What about cooking chicken, liver, turkey and just adding the vitamins & supplements from a raw food

[remmiebrandt]

Pulling my hair out trying to find a commercial food with Mendione (synthetic vitamin K - K3 bisulfate) or carageenan, cranberries, yucca, garlic powder, rosemary - other toxic ingredients that my cats will eat. I am afraid of raw - I would never eat raw meat so I would never feed it to my cats. They are not wild animals but domestic pets and the risk is just tremendous to me. But I would cook them chicken, turkey, liver and some fish and feed them that every day except that I don't know how or what additional vitamins or supplements they need. I know they won't eat leafy grains or rice because I experimented with those already. So I was thinking of buying the vitamin/supplement pouch that I see advertised with the raw food diets - except inside of raw - cooked. I am wondering if that will work and if those vitamin pouches are safe - I wouldn't want to add toxins or preservatives back into their food by buying pre-made vitamin packs. Thoughts?

 

[peaches08]

The supplement information is available in the raw and homecooked forum stickies.  There is a list of premixes to use.

Before tossing out the raw idea completely, take a look at the raw sticky.  Raw scared me a little at first, until I learned more about it and about how a cat's digestive system is designed to work.  I also saw it fix my cats raging diarrhea in 24 hours.  One of the main reasons I prefer raw to homecooked is I like my cats to get fresh whole bone, including the nutritious marrow.  I use eggshell calcium in boneless meats, so I feel like if something were to come up, I can feed my cats something without having to run to pet food.  Plenty of raw fed kitties do not eat fresh bone, but eat eggshell or MCHA (freeze dried bone).  It just depends on your kitty and what appeals to you. 

Either raw or homecooked, I like being able to have control over the ingredients.  And my cats feel a ton better!

 

[remmiebrandt]

Ok thanks. I am going to stick with cooking their meat & some fish occasionally and found this site that was mentioned on another thread so I think this is where I'll start. If anyone has any experience with this company and their products or has other advice for supplementing cooked meals I'd appreciate input. Just can't deal with commercial anymore - http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/alnutrin_supplements.html

 

[raintyger]

The raw forum is the Raw & Home-Cooked Cat Food forum. There's a thread for cooked recipes:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/263751/cooked-recipes-thread

The members there can help you with any questions. Home cooked is a little more difficult than raw. This is because when you cook food you change the amounts of nutrients, so how much of what nutrient you wind up with is a little less exact. So most homemade feeders tend to go raw.

 

[remmiebrandt]

 
Pulling my hair out trying to find a commercial food without Mendione (synthetic vitamin K - K3 bisulfate) or carageenan, cranberries, yucca, garlic powder, rosemary - other toxic ingredients that my cats will eat. I am afraid of raw - I would never eat raw meat so I would never feed it to my cats. They are not wild animals but domestic pets and the risk is just tremendous to me. But I would cook them chicken, turkey, liver and some fish and feed them that every day except that I don't know how or what additional vitamins or supplements they need. I know they won't eat leafy grains or rice because I experimented with those already. So I was thinking of buying the vitamin/supplement pouch that I see advertised with the raw food diets - except inside of raw - cooked. I am wondering if that will work and if those vitamin pouches are safe - I wouldn't want to add toxins or preservatives back into their food by buying pre-made vitamin packs. Thoughts?

 

[remmiebrandt]

Yeah I'm looking at those threads now and starting to see that these diets require a lot of measuring and weighing. I was thinking just crock pot a chicken or a turkey or a roast- shred it & mix up a bag of supplements but I see it is much more exacting than that. 

Right now I shred cooked chicken or whatever I have and mix it with the Hound & Gatos beef because that's the only way I can get them to eat it and that's the healthiest canned food I found they will even tolerate but I supplement with other canned foods I"m not crazy about while experimenting with other brands.

That's why I was thinking of just going full out home cooked not realizing it  is so exacting. I didn't think giving too much of an added nutrient to the cooked meat could cause problems.

Thanks. Much to ponder.

 

[peaches08]

 
Ok thanks. I am going to stick with cooking their meat & some fish occasionally and found this site that was mentioned on another thread so I think this is where I'll start. If anyone has any experience with this company and their products or has other advice for supplementing cooked meals I'd appreciate input. Just can't deal with commercial anymore - http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/alnutrin_supplements.html

Alnutrin is an excellent supplement, and I'm familiar with it being used for raw...I can't remember about it for homecooked but I don't see why not.

