Received Hare Today Order: Nervous and Seeking Advice Please!!!!

I received the following in my first Hare Today order:

Alnutrin for bone in meat grinds

1 lb. Boneless Ground Chicken Breast

1 lb Boneless Ground Turkey Thigh

2 lbs Chicken Gizzards (for dental health, I hope!)

1 lb Fine Ground Beef/Organ/Tripe/Bone

1 lb Ground Chicken Organs

1 lb Fine Ground Chicken/Bones/Organs

1 lb Fine Ground Rabbit/Bones/Organs

1 lb Ground Turkey Organs

1 lb Fine Ground Turkey/Bones/Organs

I wanted to start out with a minimal 10 lb order and see how it goes, but also try a variety  with my 14 week old Siberian kittens.  They are very healthy on Rad Cat (chicken and turkey, which is all that I can get here locally) twice daily, as well as Primal Nuggets (rabbit and pork), as well as Primal freeze dried chicken and salmon.  They are fed 4 times daily and do get a variety of wet food for the noon meal.  So far, they are not picky eaters but devour the Rad Cat, most of the time.   I also have the Krill Oil due to arrive any day now from Amazon.

They have had no issues whatsoever and I hoping to keep it that way.  I'm really nervous of messing something up with this first attempt at homemade.  Can someone give me recommendations as to what they would do with the order above?  Also, how should I introduce the gizzards?  Is there bone in this? I'm nervous that they may swallow the bone and have an intestinal blockage.  Can this happen?  I know that it would be great for their teeth but I'm SO nervous of giving it to them...any advice or recommendations would be terrific!!!

I have done some reading on the Hare Today site, as well as other posts here but still looking for some additional guidance

The only thing I would suggest is you may not have enough boneless meat for your poultry grinds. the turkey and chicken grinds are really high in bone, and really need to be diluted, it looks like you only have 2lbs of boneless meat and organs, so you probably don't have enough to dilute those grinds properly. You might want to start with rabbit or beef, because both of those have much lower bone content. Organs are hit or miss with a lot of cats, you want to be careful you don't feed too much organs because they can trigger diarrhea. 

Here's a calc to figure out how much boneless you need to add to dilute those grinds. The chicken is 27% bone which is SUPER high, you want it down around 10, especially because you've been feeding RC which does not use bone. 

http://www.rawcalc.org/dilute-bone-content.html

One more note - HT rabbit/bones/organ grinds contain thyroid, so ideally you don't want to use alnutrin with that one because alnutrin already has iodine added. I don't think it's an issue for your first batch (I used alnutrin a few times before I realized this and my cats are fine), but if your cats like it you'll want to supplement separately. 

For the chicken and turkey, I would personally make the batch like this:

Assuming the chicken & turkey is 68% Meat, 27% Bone and 5% Organ (According to Hare Today)

~1lb of ground ck/turk meat/bone/organ
~1lb boneless ck/turk breast/thigh
~0.5lb (1/2lb) ground ck/turk organs
+ Appropriate amount of Alnutrin and Krill Oil

TOTAL BATCH = 2.5 pounds

This would bring you to APPROXIMATELY

80% Meat, Heart, Gizzard
11% Bone
9% Liver

Plus, you're feeding a few treats of gizzard on the side a few times a week (which are indeed boneless by the way) and that will reduce the bone content of the total diet a tiny bit. Throw in a fresh egg yolk once or twice a week and that will help reduce bone content as well. (You don't need to add extra egg, the Alnutrin has it in there but I give my cats en extra yolk once a week)

If your cats look constipated or if you think their stools are just too hard, pick up some extra boneless chicken from the grocery and feed them a few extra treats of it a day until the batch is gone and adjust your second batch with more boneless meat.

Abby2932 said:

For the chicken and turkey, I would personally make the batch like this:

Assuming the chicken & turkey is 68% Meat, 27% Bone and 5% Organ (According to Hare Today)

~1lb of ground ck/turk meat/bone/organ
~1lb boneless ck/turk breast/thigh
~0.5lb (1/2lb) ground ck/turk organs
+ Appropriate amount of Alnutrin and Krill Oil

TOTAL BATCH = 2.5 pounds

This would bring you to APPROXIMATELY

80% Meat, Heart, Gizzard
11% Bone
9% Liver

Plus, you're feeding a few treats of gizzard on the side a few times a week (which are indeed boneless by the way) and that will reduce the bone content of the total diet a tiny bit. Throw in a fresh egg yolk once or twice a week and that will help reduce bone content as well. (You don't need to add extra egg, the Alnutrin has it in there but I give my cats en extra yolk once a week)

If your cats look constipated or if you think their stools are just too hard, pick up some extra boneless chicken from the grocery and feed them a few extra treats of it a day until the batch is gone and adjust your second batch with more boneless meat.

Click to expand...

