Request for Exact Recipe

[MattM]

Like Paige, ours aren't all that fond of duck either. They'll eat it, but they definitely prefer rabbit. With rabbit being so much leaner, it's a good balance as duck has a lot of fat content. Chicken is third on their list, and I need to be pretty particular about the quality I'm using. Either a drive down to Amish Country, or a trip to Whole Foods. Everything else comes from Hare-Today.

We currently make about 75lbs at a time. It's a big chore but it lasts for a bit and freezing doesn't have a lot of negative effects under 90 days. Cleaning and prep takes about 2/3s of the time, so it isn't a much bigger bigger time commitment to make 75 lbs as compared to 25lbs.

As for storage, we use quart size freezer bags. Easier to store, easier to get the air out of the bags and easier to label. I'd prefer to use something reusable, just too much stacked up against it. Food stays fresher when thawed as we can continue to keep the air out of the bags and they are filled with different quantities as two of our three cats have reduced protein needs.

If you are adding extra bones, I would try to offset it with some organ meat. I also wouldn't exceed 10% of the of the total weight with extra bone. You start running the risk of constipation pretty quickly and might see some ghost poops comprised of not a whole lot more than calcium.

With RDAs it's pretty difficult to discern because there just isn't good data on a lot of the ingredients. Chicken, Rabbit and Duck are easy to find data on, just that it's rough because you are also using the bone and organs.

As a baseline, I use Dr Pierson's recipe for Chicken and then nutritional value from this site for the rest of the data. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/663/2 It enables me to get relatively close and the rest is handled by a varied diet.

Hope that helps!

This helps a ton!!!!! Thank you guys very much!

 

[MattM]

Leo starts his raw diet on Sunday! I really hope he likes it. If he doesn't I guess I could just eat it...hahaha

I found out that he doesn't like chicken liver too much, but goes nuts over chicken hearts. Thanks everyone for your help! Wish me luck.

 

[admin]

Good luck Matt! What exactly is in that mixture?

 

[MattM]

It's a chicken and turkey combo. My cat's favorite things to eat are turkey, beef, duck, and chicken hearts. He dislikes liver.

Turkey Breast (2.0 lb)
Whole Chicken Thighs (2.5 lb)
Chicken Hearts 14 oz
Chicken Livers 7 oz
Cooked Salmon ( 1/2 lb)
Cooked Egg Whites (4)
4 Raw Egg Yolks
Mazuri Slab Meat Supplement (31.85 grams)
1 1/2 TSP Iodized Salt
Some small tenderloin chunks.
2 TSP Psyllium Husk Powder
12oz Purified Water
6 Strips of Nitrate Free Bacon Fat Grease. I read you could use the grease to add flavor. Also the turkey breasts will be low in fat so this is a way to make up for it. Oh...and I ate the bacon after draining it...hehe

So basically I learned that calcium for kittens in the growth stage is recommended around 1.5 to 1.8 percent of dry weight food intake. Mazuri slab supplement contains about 1.3 - 1.4 by my own calculations. I called them and they told me it varies, but I was in the right ball park. Their dry kibble contains 1.4% dw. Mazuri recommends 9.1 grams of supplement per 1 pound of slab meat. By using a combination of turkey slab meat and chicken thighs I should be pretty safe around that percentage area while still getting some benefit that bones have to offer. The recommended psyllium husk powder is actually 4 tsp for this recipe, but he doesn't actually have a problem yet so I figured half of that would give him a place to start. There are a lot of resources that recommend psyllium husk powder. The negative implications is that it makes stool size a little larger. All of this was purchased from whole foods market.

We will see how it works.

 

[admin]

Ok...sounds good...let us knew how it works out. Thanks for sharing.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[John Popp]

Looks like you were pretty thorough and have something well honed. Wish our cats would eat turkey, it would make things a lot easier.

Also noticed that your finished product was pretty finely ground. I've found that our cats prefer things a little more loosely ground although they will leave some bone fragments behind.

Anyway great job and wish that I had been that well studied when we made our first batch.

 

[MattM]

Looks like you were pretty thorough and have something well honed. Wish our cats would eat turkey, it would make things a lot easier.

Also noticed that your finished product was pretty finely ground. I've found that our cats prefer things a little more loosely ground although they will leave some bone fragments behind.

Anyway great job and wish that I had been that well studied when we made our first batch.

Thanks John! I don't think it's quite necessary to formulate as much as I did when making raw food, but I tend to prefer to really take things to the extreme. It probably has something to do with my background in food science causing me to obsess over it.

I completely agree with you about it being very finely ground, but I used the recommended size from feline-nutrition.org (1/8th). http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/making-raw-cat-food-for-do-it-yourselfers
His regular canned cat food I have had him on since he was a kitten is about the same consistency, so maybe it will work out for me. I'm really anxious that I put all this effort and money into this for him to look at it and be like, "mehhhh it's not that great."

*Edit*

Also, I put some of the steel STX grinder parts through the dish washer, and that may have been a mistake because it took the shiny varnish off. It is still safe to use right? :-X

 

[John Popp]

Hmmm, just read an Amazon review of the grinder and some parts aren't dishwasher safe and made from aluminum. Nothing wrong with aluminum and food although it does corrode and most aluminum cookware is varnished, anodized or teflon coated. The review went on to say the aluminum parts were replaced by the distributor.

I used to double grind things but not any more. I too had read that cats prefer pate, but found no truth to it. Many here suggested that there wasn't a need to double grind nor use a finer plate. I just use the 7mm plate and that seems to work well.

 

[MattM]

Huge success! He scarfed the raw food! Thank you everyone for your help!

 

[Treywi]

Mine always turns out really sloppy and wet. But hey figure more water the better. lol