RAW diet. what are you ingredients/proportions

Hello all!

What do you feed your babies?

Here are the ingredients to the raw diet I have been doing for a year now

You will need a grinder

10 lbs Bone In Skin On Chicken thighs
1lb of chicken hearts and gizzards (combined)
10-13 ounces of chicken livers
daily supplements for cats 
one container (5 ounces) of plain Greek yogurt
One cup of water

Cut the chicken thighs into the appropriate size for your grinder

Add the water to the vitamins for easy mixing

Grind all the chicken, hearts and gizzards, and liver

Once all ground, add the vitamins and yogurt, mix well

Separate the finished mix into containers and proportions of your choice. I put a 1/4 cup of food into a half cup container. 

freeze!
 

I'm curious how others do it

Why the greek yogurt? Most cats can't tolerate dairy. I really wouldn't recommend that to anyone. I'm assuming you're using it for probiotics but you could just add probiotics separately, which is what most of us do. 

The breeder whom I purchased the cats from has been putting Greek yogurt in her raw food for 15 years without any issue.

One 5 ounce can spread over 35-40 days will not do any harm to your cat.
Greek yogurt is quite healthy for most cats.

BengalBabies said:

The breeder whom I purchased the cats from has been putting Greek yogurt in her raw food for 15 years without any issue.

One 5 ounce can spread over 35-40 days will not do any harm to your cat.
Greek yogurt is quite healthy for most cats.

Click to expand...

There's no nutritional reason to feed them yogurt, though, and most cats are lactose intolerant. It seems really unnecessary. I've seen other people suggest this before and the reason was for probiotics, but greek yogurt doesn't have that many probiotics anyway, and they don't survive freezing, so the better solution is to add probiotics when serving (which is what i do). 

I use Dr. Pierson's Cat Info.org recipe for cat food. So far mine have done extremely well on it and I've had no problems with it.

I'm new to this homemade cooking, but I'd have to agree with MIssmimz. Just because someone has been doing something for 15 years and there hasn't been any issue doesn't mean its the best thing to do. You mention a 5oz can over 40 days will not hurt your cat, and you are probably right, but why do it if it is not actually helping. Lastly you say Greek yogurt is quite healthy for most cats, where do you get this info from? In my reading the only mention I've seen about it is for its probiotic benefits. One post mentioned that a woman gave it to her constipated cat. Since most cats don't process dairy well, like most humans, its helps to promote a bowel movement by irritating the digestive system.  I think the best thing we can do is try to feed them as close to the way they have evolved in nature for the past however long cats have been around. 

Either way I think those are 2 very lucky cats to have someone put in all that work to make sure they eat well to have a healthy and happy life.  Thanks for the video. 

Just a note about Greek yogurt - it's generally recommended for lactose-intolerant people because the whey is strained from it, thus reducing the amount of lactose.

Thank you. Didn't want to get into detail. Maybe some can do research of their own.

Love you all.
Very happy I found this forum.

To each their own

jcat said:

Just a note about Greek yogurt - it's generally recommended for lactose-intolerant people because the whey is strained from it, thus reducing the amount of lactose.

Click to expand...

I'd be concerned about the sugar levels in it still. 

I greatly appreciate your concern, because of that I will look further into the greek yogurt situation. I sure hope you question every pet owner as to why the feed their cat the cheep dry food and mention all the ingredients no one can pronounce. 

I have reached out to the breeder for her exact reason as to why she does it. I have stated only a few reasons of my own which aren't acceptable to you. Hopefully I can come back with a reason that is much less complex to you. 

BengalBabies said:

 
I greatly appreciate your concern, because of that I will look further into the greek yogurt situation. I sure hope you question every pet owner as to why the feed their cat the cheep dry food and mention all the ingredients no one can pronounce. 

I have reached out to the breeder for her exact reason as to why she does it. I have stated only a few reasons of my own which aren't acceptable to you. Hopefully I can come back with a reason that is much less complex to you. 

Click to expand...

You posted your recipe, and because you use an unusual ingredient i asked why. It's not an attack on you, but if you aren't sure why it's added you should question it. Just because she's a breeder doesn't mean she knows everything about cat nutrition. As many of us have experienced most veterinarians don't know anything about cat nutrition yet they constantly recommend foods that are inappropriate for cats. There are breeders out there that recommend science diet, too. 

Again from my short time on here this is a friendly forum with people just trying to help, I don't think anyone meant for you to feel attacked. 

I for one would like to know the reasoning behind your breeder using Greek Yogurt. I'm always interested in learning new things. 

Its not that any of your reasons were not acceptable, its just none were based on any science. 

1- your breeder has been doing it for 15 years. Well my  grandmother smoked from when she was 15 till she died at 99, but I'm not going to recommend anyone smoke cigarettes. Dumb example but the logic of someone I know does and it seems to work so I'll do it  isn't scientific. 