Thank you SO much!  I will try the chicken and turkey grinds as you suggest.  I have it currently all thawing in the fridge.  However, since it will be thawed enough to add the Alnutrin, I wanted to mix it up tomorrow and refreeze into separate containers.  But the Krill oil has not arrived from Amazon and I'm not seeing that it's shipped.  Is there an alternative to this that I could buy locally? Will any fish oil do the trick? I would hate for it to be bitter...or could the krill oil be added as I thaw the individual containers?  Maybe I should have just gotten the salmon oil from HT.  Also, could I add just a bit of Rad Cat as I'm trying to get them acquainted with the taste of this new food?  Would this be good since it's bone free?

missmimz said:

 
One more note - HT rabbit/bones/organ grinds contain thyroid, so ideally you don't want to use alnutrin with that one because alnutrin already has iodine added. I don't think it's an issue for your first batch (I used alnutrin a few times before I realized this and my cats are fine), but if your cats like it you'll want to supplement separately. 

Click to expand...

Thanks so much for this reminder!  I believe that I did read that but had forgotten it.

missmimz said:

 
The only thing I would suggest is you may not have enough boneless meat for your poultry grinds. the turkey and chicken grinds are really high in bone, and really need to be diluted, it looks like you only have 2lbs of boneless meat and organs, so you probably don't have enough to dilute those grinds properly. You might want to start with rabbit or beef, because both of those have much lower bone content. Organs are hit or miss with a lot of cats, you want to be careful you don't feed too much organs because they can trigger diarrhea. 

Here's a calc to figure out how much boneless you need to add to dilute those grinds. The chicken is 27% bone which is SUPER high, you want it down around 10, especially because you've been feeding RC which does not use bone. 

http://www.rawcalc.org/dilute-bone-content.html

Click to expand...

This is hugely helpful!  Thank you!!

M and Ms Mom said:

 
Thank you SO much!  I will try the chicken and turkey grinds as you suggest.  I have it currently all thawing in the fridge.  However, since it will be thawed enough to add the Alnutrin, I wanted to mix it up tomorrow and refreeze into separate containers.  But the Krill oil has not arrived from Amazon and I'm not seeing that it's shipped.  Is there an alternative to this that I could buy locally? Will any fish oil do the trick? I would hate for it to be bitter...or could the krill oil be added as I thaw the individual containers?  Maybe I should have just gotten the salmon oil from HT.  Also, could I add just a bit of Rad Cat as I'm trying to get them acquainted with the taste of this new food?  Would this be good since it's bone free?

Click to expand...

I add fish oil when i serve it, rather than when i mix batches up, just squeeze a few drops on top. I use salmon oil. Totally fine to mix in Rad Cat if you want. I mix RC with HT all the time because my cats prefer RC. You want to mix it up when you serve it, not when you're mixing in the alnutrin. 

So good to know about the RC mixing in, as well as adding the fish oil when I serve it.  Can't wait to give it a try tomorrow!  

Thanks again!!!  

I make the recipe in those same proportions:  1 part whole chicken/turkey grind, 1/2 part organ grind, 1 part boneless meat, plus supplements as per the catinfo.org recipe INCLUDING lite salt.

The only difference is that I don't buy boneless grinds.  I get boneless meat in chunks (poultry thigh or breast, pork trim, venison cubes, chicken or duck hearts, gizzards).  I cut them up with scissors and add them to the mix.  It's a bit more work, admittedly, but it lets me keep up my free feeding program and gives my cats chunky food to chew on all day long, without worrying about imbalances.

Gizzards are great for chewing and my cats love them.   It's easiest to cut them with kitchen scissors.  I keep a pair that is designated for use on raw meat. Start small, because until the kitties learn to scissor off pieces they'll swallow the chunks whole and then hork them back up.   Then gradually increase the size of the chunks, making them long & thin to get them to learn the scissoring skill.  Be patient, as it might take time.  And stock up on paper towels and carpet stain cleaner :-).

Once they are eating chunks:  if you are meal-feeding, you could simplify your life by not mixing chunk & ground together. For whatever reason, my cats love the combination, but if I weren't free feeding I'd definitely keep them separate and just alternate meals between ground & chunks.

Thanks so much for the tips! I got the chicken gizzards and cut off some smaller chunks. They are completely uninterested. I put them in the bowl with the Rad Cat and Hare today but they eat around them. I did leave them fairly decent size chunks so maybe even smaller would be better. I would love to get them eating chunky food. I haven't attempted the teeth brushing yet but doubt they will tolerate that one well! They don't seem to be thrilled with the Hare Today but will eat it mixed in with Rad Cat or canned food. I will definitely keep trying though!

They not uninterested, they just don't know what to do with food that isn't ground yet.  They'll learn quickly, don't worry!  You do want to start small though.  Try pieces no larger than your pinkie fingernail.  You can either mix them into their food, or sprinkle a treat on top to get them to try it, if needed.

Oh wow! That's wonderful information to know. I cut the pieces up much larger than my pinkie thumbnail. I am going to slice them much smaller.