It is time to transition to raw, but...

[stiletto]

I do not grind. I do Frankenprey. I go to my local Chinese supermarket to pick up beef/pork liver (mine won't eat chicken liver), duck/chicken hearts and quail (for bone in meats). =)

 

[losna]

 
I do not grind. I do Frankenprey. I go to my local Chinese supermarket to pick up beef/pork liver (mine won't eat chicken liver), duck/chicken hearts and quail (for bone in meats). =)

This is exactly what I am interested in doing! Can you tell me more about the actual process of it? 

 

[chevs]

Losna I also do frankenprey, because as you may know, your cat comes equipped with its very own grinder
What are your questions about the process?

 

[losna]

To start with, would you share a recipe you use? I've mostly been finding ground meat recipes, it would help my confidence to see a frankenprey recipe that someone actually uses, even if it's exactly the same but without "ground" next to the meat. 

I'm mostly curious about how you get everything mixed together when it's not ground. That's the part that's been stopping me. When it's ground, it'd be easy to mix all the extra vitamins and whatnot in, like making a hamburger. But wouldn't it all be more uneven if it's chunked? Or do you have separate portions of organs and meat, and do all the mixing together at feeding time?

I found a local butcher that sells whole rabbit and quail carcasses! 

  

 

[chevs]

It's actually very easy. For one, I don't use a "recipe" per se. I follow the 80/10/5/5/ ratio. That is 80% muscle meat, 10% bones, 5% liver, 5% other organ. Here's what's typical for my cats:

Meat portion - chicken gizzards, turkey gizzards, duck gizzards, chicken hearts, pig hearts, cow hearts, chicken thighs, cow tongue, pig tongue, pig uterus, pork belly

Bones -  chicken necks, chicken feet, duck feet. Sometimes chicken wings. 

Liver - chicken, pig, cow

Other organ - kidney (all I can find) - either cow or pig

I usually go to the store and buy enough food to make a month's worth of meals for both cats. This costs me about $40 a trip. I mix up each cat's food separately, a week's worth at a time. My little girl Fiona is 8 lbs, which is her ideal weight. She eats 4% of her body weight daily, so 0.32 lbs a day. This comes to 2.24 lbs a week for Fiona. I use a digital kitchen scale (found on Amazon for $25, can measure in lbs, g, kg, and oz) and a metal mixing bowl.

Total = 2.24

Muscle = 0.8*2.24 = 1.792 lbs

   Heart = 1.792/2 = 0.896 lbs (I ALWAYS do 50% of my muscle as heart to make sure they're getting plenty of taurine). Chicken hearts are easy, just toss them in. Pig or cow hearts, I cut up into chunky strips and toss in. 

   Other muscle (gizzards, thighs, tongue, uterus, belly) = 0.896 (you can use only one other muscle or combine as you wish. Gizzards are my go to as they are plentiful, cheap, and good for working jaws and cleaning    

    teeth)

Bones = 0.1*2.24 = 0.224 lbs - this is the one most people agonize over. I don't. I toss enough chicken necks and/or feet into the bowl to equal 0.224 lbs. I don't worry about how much weight is actually flesh and not bone.

                                                 My cats have very nice stools, this is how I determine that they're getting enough bone. 

Liver = 0.05*2.24 = 0.114 lbs

Kidney = 0.05 * 2.24 = 0.114 lbs

This all gets thrown into a bowl, then i mix it up with my hands like I'm tossing a salad, then into a large ziploc bag it goes. I do the same for the other cat, who is slightly bigger and gets more food. Of course, I label the bags. Once I've gotten a week made up for both cats, I put the two ziploc bags into a plastic grocery bag, then into the chest freezer I found free on Craigslist. Then the whole process starts over again at least 3 more times. 

