Feeding Questions

[rmc3]

I have been feeding raw to my 3 cats for just about a month now.  One of them absolutely loves the food, and the other two will eat it but still are not as enthusiastic about it.  Maya, my little grey girl, runs circles around us anytime one of us is in the kitchen, begging for just a little bit more

.  He appetite seems to have increased from when we fed dry/canned.  Anyone else have this happen?

It's been a busy month and I haven't gotten on here much, but I had a few questions that I wanted to ask.

-I have seen some people mention rotating protein sources.  I currently just have been feeding rabbit.  How many protein sources do most people rotate?  How often; every few days, every week?

-I have also seen that Rabbit has a higher bone content than some other meats and that it should be 'diluted' with boneless meat.  Will rotating the types of meat that have lower bone content help to reduce the amount of bone in their diet, or does boneless meat need to be added to any type of bone-in ground meat?

-Right now I add supplements to ground meat based off of the recipe at www.catinfo.org.  If I were to use the powdered supplement from Hare Today would anything else would need to be added to the mix?  Does it already contain EVERYTHING that I would add using the recipe from Dr. Pierson?

Thanks for all your help!

 

[ritz]

Welcome to The Cat Site.

In my opinion, you should feed at a minimum three different proteins.  You could add chicken and perhaps another meat such as beef or pork.  Also, rabbit tends to be--in addition to containing a lot of bone--relatively low in fat/calories.  I don't know if there is a hard and fast rule as to how frequently you should you rotate protein; but I would say a different one every third or fourth day.  This is so your cats don't get bored with one protein and so they get different nutrients.  Meat/poultry contain slightly different amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Do you grind your meat and bones--a homemade receipe?  Regardless, the principle would be the same:  if you mix in boneless meat, you would dilute the percentage of bone. 

If you cats are constipated, then you should reduce the bone amount; if they feces are normal, then I don't think you need to worry too much.

I believe the supplement you use from Hare Today (Alnutrin) should be sufficient, if you feed egg yolk and a sardine every week.

Hopefully posters who make their own food will chime in with additional advice about supplementation.  I feed prey model role/frankenprey so am not by any means an expert.

 

[rmc3]

I buy meat already ground from Hare Today.

As I said in my first post, one of them constantly begs for more food.  Her intake has increased quite a bit since starting raw.  Could this be because of the lower fat/calorie content of the rabbit?  I just had her in to the vet last weekend and her weight is still right around what it was a year ago.

 

[ritz]

Yes, it could be because of the lower fat/calorie content of the rabbit.  If her weight is stable, and normal for her length/build/age, then I wouldn't worry too much about it.  But I think you should fed other proteins.  Rabbit is fine--Ritz loves it--but three different proteins is usually the recommended number to rotate.