Are you feeding liver?  How long have you been cooking for them?  At some point they need liver and a calcium source.

 

[raintyger]

Yes it is much more complicated than giving muscle meat. No more than 10% of their diet should come from the chicken that you are adding. The easiest way to start would be to follow one of the recipes in the Raw/Homecooked forum using Alnutrin or another premix. If for some reason you can't do that, you should feed them commercial cat food rather than supplementing too heavily with the cooked chicken. Although meat is way better than many other things, they need a balanced diet.

 

[Willowy]

It's not really complicated to feed homecooked if you use a premix. Yes, you do have to mix the right amount of supplement into the right amount of meat but that's not much trouble. I was cooking for one cat for a while and it's really no more complicated than opening a can.

 

[ritz]

When I was thinking of switching to raw, it was at first a bit intimidating. I also realized I needed to research the issue more. So I started out with commercial raw while researching even more. I tried different brands, which have slighly different textures. Ritz liked Primal and RadCat. The latter are single source protein and have a similar consistency to wet food.
I have a tendency to get bogged down in the details and research an issue to the nth degree ("analyze/paralyze"), so I made the jump to prey model raw. It was what I personally was most comfortable with. Ritz changed from a very picky eater to an "I'll eat anything as long as it is raw" kind of cat.
After several weeks, I developed a system; preparation doesn't take me much time.
Hare Today (based on the east coast) sells premixes, as well as ground meat.

 

[goholistic]

I use Balance It for homecooked and its very easy.

 

[remmiebrandt]

Ok thanks everyone for the encouragement. I contacted Altrunin and they were really helpful & sent me a couple of recipees because I know my cats will not want to eat the same thing every day - they are too used to a wide variety. They said they would send me a sample supplement pack so I can see if they'll eat it. I guess as long as I keep up with cooking the meats the rest is just mixing it up.

 

[lcat4]

Hi RemmieBrandt,  I've used three different premixes for my raw and cooked foods, TC Feline, Better in the Raw/U Stew, and Alnutrin, lately it's just been Alnutrin.  I also have tried Mschauer's chicken recipe utilizing separate ingredients and will probably do more of that as a variety to the Alnutrin supplement. Currently the only raw I feed is a boneless ground turkey I purchase directly from a turkey producer.  Otherwise I cook the meats I buy at the grocery:  chicken thighs and breasts, ground venison, ground lamb, beef roast, and pork.  The chicken, beef and pork are baked, covered, reserving all liquids.  I weigh the meat before cooking, then weigh the meat with liquid after and add in the necessary water to get to the raw weight.   Sometimes I shred the meat, but I have a blender that minces the meat beautifully and do it that way more often.  I buy chicken livers by the pound, puree them, and freeze in small ziplocks.  I then defrost what I need (raw weight) and cook in the micro.  I mix the cooked liver in with the minced cooked meat, let it cool, and then add the Alnutrin based on raw weight (using their calculator).  Any additional water added is for consistency.   The ground venison and lamb are cooked in a covered pot on low heat with raw liver and water added (about 1/2 cup water per pound meat). Let it cool and add Alnutrin.  Then divvy into ziplocks and freeze.  For the chicken and beef I prepare/cook 3 pounds at a time.

I like having an assortment of meats and actually feed a variety at each meal.  I've probably ruined my cats for life, because they now don't like it if they only get one option at a time.  They almost always get the raw turkey on the plate, and then rotate one other meat option.  They also get raw egg yolk or raw chicken hearts every few meals.

I hope this helps and I hope your cats enjoy!

 

[remmiebrandt]

Ok thanks very much. I guess you then use only 1/2 the altunin package then? They gave me a recipee for 6 pounds which is really too much at one time for me but 3 pounds sounds more reasonable. They said they were going to send me a sample to try but they never did & I haven't ordered it yet. Much appreciate the advice.

 

[ldg]

Yes, you can scale the amount of Alnutrin down as needed. It's just ... math. If you need help with that, let us know. There are some feeding raw that add it per meal.