When it's time to thaw a bag to make this week's aliquots, I have a whole bunch of small ziploc bags that I reuse instead of throw away. I make 14 baggies for each cat. I don't worry too much about measuring 80/10/5/5 for each meal. It's not important to have perfectly proportioned meals every time you eat, it's all about what they're getting over the course of a week or month. For me it's important to just not let any meal be more than 1/3 liver because my male vomits if he eats too much liver at one time. I space out the bones so they get them like every other day or every 3 days depending on how much bone there is. I keep this week's meals in the kitchen freezer for easy access. I have an old plastic bowl that I keep the baggies for the next meal in the fridge to thaw, when it's time to eat, out comes the bowl. I fill the bowl with hot water and leave the baggies for 10 minutes so the food finishes thawing, then dump into their feeding bowls. The only supplement I do is fish oil every other day. At that time, I will puncture a capsule and drizzle the oil over the food. If you feel you need to supplement with taurine, I suggest getting a small measuring spoon set (Amazon has one that includes a DASH measurement which is about 1/8 tsp) and sprinkling the taurine over the meat. However, one of the benefits of not grinding is that you're not losing vitamins and nutrients and therefore, you really don't need to supplement. Each cat is fed on its own towel in a separate bowl. Then the baggies with the next meal is removed from the freezer and goes into the fridge to start thawing. 

It sounds like more work than it is. Once you get into the rhythm, it's ridiculously easy. The only tools you need are a scale, bowl, good knives, and good kitchen shears. 

Hope this makes sense to you. It's so easy. Feel free to PM me if you need more detail 

 

[losna]

Oh, wow, thank you! Very informative post.

My impression then (from this and other posts/articles I've read) is that if you're not grinding, you don't need to worry so much about adding extra supplements other than fish oil? I don't need to worry about taurine, we buy our meat fresh from a local farm and they sell me all the chicken hearts and livers I want for pretty cheap. As part of the transitioning process I started giving each cat a chicken heart with their dinner, and a liver every few days. Now they both throw fits if there's no raw meat in with their dinners. 

If I buy whole rabbit carcasses, is there even less to worry about? I mean, it'd be hard to figure out the ratio of the bone to the meat and whatnot with a carcass. 

 

 

[chevs]

I don't feed rabbit (can't afford it), so I don't know much about it. However, I have read that rabbit is like 30% bone, and therefore might need to be balanced out with other boneless meats. There was a thread on this site concerning feeding rabbit some years ago http://www.thecatsite.com/t/232533/feeding-rabbit-as-raw-diet. I would suggest doing a bit more research concerning feeding rabbit. 

As far as supplements, it's true that supplements aren't necessary if you're not grinding. Not to say that some people don't go ahead and supplement anyway, because they feel more comfortable doing so. It's your choice. Also, if I were feeding pastured, grass-fed meat, I wouldn't even bother with the fish oil. Your cats should be getting plenty of omega-3 if they're eating grass fed animals. 

 

[LTS3]

Rabbit meat is pretty low in taurine so you'll need to add in taurine, either a supplement or by adding in raw chicken hearts or something.

 

[ritz]

I fed prey model raw/frankenprey.
I feed Ritz around 7% bone; any more, and she gets constipated. So I up the meat percentage a little.
I buy my meat at grocery stores, usually marked down because the meat is at it's sell-by date.
I set out 8 to 24 plastic containers depending on how much meat I have and space in my one and only refrigerator/freezer) of plastic containers.
I use a digital scale, weigh the meat, put it in a container. Repeat for liver and kidney. Then add bone to around 1/3 of the containers. Label (type of meat and date prepared). Freeze. That's it!
I supplement occasionally with krill oil and daily with pre and probiotic. I mix them in on top of the food. Ritz is NOT a picky eater.
Rabbit meat is also very low in fat. It is expensive, and a LOT of work for the amount of meat I can get off the rabbit--available at the international supermarket near where I live. But I buy rabbit and quail primarily for the bone. Ritz eats enough chicken, using bone from rabbit and quail provides her with a different nutritional profile.

 

[losna]

Thanks everyone.

I guess wednesday when I go grocery shopping I will buy them a whole chicken and see how it goes. I have tested out their willingness to eat bone by giving them small chunks of chicken wings and chicken necks and they had no problems with it. Sinbad just loves crunching on bone, it's really cute watching him chompchompchomp enthusiastically. Though he doesn't recognize it's food yet, unless it is sauced with his canned food or treats. Actually more accurately - he recognizes that it's food from the smell when I pull it out and start preparing, but when it's in front of him he doesn't know what to do unless there's canned food or treats too. I'm starting to wonder if he's running a con though, in order to get more treats along with dinner. He is clever and tricks me a lot. We should have named him Loki. 

Tempest has no such problems. But the shelter found her on the streets, so the likelihood that she has hunted and eaten live prey is pretty high.