Anyone have experience with whole prey for dogs/cats?

[dainerra]

http://www.rawfedcats.org/practicalguide.htm

 

[cassie]

My brain skipped a line. a serving of chicken is 76% of the protein that a human needs. Cooked chicken is 25% protein, according to the USDA. So it would still be easy to supplement a premade raw with additional meat to get the correct protein content. raw is around 21%. Or simply supplement with another higher protein meat, especially if you can dehydrate it.

But, most of the research that I see states that kittens need a food 35-45% protein.

http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/making-raw-cat-food-for-do-it-yourselfers
http://www.catnutrition.org/recipes.html
and this site is highly recommended http://www.rawfedcats.org/index.htm

Just be aware that the 35 -40% protein is calculated on a dry matter basis.

 

[Shellybean02]

So if I get a canned food with 10% as-is basis, but 35% dry matter basis, would that be enough for Kit?
Thanks for the links

 

[cassie]

It should be. If I were you I would just get a good food that is formulated for kittens. I'm sure there are some available on the market.

 

[Shellybean02]

So the dry matter basis for protein is what determines the quality of food... wow! That changes a lot...
I think for now I'll get some high quality canned food, while I figure out this raw deal. I've been thinking about it a lot actually. I realized I can do something like ground meat & organs for one meal, meaty bones for another. Maybe supplemental feeding shouldn't be hard after all, since you can buy a kit and mix it with ground meat, feeding meaty bones or organs in another meal. Question: How often should you feed fish for omega 3s?

 

[Shellybean02]

Could someone send me a list of the cat food brands Petco sells? I can't access the website on this device. Thanks^-^

 

[Shellybean02]

I think I'm getting the hang of this a bit... Breakfast can be something soft like meaty meat, canned food, baby food,(which she likes!) or ground meat. Lunch can be organs and dinner can be meaty bones(or something like quail, 30% bone). I'm also considering getting a supplement kit for ground meat, and feeding organs and meaty bones another meal. She can get fish once a week, I know many companies have ground whole fish which should last a long time. I'm excited to get started but I won't jump right in until I have it just right. I can even make a calendar...

 

[Shellybean02]

I'm holding off on raw food for now. I don't want any problems with these vets which seem to be opposed to the idea 100%... for now I'll go with canned and baby food, maybe I'll give some of the kibble they gave me... hopefully she'll eat it with some wet food

 

[anankae]

Cats are carnivores but not 100%.

This is not true. Cats are obligate carnivores. That means they must eat meat or they will get sick and die. When I read the title of this I thought the OP wanting to feed whole mice and chicks.

Um. I've got one of my dogs on a raw diet but I would not even consider putting any of my cats on raw/whole prey whatever because cat nutrition is so very specific. So specific that if their dietary needs are not met, they will get sick and die.

When my cats go out and hunt they know what they require. They come back with mice and rats and birds and lizards.

My cats do fine on a combination of kibble and canned food tho I tend to feed them mid to high end kibble (Blue Buffalo/Nutro to Acana/Orijen etc). Except for one cat that we try to feed mostly canned cause she came up with a UTI.

Commercial foods have all the nutrients cats need as additives. That's going to be harder to match if you're not feeding them a whole mouse or a whole chick.

 

[Shellybean02]

For now Kitty gets lots of variety. Freshpet food is slightly cooked, preventing contamination from anything bad. Along with that she gets some meat baby food(I have 4 different meats), or some raw chicken if my mom has scraps(it's not that much, and I take sanitary precautions). Kibble is for snacking, or if we run out of Freshpet. Maybe sometime I'll feed her good quality canned food. In the future I'll be committed to creating a balanced raw diet of whole prey or supplemented ground meat. Thanks for the advice everyone!
**Everyone is right... cats do need a stable diet of meat, but they do get digested plant matter from their prey and might occasionally snack on some plants, like we snack on donuts^-^**