Help With Homemade Raw Lamb Food

[yeva2292]

I switched Smokey off poultry and duck after suspecting her itching was due to allergies and the itching went away. She's now eating Rad Cat Lamb and Venison, but Rad Cat is at the very top of my budget. I'm thinking of making my own raw food with either Alnutrin or TCfeline.

My main question is how do I determine how much fat to include in the grind. I can buy boneless lamb shoulder from Whole foods or another local market and it usually has a layer of thick fat surrounding the meat. Is there a way to calculate how much fat I need to include?

 

[mschauer]

Best thing would be to contact the manufacturers.

I was making a home-made raw lamb food using boneless leg of lamb. It also has a ton of fat. I would trim basically all the fat I could because even after doing that there was still a ton of visible fat remaining. I once weighted how much I trimmed off and it was 20% of the total weight. Lamb is expensive to begin with but the price given only 80% is usable was so much higher!

I started buying RadCat lamb when I realized it only costs about 10% more than my home-made when I take into account how much I was throwing away.

 

[yeva2292]

Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely get in touch with the supplement companies to ask first. I may have to recalculate the costs of making my own food and reconsider if it ends up being similar to what you experienced.

 

[mschauer]

Be sure to include the cost of the supplements in your calculations. They might add more to the cost of the food than you realize. Alnutrin adds about $0.50/lb (pretty reasonable I think). TCfeline adds over $1.00/lb if I remember correctly. There are other supplement mixes that add over $2.00/lb.

Oh, and it was only the lamb that cost almost as much for me to make as the RadCat costs. The other RadCat protein foods are significantly more expensive than what I can make at home.

 

[yeva2292]

Have you tried using pre-ground lamb before? The USDA site has values for protein and fat for ground lamb, though it looks like those values vary based on the provider. If I can get a hold of a membership pass, we have a chain of Restaurant Depots here that are currently selling ground lamb for $3.55/lb, which would be really go a long way to bring my costs down.

 

[mschauer]

No, there are only a couple of places near me that carry lamb at all. I've never seen ground lamb. Frankly I'd be suspicious of ground lamb for $3.55/lb. Might be a regional thing but I've never seen lamb for anything near that price. Could just be lamb is expensive in my area.

I'm not sure how the USDA values are of any use in this case. What you are asking is whether using Alnutrin or TCfeline pre-mixes will nutritionally balance your lamb given some amount of fat removal. That depends in part on the nutrient make up of the pre-mixes, not just the lamb.

 

[yeva2292]

I sent off an email to Alnutrin and I'll see what they say. Lamb prices here can be all over the place. Some markets will have lamb at $5.99, others at $20.00 per lb. Restaurant Depot sells wholesale to businesses and nonprofits - I've bought some things there before, but not meat.