Homemade cat food supplement without chicken liver powder?

[cejhome]

Hello, I am thinking of trying homemade cat food for our cat, Buddy.

Many years ago we had a cat with multiple allergies (chicken, fish and all the derivatives of these two) and stomatitis. I fed her homemade raw. I added her supplements individually, as we couldn't eve do egg shell powder for calcium.

I would like to us a supplement mix this time - my free time is very minimal and anything that can help with the time factor will be a blessing.

I would like to start Buddy out with cooked and then transition to raw (if its possible for him - if he will eat either).

He is allergic to chicken, so I can't use EZ Complete, as it has chicken liver powder.

I will need to look for non-chicken liver powder.

Any suggestions on alternatives?

I googled a few (I haven't looked into where they source their ingredients, etc. yet):

• Superior Feline - they have one without liver powder, so I would have to add another type of liver powder (as well as fish oil).
• Know Better - they have one with beef liver. This supplement is from a Canadian company.

Buddy does have constipation issues, that have improved, but not 100%.

• I found this information on the web:
  • For cats with constipation, Feline Instincts No Bones About It
  • Alnturin with Calcium mixes are an ideal option. TC Feline also provides a bone-free special mix for cats with kidney problems.
    • Feline Instincts - I can't see anywhere that they still make the No Bones About it
    • Alnutrin - the have two version of "with Calcium", and one without that is assuming you are adding bone. I can't see anything about chicken liver powder - I will have to email them.

I would love advice/suggestions!

 

[daftcat75]

Alnutrin doesn't use chicken liver powder. They are a bring-your-own-liver-source product. I don't recommend skipping the liver powder. Just find one that works for Buddy. You can often find freeze-dried liver products in various proteins often in the dog training section of a pet food store (or online.) As long as liver is the only ingredient, it doesn't matter if it's packaged and marketed for dogs or cats. Because freeze-dried liver has most of its water weight removed, you'll use less by weight. You'll use about 1/4 the recommended amount. There is a calculation** for this but it generally comes out to about 1/4 the wet amount.

You can stop reading here if you don't want to see the math and simply use 1/4 weight freeze-dried and add the remaining weight back in water to rehydrate. E.g for 45 grams fresh, you'll use 11 grams freeze-dried and add 24 more grams of water to your recipe.

**Calculation if you're interested:
desired wet weight * ( % fresh solids / % freeze-dried solids ) = dry weight to use

where
% fresh solids = 100 - moisture content of fresh liver (you can find this value for various species liver off the USDA website)
% freeze-dried solids = 100 - moisture content of freeze-dried product (you find this on the particular product label)

Example:
For a batch of Alnutrin for Krista, I picked up a package of freeze-dried turkey liver.
The recipe called for 45 grams of weight wet
USDA moisture value for turkey liver was 75.5% last time I checked in 2019 (I don't imagine that has changed.)
This particular product had a moisture content of 3.25%.
% fresh solids = 100 - 75.5 = 24.50%
% freeze-dried solids = 100 - 3.25 = 96.75%
dry weight to use = 45 grams * (24.50 / 96.75) = 45 * (0.25) = 11.4 grams

This time the calculation came out to 1/4. I've done it a few times for various freeze-dried liver and heart products and it generally comes out to 1/4 to 1/3. Dry solids will be pretty close to 100 as most of the moisture is removed and fresh solids will generally be close to 75%. So your calculation is quite often something very close to 25/100 or 1/4.

Whatever the difference is between the desired fresh weight and the dry weight you use, add that amount as water to the recipe to rehydrate. So given the example above, add another 45 - 11 or 24 grams of water to rehydrate the freeze-dried product. You don't have to rehydrate in place (rehydrate the liver powder and then add to your mix.) You can simply add them as separate ingredients. If you add all the dry ingredients first, you can simply add the extra water when it comes time to mix in the wet ingredients.

 

[cejhome]

Thank you so much! I appreciate it I will order in the next few days - liver powder as well as the supplement. I am waiting to hear back from them (Alnutrin) about which version is best for me to use, considering Buddy's constipation issues.