

Code:

Fillet meat, throat / lean meat , lung and udder

Or Rindermix Premium

Code:

Larynx , udder , lungs Protein: 13.5 % Fat: 13 % Ash : 1% Fiber: 0.6 % Humidity: 68 % Contains 0.3 per 1000 g of calcium .

It seems most of their meat contains 0.3 g per 1000g of calcium, though!

They have a lot to choose from and while it is tempting to just buy the cheapest meat they have, I don't want it to result in an unbalanced diet... I'm not sure what larynx, lung and udder fall under. It might be easiest and safest to just buy their complete BARF.

.

Click to expand...

I expect most of that calcium is from the larynx. Not surprisingly the USDA database doesn't have an entry for larynx. 

 I bought a frozen package of beef cat mix the other day just to test the waters and strangely, the cats wouldn't touch it. Then when I started carving up a chicken breast for myself they were all over me. Maybe they eat only the best quality muscle meat XD Or the meat was a bit off, I had it in the fridge for more than 24 hours to thaw...

Click to expand...

It's not at all uncommon for cats to not be wild about any given diet change. Some will scarf up anything put in front of them but some require a slow transition to a new food. 

SPombe said:

 
They have a lot to choose from and while it is tempting to just buy the cheapest meat they have, I don't want it to result in an unbalanced diet... I'm not sure what larynx, lung and udder fall under. It might be easiest and safest to just buy their complete BARF.

I bought a frozen package of beef cat mix the other day just to test the waters and strangely, the cats wouldn't touch it. Then when I started carving up a chicken breast for myself they were all over me. Maybe they eat only the best quality muscle meat XD Or the meat was a bit off, I had it in the fridge for more than 24 hours to thaw...

Click to expand...

They do have a pretty nice selection. The 'complete' might well be a good foods for you to start with. I can't find any thing on the site that specifies what they mean by 'complete' though. It appears that they label a mix of meat, bones and organs plus some taurine as 'complete'. Such a mix could well be nutritionally complete by some standard. Hard to say for sure.

For the mixes they show the calcium/phosphorus ratio which is helpful. Generally you want that ratio to be below 1.5 :1. At least one of the mixes I looked at had a ratio > 1.6. That's not excessively high but if you feed it you might want to keep an eye on your cats feces to be sure it doesn't get terribly dry and hard which can lead to constipation. Probably not a realistic concern at just 1.6 though.

Edit: I would definitely get some of their chicken hearts. They are very nutritious and a great size for snacking. Given whole they also provide something to exercise their jaws. Don't be surprised if you have to cut them into smaller pieces at first. Hopefully they'll eventually get the idea to chew on them.

Thanks for the advice! I agree, you can't really know how trustworthy the site is but you know, sometimes when you're new to something you miss stuff that pros would notice immediatelly. Or maybe there are some Germans here who used it No red flags then, great!

The "complete" food is the stuff they call "FertigBarf". It's a mix of meat and giblets (hopefully some vitamin rich stuff) with taurine, yes. I think I'll try that for starters and see how it goes. The mouse thing though, wouldn't day old chicks be nearly perfect as well? They are quite cheap and come in nice minced packages (pretty gruesome ). At least that's what the people at the store suggested, since mice are a bit out of my budget.

Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my cats goes crazy for any kind of raw meat, that's why I was surprised when she didn't want the beef mix. I never thought she could refuse to eat meat, it hasn't happened before  

I would guess the day old chicks would be good as part of a rotation of other things. I would just question whether being immature might mean their nutritional profile isn't quite up to that of a mature animal.

SPombe said:

Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my cats goes crazy for any kind of raw meat, that's why I was surprised when she didn't want the beef mix. I never thought she could refuse to eat meat, it hasn't happened before  

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If the mix included supplements, that could be what she didn't like. Some people find they have to introduce supplements to the food slowly for just that reason.

Or could be she just enjoys making you crazy. That happens a lot to. 

One more, rather important question!

Any meat I'd buy would come frozen, in rather large packages. Would it be all right to defrost the meat, mix with supplements, portion and refreeze? From a microbiological point of view it should be fine, as long as it is done in the fridge or quickly in a bag with some hot water. I am more worried about the supplements and taste.

Also, do you have any suggestions about supplements? The website offers two, CarniZoo is the complete one that has everything and is (strangely) cheaper but I suppose it should only be used with muscle meat. The other one, EasyBarf is meant to be used in a proper meat, liver, heart, kidney, bone mix. Probably better for the cats, but much less affordable time and money wise.

So are there any quality supplement brands you could recommend out there? Ease of use and cost are factors as well!

(Usually her love of meat is stronger than everything else. You can literally spray her with water while she's eating and she won't care. Apparently she just doesn't like lower quality meat, even non-supplemented... I might make a broth out of it for myself when I'm feeling extra adventurous. Can't be much worse than what usually goes into hotdogs )

I can't comment on supplements, but every home made raw diet recipe I've seen involves thawing the meat, mixing in the supplements, portioning and the re freezing.

It's odd that the CarniZoo costs so much less. Maybe you have to use more of it than the EasyBarf? I don't see usage instructions for either. The EasyBarf oddly gives instructions for using it with cooked meat but not raw.

It is best to get as many nutrients as possible from food sources so the EasyBarf so viewed objectively it, along with a suitable meat/bone/organ mix), would be best. Something to consider is that ground mixes that include bone sometimes contain what some people consider bone pieces that are too large to be safely swallowed or the bone pieces have sharp points that make them unsafe. You might want to get as small a portion of one of their bone-in mixes as you can and see what the bone pieces are like. That might decide the issue for you.