Do You Feed Raw?

[heidrun]

Originally Posted by bengalbabe

Im sorry this is hard for me to read, im a serious horse lover. In the states no one eats horse. Actually slaughtering horses in California for human consumption is against the law.
To me eating a horse would be the same as eating a cat!

I can understand your love for horses but I see it this way: Pigs are also lovely intelligent animals, so are cows and sheeps and still we slaughter them in their millions and eat them with no regret. To eat a horse is not a sign of a uncivilized culture, but rather that the food tabu is different. In Iceland it was actually forbidden to eat horse meat before the 20th century because it was seen as a heathen custom, since eating horse meat had been a part of pagan rituals. But when it was again allowed to eat horse people started eating them again.

The horse culture is also so much different here in Iceland. We only have one type of horse in this country, the Icelandic one that is a horse that was brought to the country by vikings and made stronger and sturdier by the environment, and is very similar to the original european horse. Even though there is a great deal of horses trained to ride, there are great big herds of horses that are basically wild and are kept in mountains and heaths, and those are the horses that we mostly eat. Of course there is the occasional riding horse that is slaughtered because of injury or other things, and instead of letting his meat go to waste he is eaten, simple as that. There is of course people in Iceland that are against eaten horses, but in my experience those are all people that have grown up in big towns with little experience of animals. The horse breeders that are more rural in mentality have no problem eating horse, and see it as a normal thing, kind of: why let it go to waste?

I hope this clears out why we eat horse meat in Iceland. They are considered pets in Usa and many european countries, but in many countries its considered barn animal as the pig and cow, and since its a herbivore I really cant see the link between eating a cat (carnivore) and a horse, but I understand why you would see it that way.

 

[solaritybengals]

We definitely see where you are coming from its just we probably have a pet mentality when it comes to horses. Dog is popular in some countries but the same kind of pet block comes up.

I like to eat goat from time to time (Indian food is great) and my mom dosne't know how I do it and thinks it would be awful. Why though? Its just a barn animal, no different than any other.... So I can see where the same thought would go for horses.

People just see things in different lights.

As far as freezers go, if anyone has a regular sit-on top freezer (not huge but not teeny-tiny like what lionessrampant was describing) then its not to bad to do raw if you can find a local preprepared supplier. We keep 8lbs of meat in the freezer at any one time and make regular trips to replenish. We only have 3 cats so maybe it would be harder iwth more. It only takes up the door space for us. Just plain raw, the cats (3) would go through a pound a day, sometimes slightly more. With the salmon it stretches about double. So I go to pick up food every 1.5-2.5 weeks.

 

[etain]

Originally Posted by SolarityBengals

The vet told me the mercury content of salmon is not a concern, where mackerel it would be. Here was a little info I found:


Hmm I need to make sure I'm getting Alaskan salmon and not Atlantic.

I guess if the mackerel was farm raised then it wouldn't matter about mercury, but farm raised often are in poor conditions so might be less nutritious.

After reading this, I picked up a can of Alaskan salmon at the store yesterday, thinking maybe this would make the food more palatable for Etain since she loves salmon and she's being finicky about the venison/lamb raw food. One thing I noticed is that its preserved with salt, according to the label, about 270mg sodium per 1/4 c salmon. I was wondering if your vet has ever raised concerns about this? I don't know how much is too much for cats

 

[bengalbabe]

Originally Posted by heidrun

I can understand your love for horses but I see it this way: Pigs are also lovely intelligent animals, so are cows and sheeps and still we slaughter them in their millions and eat them with no regret. To eat a horse is not a sign of a uncivilized culture, but rather that the food tabu is different. In Iceland it was actually forbidden to eat horse meat before the 20th century because it was seen as a heathen custom, since eating horse meat had been a part of pagan rituals. But when it was again allowed to eat horse people started eating them again.

The horse culture is also so much different here in Iceland. We only have one type of horse in this country, the Icelandic one that is a horse that was brought to the country by vikings and made stronger and sturdier by the environment, and is very similar to the original european horse. Even though there is a great deal of horses trained to ride, there are great big herds of horses that are basically wild and are kept in mountains and heaths, and those are the horses that we mostly eat. Of course there is the occasional riding horse that is slaughtered because of injury or other things, and instead of letting his meat go to waste he is eaten, simple as that. There is of course people in Iceland that are against eaten horses, but in my experience those are all people that have grown up in big towns with little experience of animals. The horse breeders that are more rural in mentality have no problem eating horse, and see it as a normal thing, kind of: why let it go to waste?

I hope this clears out why we eat horse meat in Iceland. They are considered pets in Usa and many european countries, but in many countries its considered barn animal as the pig and cow, and since its a herbivore I really cant see the link between eating a cat (carnivore) and a horse, but I understand why you would see it that way.

I think in the USA it's a lot in the way they kill the horses that makes it really bad. Icelandic horses are rare here and when we see them it's a real treat for us. I have a friend that paid a whole bunch of money to have one imported here. I hear they are really fun to ride because they have so many gates.
Anyway im going really off topic.

 

[solaritybengals]

Originally Posted by Etain

After reading this, I picked up a can of Alaskan salmon at the store yesterday, thinking maybe this would make the food more palatable for Etain since she loves salmon and she's being finicky about the venison/lamb raw food. One thing I noticed is that its preserved with salt, according to the label, about 270mg sodium per 1/4 c salmon. I was wondering if your vet has ever raised concerns about this? I don't know how much is too much for cats

She didn't say anything about it being a problem. Those little cans (like tuna) have a very high salt content. These larger cans not so much. 270mg sodium dosne't sound to bad actually because I doubt they even eat a 1/4c a day as its mixed with the raw. Let me think about it... 1 can, 3 cats, 2 days, comes out to about 1/6 of a can per cat per day? So thats about 180mg of sodium from the salmon a day. I'm sure dry food is higher than that and probably even wet food. I don't know the sodium content of raw, probably nto to bad.