pre packaged raw diets

As I've been researching raw food & getting opinions about boneless meals, I wanted to ask opinions about the majority of the food available, which has bone in it. Please let me know if you feed this/have fed & what your experiences are with it.

These are the foods I would consider feeding. I think that any of these commercially prepared foods are balanced & complete, and are ok to feed every day. I'm looking for products to pull out of the freezer & feed, I don't want to mix or add anything. Well I guess you have to add water to the freeze dried food, but that's not a big deal.

Vital Essentials freeze dried

Primal freeze dried nuggets

Feline Natural freeze dried

Primal frozen raw nuggets

Primal frozen raw Pronto

Small batch sliders

Feline Natural frozen

Nature's Variety raw

Steve's Real Food

I also want to add Barf, has anyone tried that for your cat?

I feed mainly NV raw, the medallions for meals and the Raw Bites for Leroy's snacks. Sometimes I feed Northwest Naturals frozen raw for Leroy's snacks.

My cats have been eating NV for 6 years. The only issue I've ever had was with the old NV raw dog / cat formula. A medallion had a large bone fragment in it and it got stuck in between Emma's teeth. Fortunately I was able to remove it myself. I took a picture of the large bone fragment (it was nearly the same size as a dime) and sent it to NV with a complaint. The company apologized and said that occasionally a large-ish piece of bone fragment makes it way past the grinders and into the product. I think I got a coupon for a free bag.

The NV medallions are hard to find in stores. I usually have to order them at the independent pet store. The medallions take up to a day to fully defrost enough for a cat to eat so you kind of have to plan out meals. Or you can do a quick thaw by putting the medallion in a baggie and letting that sit in running cold water until it thaws. I put 8 medallions into a container and let it defrost in the fridge. When the container is empty, I wash it out and refill it and put it back in the fridge to defrost. The Raw Bites thaw within 10 minutes at room temperature. I just fill a container with some Raw Bites and let that defrost in the fridge.

NV sometimes has coupons for the raw food. You sign up on their web site.

w0w 6 years, that's great. I've been feeding NV Instinct canned ever since my kitties were mere kittens so I am familiar with their food products & I'm signed up for their coupons, which don't come very often by the way. I like the raw bites better cause they defrost faster than the medallions & sometimes the kitties don't eat it all. For me the bites provide less waste.

I use the raw boost mixers & minis as treats, all the kitties eat them. I saw they have a new product, the raw market nuggets, I'll have to get a bag of those & see how the cats respond.

I fed Primal Freeze Dried before and liked it for awhile. But then both of my cats started flat out refusing about every third bag. I'm guessing Primal isn't 100% consistent with every batch, so one bag of Thirkey FD tasted different from the next. Not a big deal if you don't have picky cats, but I got sick of buying bags that they wouldn't touch.

I currently feed all RadCat, and my cats love it. It's just thaw and serve. You do need to thaw it in the fridge ahead of time, but that's not a big deal to me. I pre-portion ahead of time, but my cats would eat a 16 oz container in 2 days so I technically don't have to. RadCat also uses eggshell instead of bone.

I'm not sure I understand how to do this so please don't misunderstand or get mad. I had to feed my kidden with an eye dropper, then he got old enough, wouldn't touch raw meat, but ate off my plate when he was about 6 months old, now loves chicken but won't touch beef. Guess I taught him? I dunno.

I'm feeding my oldest cat some Primal freeze dried right now in rotation with Instinct Raw Market and a little Stella and Chewy. My other likes all like Feline Natural's freeze dried, which I use sometimes as a snack. None of my cats would ever touch Primal, Instinct, or S&C frozen. I feed a lot of Rad Cat, mine are nuts for it. I've heard good things about Small batch but I'm not 100% sold that their sliders are a complete food. They claim that they use natural sources for all the vitamins and minerals, but I can't see that on the ingredients list. 

Vital Essentials freeze dried for cats are super hard kibble bits that don't rehydrate well. 

thanks everyone, I'm making my notes!

msserena said:

As I've been researching raw food & getting opinions about boneless meals, I wanted to ask opinions about the majority of the food available, which has bone in it. Please let me know if you feed this/have fed & what your experiences are with it.

These are the foods I would consider feeding. I think that any of these commercially prepared foods are balanced & complete, and are ok to feed every day. I'm looking for products to pull out of the freezer & feed, I don't want to mix or add anything. Well I guess you have to add water to the freeze dried food, but that's not a big deal.



Vital Essentials freeze dried
Primal freeze dried nuggets
Feline Natural freeze dried


Primal frozen raw nuggets
Primal frozen raw Pronto
Small batch sliders
Feline Natural frozen
Nature's Variety raw
Steve's Real Food

Click to expand...

Have you tried Rad Cat? If I could afford it, all 3 of mine would be switched to it tomorrow. It is really good food and one that my 3 picky eaters love. They only get it occasionally.

http://www.radfood.com/

just when I think I'm making progress & understanding raw food a little more, I'll read something that will take it all away. The more I read about feeding ground bone, the more I'm hesitant to do it. It's crazy that the majority of food for cats has ground bone. I would like to think it's all balanced, but look at canned options, the majority of them in my eyes are not worth feeding!

