Am I Crazy Or Is There More Bone Than Ever Now In Raw Freeze-Dried Cat Food?

[Byrdie]

I was feeding my kitty, Apollo, "Feline Natural's" freeze-dried raw cat food for several years - with no problem. Recently, I discovered unacceptable, large and sharp pieces of bone in the food while hand-feeding my boy (who started feeling ill.) I felt something exceedingly sharp almost puncture my hand. At first, I thought it was a piece of metal. But upon closer examination I discovered it was bone. I went through several bags of the freeze-dried chicken & lamb; King Salmon & Lamb; and Beef Hoki only to find the food riddled with larger than acceptable - at least to me - "foreign objects" that could only be bone. (I sent the foodntonthe Feline Natural Quality Assurance Team, and their assessment is in process.) Apollo began having problems with bowel movements, and one time I discovered a speck of blood on his rear end. I was extremely worried that, perhaps, a piece of sharp bone cut him somewhere along his digestive tract. So, please allow me to fast forward. Being so used to raw freeze-dried food, it is known to be difficult to persuade a Kitty to eat anything else - especially canned food. I found this to be true in Apollo's case. So, I tried Stella & Chewy's freeze dried chicken and turkey. At first he ate some. But after his first sampling, he refuses to eat it. I also purchased Northwest Naturals freeze-dried chicken - a brand Apollo used to like to eat. Nope! Paws down on that one, too. The one consistency that I found in both Stella & Chewy's and Northwest Naturals is a seemingly huge amount of bone. More than I remember Northwest Naturals having. As a matter of fact, I do not recall finding any.bone in their raw freeze-dried cat food in the past. I also do not remember any bone in Feline Natural, either, when I first started feeding it to Apollo. He always had and still has a very sensitive tummy. I suspect he may have IBS or maybe IBD - not sure. I will know more after I receive lab and other results. Since I stopped feeding him raw he is better. He actually stopped pooping in the litter box for a while; I surmised that he was experiencing discomfort. (It was not litter box aversion because he urinated in his boxes (he has two, and I clean them several times per day since I am home now.) He is back to pooping in his box again. I read that cats with IBS or IBD have digestive challenges when it comes to bone. When I rescued him from the woods, he hunted and ate a lot of prey, so it seems he would have been accustomed to it. Neighbors also used to catch glimpses of him stalking and hunting birds, mice, chipmunks - you name it. I elaborated here much more than I probably needed to; the bottom line of my post is to ask all of you a question: AM I crazy or am I actually seeing and feeling more bone in the freeze-dried raw food for cats these days? Anyone else noticing more bone? I kindly thank you in advance for your time and energy. Any thoughts you feel inclined to share will be received with sincere appreciation. I am attaching pictures of pieces of bone (I assume) that I found in Feline Natural raw freeze-dried Chicken & Lamb, King Salmon & Lamb and Beef Hoki. Do they look larger than acceptable to you? (It was difficult to scrape the meat off of the bone due to pain in my hands, so I hope you can distinguish the bone from the attached meat and tissue.)

Appreciatively,
"Byrdie" & Apollo

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I also feed Feline Naturals freeze dried chicken and lamb and salmon and lamb and have had no issues with it. My guys will not eat it rehydrated, so I only give it to them as a snack though. Once in awhile I do hear a pretty loud crack, and I figure they have chomped down on a piece of bone, although I have not actually seen any large pieces of bone in the little log pieces of food. Your 2nd picture looks to be about the size of many of the log size pieces I find in the bags.

I also feed Stella and Chewy and DO rehydrate that. I know their percentage of bone has always been too high for my liking, so I add extra muscle meat to it, but I have never found any large bone pieces in the food.

It'll be interesting what the folks at Feline Naturals have to say. Please let us know. One of my guys barely has any teeth left due to resorption issues, so I sure don't want to feed him something that might cut his gums! Of course, he's also an extremely picky eater, so finding a replacement might be a challenge if it comes to that.

Have you tried feeding Apollo Feline Naturals pouches or cans? I can't figure out the pouches because the ingredients sound exactly like their raw food, only it's a pate in a pouch. Not a long shelf life though. I'm not sure about the cans because we've never tried those.

 

[Byrdie]

I also feed Feline Naturals freeze dried chicken and lamb and salmon and lamb and have had no issues with it. My guys will not eat it rehydrated, so I only give it to them as a snack though. Once in awhile I do hear a pretty loud crack, and I figure they have chomped down on a piece of bone, although I have not actually seen any large pieces of bone in the little log pieces of food. Your 2nd picture looks to be about the size of many of the log size pieces I find in the bags.

I also feed Stella and Chewy and DO rehydrate that. I know their percentage of bone has always been too high for my liking, so I add extra muscle meat to it, but I have never found any large bone pieces in the food.

It'll be interesting what the folks at Feline Naturals have to say. Please let us know. One of my guys barely has any teeth left due to resorption issues, so I sure don't want to feed him something that might cut his gums! Of course, he's also an extremely picky eater, so finding a replacement might be a challenge if it comes to that.

Have you tried feeding Apollo Feline Naturals pouches or cans? I can't figure out the pouches because the ingredients sound exactly like their raw food, only it's a pate in a pouch. Not a long shelf life though. I'm not sure about the cans because we've never tried those.

Thanks for your reply. I find it interesting.and helpful to k ow that the pieces I pulled from Feline Natural Freeze-Dried food does not seem unacceptably large to you. Maybe I am losing my mind, but I do not not recall seeing the size of the bone that I found (in my pictures) in their food in the past.

Apollo just suddenly went off of it. He atena little of Stella and Chewy's but rejects their brand now, too. He was showing signs of digestive distress, and he stopped eating. He also stopped pooping in his box which told me he is experiencing discomfort. (His new behavior is not litter box aversion.) Then, I found a tiny speck of blood on his bottom.

I conducted a process of elimination, and I even kept a journal and spreadsheets to try to figure out what might be causing this and the bottom line turned out to be the freeze-dried, raw and hydrated food I was feeding him. Feline Natural. I concluded that perhaps a piece of bone (the first piece of bone I discovered was razor-sharp, nearly puncturing my own skin - I thought at first it was metal!) cut Apollo somewhere along his digestive tract.

I took him off of the raw. He is improving! His appetite returned and hens hungry a lot. He is back to using his litter box again and does not "yowl" before he poops. He is back to normal. The really difficult challenge for me now, though, is finding food he will eat!! He abandons his dish just about every time Inpresent something new, and he is not a big fan of canned food. I recently read that cats who eat raw freeze-dried food for an extended period of time (in Apollo's case, years) will not want to eat anything else - especially canned! I want to pursue investigation of raw freeze-dried cat foods that are not full of raw bone and provide calcium supplementation from different source.

I sent the samples to the folks at Feline Natural over a week ago and have not heard neck from them yet. I plan to follow-up with my point of contact next week. I hope they do not think I am a nutcase! I will moat certainly update my thread after I speak to my contact and will post any information that is useful and helpful to other cat guardians. Thanks for writing!! Always open to hearing your thoughts.

Appreciatively,
"Byrdie" (my nickname; middle name is Byrd, my mom's maiden name) & Apollo

 

[Byrdie]

MrsGreenJeans - I forgot to respond to your question regarding Apollo trying any Feline Natural pouches or cans. He only tried the cans and would not eat the food. He gave me a paws down on the cans; I figure he would respond in kind to the pouches.

 

[Byrdie]

Sorry about typos! I forgot to proof first!