2- 5 ounces over 40 days will not hurt - true but zero might hurt even less

3- greek yougurt is healthy for cats- granted I haven't done a ton of research but from what I did read I have for the most part heard the opposite

Now missmimz reasons are a little more scientific. From reading these forums and others most cats are lactose intolerant. While greek yogurt does have less lactose than milk it still does contain lactose. Second its does contain some sugar. If you follow the theme of this Homemade/raw food forum thread its basically tries to get you as close to the way cats ate before they were domesticated. 

Maybe the reason your breeder gives will be a logical reason and I may start adding it, or maybe the reason will make no sense and you will stop using it.  Either way its clear you car about your pets and again don't feel attacked when someone has different ideas or disagrees with you. 

BengalBabies said:

 
Hello all!

What do you feed your babies?

Click to expand...

There are probably almost as many answers to that questions as there are people who feed a raw diet. 

I suggest using the site search feature to find the numerous threads where people discuss what they feed.

 
Here are the ingredients to the raw diet I have been doing for a year now

You will need a grinder

10 lbs Bone In Skin On Chicken thighs
1lb of chicken hearts and gizzards (combined)
10-13 ounces of chicken livers
daily supplements for cats 
one container (5 ounces) of plain Greek yogurt
One cup of water

Cut the chicken thighs into the appropriate size for your grinder

Add the water to the vitamins for easy mixing

Grind all the chicken, hearts and gizzards, and liver

Once all ground, add the vitamins and yogurt, mix well

Separate the finished mix into containers and proportions of your choice. I put a 1/4 cup of food into a half cup container. 

freeze!

Click to expand...

That is fairly typical of what a lot of people feed. Is that all they eat? For every meal? I would think they would get bored with eating only the one food. I know mine do.

Something you might want to consider is that the bone composition of their diet as you describe it is 13%. Some cats tolerate that level of bone quite well. Many people find though that their cats, especially as they get older, have trouble with that amount of bone. They find a level less than 10% is better. A typical amount would be around 8% I believe.

I see that the supplement you use, Missing Link Ultimate Feline Formula, contains ground bone.The product label doesn't say how much bone it contains but of course any amount means the total bone content of your food is actually even higher than 13%. 

I don't see any problem with the added yogurt. As far as I know it does no harm and it dose have nutritional value.

I'm glad your kitties like the food so well!  It's fun to watch them dive into it! And they are beautiful. I have a Bengal baby of my own. 

Thank you for posting the video and starting a useful discussion!  I hope you are getting something useful from the comments.

I don't think that the Missing Link supplement is the right one to use.  I don't remember exactly what the deficiency is, but I had looked into it once as an option and decided it wasn't appropriate.  It's designed to supplement already complete commercial diets, not homemade raw.  You need to either follow the catinfo.org recipe, or use something like Alnutrin plus fish oil. 

One issue with the catinfo.org recipe and the helpful Youtube videos, as marvelous as it for a vet to advocate homemade pet food, is that it gives the impression that cats can be fed with a single protein (chicken).  I'm a big fan of giving cats variety to prevent them from becoming finicky, and also to help prevent nutritional deficiencies.  In the recipe's fine print, Dr. Pierson suggests using turkey thighs and also gives a variation using whole ground rabbit purchased from an online supplier.  That's three proteins which is probably a reasonable number, but still a limited diet in my view.

You could try turkey thighs for some batches, and introduce more variety with the boneless meat (of which you do need to add more btw - agree with mschauer) by using other meats (e.g. pork, beef) and other cuts of chicken and turkey, like drumstick or breast meat. 

sophie1 said:

 
I don't think that the Missing Link supplement is the right one to use.  I don't remember exactly what the deficiency is, but I had looked into it once as an option and decided it wasn't appropriate.  It's designed to supplement already complete commercial diets, not homemade raw.  You need to either follow the catinfo.org recipe, or use something like Alnutrin plus fish oil. 

Click to expand...

Yes, the Missing Link is not the correct supplement to use because it is not made for raw or home cooked diets, only as a supplement to regular commercial pet food.

The Missing Link[emoji]174[/emoji] Ultimate Feline Formula targets the nutritional gap between what nature provides and what is available in commercial foods.

http://www.missinglinkproducts.com/index.php/products/cat/product/1-ultimate-feline-formula

It's like adding a general vitamin supplement to a diet of snack foods. It provides some of the daily vitamins and minerals but not all or enough of them.

You need to use a pre-mix specifically for raw diets, such as Alnutrin for meat and bone.

It's great that your breeder feeds raw and has a recipe that she shared with you. You're not obligated to follow the recipe exactly for your cat. Feel free to tweak and adjust the recipe. Yogurt in small amounts probably won't do any harm unless you have a diabetic cat (the sugars can elevate blood glucose levels) but if it's for probiotic purposes, it's better to just add a probiotic to each meal.