I guess the only way to really balance things out is to feed everything, canned, chunks of meat with bone, chunks without bone, ground with bone, ground without & whole animals. Just when I'm trying to save money on cat food, it goes the opposite way.

Kat0121 said:

Have you tried Rad Cat? If I could afford it, all 3 of mine would be switched to it tomorrow. It is really good food and one that my 3 picky eaters love. They only get it occasionally.

http://www.radfood.com/

Click to expand...

yes I feed that, this thread was for food with bone, I have another one without bone.

WOW, you folks are driving me crazy

Samantha is my "fatcat"

She is almost 16yrs old.

Has never eaten wet food, I've tried several different brands.

On this and other Cat Sites, I have read that cats should be fed raw since they are hunters

Had a vet. come see her for another problem (hairwings on her back by her tail).

He fixed that with a FURMINATOR which worked great...

The Vet. put her on Dr. Hills diet food which she actually likes but she still beggs for her treats

and I don't have the heart to say "NO" all the time but she gets only a few compared to the 

handfull I used to give her

Now, I get another email about "raw" food again....and have no idea what to really do.

When Samantha lays on the floor or couch on her stomach, she spreads out on her sides

She will only eat dry food and prefer chicken flavor. Treats are also dry and hard but they are Tuna flavor.

I'm disabled so preparing meals is a problem.

Is there any place to get a real answer as to what a cat should really eat or is it just "in the mind

of the little furrie persons owner" ?  

NV Medallions and sometimes the patties*

I have two Main Coons and they get raw 1-2x/week.  I much prefer the medallions over the bites because they cost less per oz.   Patties are also good if I want to give them more raw meals(Raw for that day).

*Yes the patties no longer have taurine, but that's what those cheap 500 mg capsules are for. Mix the powder into the food and good to go.

I called & talked to the owner of a pet store out here that sells a lot of raw food, they have about 30 freezers. She's been feeding raw for over 20 years & she said the main thing is to switch it up. Feed everything, the more variety the better. I asked her about the bone vs no bone & she said she's never had a problem with feeding ground bone & hasn't heard of anyone else having problems. Then I mentioned phosphorus, kidney issues, calcium ratios & she said most commercial foods are good to feed. She said she stopped making her own food & uses store bought products now.

She also mentioned that when a cat kills something out in the wild it's a lot thinner than when animals are raised for food. She said the meat to bone ratio would be more with commercial food because they  will have more meat on them.

She asked me what I've been feeding my cats & told her NV Instinct. She said she stopped carrying that food because they started sourcing from China, use different animals organs other than the main one (rabbit & lamb uses pork liver, pork liver is cheaper I guess), not quality meat & high in fat. She said she also stopped carrying the frozen food because she doesn't feel like it's a quality product.

I guess I'll go there tomorrow & write down all the products for cats, the ones that don't need supplementing & hopefully get a few samples.

msserena said:

 
I called & talked to the owner of a pet store out here that sells a lot of raw food, they have about 30 freezers. She's been feeding raw for over 20 years & she said the main thing is to switch it up. Feed everything, the more variety the better. I asked her about the bone vs no bone & she said she's never had a problem with feeding ground bone & hasn't heard of anyone else having problems. Then I mentioned phosphorus, kidney issues, calcium ratios & she said most commercial foods are good to feed. She said she stopped making her own food & uses store bought products now.

She also mentioned that when a cat kills something out in the wild it's a lot thinner than when animals are raised for food. She said the meat to bone ratio would be more with commercial food because they  will have more meat on them.

She asked me what I've been feeding my cats & told her NV Instinct. She said she stopped carrying that food because they started sourcing from China, use different animals organs other than the main one (rabbit & lamb uses pork liver, pork liver is cheaper I guess), not quality meat & high in fat. She said she also stopped carrying the frozen food because she doesn't feel like it's a quality product.

I guess I'll go there tomorrow & write down all the products for cats, the ones that don't need supplementing & hopefully get a few samples.

Click to expand...

IIRC a couple of years ago NV had at one point sourced their Rabbit from China and then switched back to somewhere else.    

msserena said:

She asked me what I've been feeding my cats & told her NV Instinct. She said she stopped carrying that food because they started sourcing from China, use different animals organs other than the main one (rabbit & lamb uses pork liver, pork liver is cheaper I guess), not quality meat & high in fat. She said she also stopped carrying the frozen food because she doesn't feel like it's a quality product.

I guess I'll go there tomorrow & write down all the products for cats, the ones that don't need supplementing & hopefully get a few samples.

Click to expand...

Nature's Variety stopped sourcing their rabbit from China in May, 2014 and switched over to France. They did this not because there was a problem with the quality of the rabbit from China or issues of potential contaminants - NV had very strict oversight in their facility in China, but rather, because customers were concerned about anything made or sourced in China, regardless of the company reputation.

As far as pork being used, yes it is a cheaper protein although pork isn't necessarily a fatty meat, pork also adds palatability.

So today I manned up & bought a 1lb chub of Bravo boneless venison (mixed with EZ Complete) & a bag each of S&C frozen Chicken & frozen rabbit.

So far only my one cat ate them. Back into the freezer you go!