Feeding rabbit as raw diet?

[howldaloom]

Hi im able to get a stable supply of cheap rabbits all year round with no shot in them.

I was thinking of using this as part of my cats main diet.

They contain meat, bone and offal. I would also feed ground meat and maby the odd chicken wing/dead chick and egg.

Would that be ok to feed them?

A typical meal would be

A rabbit leg(or other body part) *chopped up* A kidney (or other piece of offal*) And A bit of ground meat *beef,lamb, turkey, chicken, white fish, tripe*

Would this be ok to feed? There would be no need to supplement would there?

Instead of the rabbit from time to time i could give a chopped up chick or chicken wing. or even a mouse as a treat

 

[howldaloom]

I found a good steady cheap supply of rabbits. without the shots.

If i skin them and chop them up. *bones offal and all* would this make a good diet for them? I would feed the odd chick, mouse and chicken wing also.

 

[violet]

Please read this extremely important information about feeding rabbit

Taurine Deficiency In Rabbit
A Winn Feline Foundation Report

http://www.felineinstincts.com/order...yinrabbit.html

 

[auntie crazy]

Originally Posted by Howldaloom

I found a good steady cheap supply of rabbits. without the shots.

If i skin them and chop them up. *bones offal and all* would this make a good diet for them? I would feed the odd chick, mouse and chicken wing also.

To be perfectly blunt, no.

See catinfo.org, catnutrition.org, feline-nutrition.org, and rawfed.com.

AC

 

[gloriajh]

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

... Note that when small wild cats eat mice and small rabbits they usually eat the entire carcass - including the entire boney skeleton of their prey - whereas the larger cats (lions, etc.) strip the meat off of the bones leaving much of the skeletal structure of their prey behind. This fact illustrates that there is a wide variation in how much bone material wild cats consume.

Interestingly, rabbits have a higher bone-to-meat ratio than mice, rats, and birds which is one reason why I am now adding in some boneless chicken meat (with the skin and fat) to the whole carcass ground rabbit to dilute out the bone. ...

You really need to read the whole article to be safe with your feeding practices.

...

Meat Types and Sources

In addition to chicken and rabbit, good choices include turkey, Cornish game hen, guinea fowl, quail. The only problem with feeding turkey is that the bones are bigger than chicken bones which can be hard on the grinder. That said, I recently started grinding turkey thighs and my Tasin grinder has handled them well.

I stick to poultry and rabbit and do not feed beef or fish because poultry and rabbit are closer in composition to what a small cat would eat in the wild. Also, beef and fish have been shown to be hyperallergenic in the cat and if you used beef, you would have to use bone meal and I greatly prefer using fresh bone.

Raw fish should never be fed in large amounts because it contains thiaminase which will lead to a thiamine deficiency in the cat.

Regarding rabbit and chicken/turkey: You can either buy whole carcasses and cut them up to fit into the grinder (leaving out the backbone/neck), or if feeding a partial carcass, you can use dark meats (legs and thighs), or a combination of dark meat and breast meat. ...

... The ground rabbit from wholefoods4pets arrives frozen in 4# flat bags (1# and 2# bags are also available) which are easy to store in the freezer.

For people on the east coast, a rabbit supplier is www.hare-today.com (814) 587-2178. I have no idea how finely this company grinds their food.

March, 2009 update: I now add some chicken or turkey meat and skin (no bones) to the ground rabbit for three reasons:

1) Rabbit has a high bone-to-meat ratio and I want to 'dilute' out that bone with some chicken meat/skin.

2) Rabbit is a very low-fat meat. Plus, it is skinned prior to grinding which reduces the fat content even further. I want to add some fat/skin to the rabbit diet and using chicken is the easiest way to do this.

3) I can cut part - or all - of the chicken meat into chunks to help promote dental health. ...

 

[howldaloom]

What i also read though from this article was the fact that all the rabbit being fed was GROUND!

Now taurine is lost from meat when it is ground up hence the lack of it in their diet.

I wouldnt be planning on feeding it ground. Just chopping it up with a knife into bits/chunks.

Plus i would also feed ground up meats on the side such as beef,lamb, chicken,turkey,white fish and tripe.

Im not saying i really want to feed this but this is what i got out of the articles. Lack of taurine is from grinding the meats up.

 

[auntie crazy]

Most folks do agree / believe that grinding destroys taurine (which is why those who feed ground diets supplement their foods with taurine, among other things), however, there are also indicators that rabbit itself may be lower, comparatively-speaking, than other prey animals.

In any case, no diet based off a single meat source is going to be healthy feline diet; a variety of meats must be offered. I know it can be tough sometimes, but it's pretty important. Each type of meat has a particular nutrient profile and while they are all GREAT as PART of a cat's diet, there's not one of them that is good as the cat's SOLE meat source.

For instance, heart is a great source of taurine, but it's also comparatively high in salt. Chicken in high in niacin, but it's also high in fat; while cats do require more fat in their diet than people, a steady diet of chicken is too much fat. Rabbit is often a strong favorite of cats, but it's very lean (the opposite of chicken!). And so on....

Best regards.

AC

 

[harrylime]

What about using ground duck mixed in with rabbit, since you need some extra boneless protein to offset all of the rabbit bones, AND it's a fatty protein? (and most importantly for me it's available from hare-today) 

Think that would work?

 

[ritz]

(This is an old thread, you might get more responses if you post your question in a new thread.)
But, yes, that is one way of balancing low fat/high fat proteins. I do that with Ritz--when she gets rabbit, I make sure she also gets venison, duck (goose) or lamb on the same day.
I feed frankenprey--not ground. So can more easily limit how much bone I give Ritz--who is prone to constipation.
On the rare occasion I fed ground with bone (like, when Hare Today was having a sale on a protein I can't buy locally like Llama), then I also split it up: for example, 2 oz of HT, 1.2 oz of no bone protein.

 

[harrylime]

Great, thanks. So basically I can always mix proteins with different proteins (or for example, ground rabbit with ground chicken organs) and not have any problems?

 

[ritz]

Absolutely, you can mix proteins. And organ meats (for those who feed frankenprety) can be mixed among/between animals; for example, kidney from lamb, liver from beef, bone from rabbit (or quail). Ritz is kind of spoiled, she prefers bone from (expensive) rabbit/quail to (cheap) chicken wings.