How can you advance prep frozen meat?

[oyster]

I am taking the plunge into 100% raw feeding from next month and looked at a lot of options on where to source meat. I am trying a reputable company this coming month and they shipped me all the meat ground and frozen in 1 lb. batches. The problem I have now is prepping the meat with supplements and egg yolks because I can't thaw the meat, add supplements, and freeze it again. This means that I will need to figure out supplementing on a daily basis which is going to be overwhelming for me as I start this journey. Calculations are not my forte.
Does anyone have any ideas or experience with feeding frozen meals that need to be prepped at home?
Thank you.

 

[Tobermory]

The problem I have now is prepping the meat with supplements and egg yolks because I can't thaw the meat, add supplements, and freeze it again.

Why can’t you refreeze it? As long as you thaw the meat in the fridge and make up the food as soon as it thaws enough to be workable, there’s no reason why you can’t refreeze it. I agree that figuring out supplements on a daily basis would be a pain!

 

[oyster]

I didn't realize you could thaw the meat (in the fridge) and refreeze it. All the raw food blogs and web sites start with fresh meat and advise heavily against refreezing due to growth in pathogens and toxins. So, I just froze all the meat as soon as I got it. The meat was fully frozen as it comes in a special cooling pack.
Now, I am trying to see how to portion the food and add supplements etc. on a daily basis which would be a pain.
So, I guess it is ok to thaw the food, prep a batch, portion it out, and refreeze it?
Thanks!

 

[goingpostal]

I've been thawing and refreezing for over a decade for ferrets, cats, dogs, sometimes the meat I buy is in 60 pound cases, sometimes it's a whole animal.

 

[oyster]

I've been thawing and refreezing for over a decade for ferrets, cats, dogs, sometimes the meat I buy is in 60 pound cases, sometimes it's a whole animal.

Thank you. That is very helpful. I will go ahead and thaw the food.
Now I have another question: how should I manage dosing supplements when most of them are required in mg increments? I have been trying all day to calculate per week/per month. For example, my cat needs 6 mg of Vit. E per day or 1-3 IU per day. I have a 400 IU capsule bottle. Even if I put one capsule a month, that would still be too much!
How do you raw feeders add supplements in tiny amounts?

 

[Tobermory]

I add the supplements to an entire batch, divide the batch into individual meals, and then freeze. Here’s my process:

I grind my own meat (boneless), so I buy 20-25 pounds of meat at a time, grind it that day or the next so it’s not sitting in the refrigerator too long, and freeze it in silicone bags (pictured at the bottom) until I need to make a batch of food. I freeze it in three-pound amounts because the recipe I follow specifies that amount with the correct measures of supplements.

After I thaw the meat and make the food, I apportion it into these Rubbermaid containers and refreeze. One container holds exactly the right amount to feed my two cats one meal. I feed twice a day so I go through two containers a day. I don’t want the food to sit in the fridge for too long before before I feed it so I’ve developed a rotation from freezer to fridge that accommodates that.

Here’s the fridge. The container on the bottom is frozen but will be thawed in a day and a half when I feed it to the cats. I feed the top one and add a frozen one to the bottom. Again, the supplements are already added.


Here’s my freezer. Not much room for people food!


Here are the silicone bags in the freezer, each with three pounds of ground meat. When I start to get low on the already-made food, I’ll pull out one of these, put it in the fridge to thaw, then add the supplements, apportion everything out into the individual containers, and re-freeze.

 

[Box of Rain]

Are you unable to source fresh (non-ground) ingredients locally?

Bill

 

[Tobermory]

Are you unable to source fresh (non-ground) ingredients locally?

Bill

Who are you asking?

 

[Box of Rain]

Who are you asking?

oyster (The OP)

Bill

 

[oyster]

Tobermory,
Thanks so much for sharing that info. I really like the idea of the silicone bags so I don't feel overwhelmed doing it all at once. I will reread your post several times as I take notes.
Bill,
I can order the meat locally but not all species--rabbit and quail are not stocked by our local butcher. Moreover, he won't grind the bones which will require a grinder and I have no space for one. (We are on a special diet ourselves and just purchased 3 huge machines for human use). So, the mail order company sends the appropriate meat with ground bones if I choose. Also, hard to source chicken liver and organ meat at our local butcher.
I was thinking of making weekly batches but was overwhelmed with figuring out how to thaw the meat, add supplements, and refreeze the meat etc. Thankfully, that has been cleared up.
Now I wish I could figure out how to calculate supplements for each cat and then, find a time effective way to add them to a weekly batch. I can't see myself figuring this out daily.

 

[Box of Rain]

Tobermory,
Thanks so much for sharing that info. I really like the idea of the silicone bags so I don't feel overwhelmed doing it all at once. I will reread your post several times as I take notes.
Bill,
I can order the meat locally but not all species--rabbit and quail are not stocked by our local butcher. Moreover, he won't grind the bones which will require a grinder and I have no space for one. (We are on a special diet ourselves and just purchased 3 huge machines for human use). So, the mail order company sends the appropriate meat with ground bones if I choose. Also, hard to source chicken liver and organ meat at our local butcher.
I was thinking of making weekly batches but was overwhelmed with figuring out how to thaw the meat, add supplements, and refreeze the meat etc. Thankfully, that has been cleared up.
Now I wish I could figure out how to calculate supplements for each cat and then, find a time effective way to add them to a weekly batch. I can't see myself figuring this out daily.

Unless there is a compelling reason to do so (such as having a cat that has bad teeth or no teeth), grinding meats, organs, and bones, is not ideal. And for multiple reasons, the most important IMO is that tearing, crunching, chewing meat and bone helps keep cat's dental structure strong and healthy.

You mentioned in another thread that both your cats are able to destroy (or partially destroy) somewhat advanced bone-in pieces such as chicken legs. I would build on that myself. Most cats fed a standard diet (kibble and canned foods) develop periodontal disease and many face tooth extractions.

I'm convinced that allowing cats (and dogs) to do the "work" involved with eating unground meat (including appropriate bone-in pieces) advances dental health.

You linked to "Perfectly Rawsome" in another thread, and here is their take on the matter which is pretty spot on IMO (with one point point of departure underlined whose accuracy I will discuss below):

PMR is designed to provide domestic cats with a fresh diet which replicates that of a wild feline, without requiring the pet to hunt and kill wild prey. A complete PMR diet for cats will consist of 84% muscle meat, 6% raw edible bone, 5% liver, and 5% other organs in order to achieve optimal balance and eliminate all processed foods and grains.

It is ideal to feed whole cuts or whole prey to cats to provide teeth cleaning benefits, higher taurine levels, and endorphin release. Feeding ground raw food will not provide teeth cleaning benefits. Grinding also exposes the natural taurine in the meat to oxygen which destroys the amino acid. To compensate for this, certain steps may be necessary when feeding ground raw food.

To clear up the point of departure first, from my best understanding there is potential taurine loss due to grinding, but my understanding is that is because taurine is quite water soluble and that when meat is ground and cells are broken that the taurine can run off. I'm not sure about the claim that taurine is destroyed by exposure to oxygen. Either way, there is some potential for taurine loss due to grinding.

Items like rabbit meat are especially low in taurine, so unless I had a compelling reason to serve rabbitt, I would save it as a potential "novel protein" in case--god forbid--my cat showed food allergies to easier-to-source meats and fowl.

I can get quail locally (at markets with a Mexican clientele) typically from Gallegos brand. One of the reasons I like to include some quail is due to the amount of soft edible bone that gives my cat a dental "workout," and I would not want to grind such bone w/o good cause.

Can you get dark meat turkey pieces locally? Thigh and leg meat (NOT white meat) from turkey are just about the highest taurine source available (outside rodents and some seafood).

In short, my advice would be to mimic nature (to the extent that's practical) and serve items as "whole" as is reasonable instead of trying to mimic commercially ground foods. Better not to grind the food and bone IMO without good cause.

Not every meal has to be uniform. Balance over time.

My 2 cents.

Bill

 

[oyster]

Your response makes perfect sense to me and I would like to do that but I am already feeling overwhelmed at transitioning to raw feeding, balancing and prepping the meals. I am not sure I can go around hunting for all the meat sources as I am based in a rural area.
So, I chose the easiest option for now. Hopefully, over the course of a few months, I will be able to get whole cuts that I can prep myself. For this past week, I bought chicken quarters and deboned them which took quite some time and frustration. Don't think I am willing to do that on a regular basis.