Raw food suggestions/recommendations

Hi Ladies-

Just when you thought you were rid of me! :lol:
I'm considering RAW food for Boomer.
I'm not gonna grind my own carcasses yet, and I know I can buy powders and stuff to add to raw food, but I'd like to try something I can by from the store first. Any thoughts? Is it outrageously expensive?

I really need to figure out what to do about Boomer. He puked again this morning on OTJ day and gave me a 123. This after a pepsid before bed, so that must not help. I'll post on health too, I just know that some of you don't go to other areas besides Lantus. I'm really trying not to freak out too much, but I've not been too successful.

 

Hey, Traci, not sure if you mentioned this, but does Boomer get any probiotics? I was thinking that may help his little tummy. I don't have any suggestions in regards to wet food. All I know is that I tried to make a batch myself, just to see if my kitties would eat it....I was ok when I started to ground the chicken, but when i got to the livers.....oh my gosh...I almost tossed my cookies, lol. I was surprised that it didn't smell when I fed it to them, but the consistency and the sight of if, well, I just don't think I could do that. The kids, however, loved it.

 

a lot of people feed nature's variety raw medallions. here's a store locater: http://www.naturesvariety.com/locator.

some feed feline's pride: http://felinespride.com/products/catfood.aspx. it's already made up and then frozen in plastic containers. i purchased from them for a couple of years before having some unresolved shipping problems.

i currently order preground whole chicken and turkey from hare today, gone tomorrow: http://www.hare-today.com/. it comes frozen in plastic tubes. i add my own water, eggs, and supplements, but they do have a supplement premix available for purchase. i've found this option to be the most economical. it's even less expensive than canned food.

 

Hi Deb-

I really can't imagine doing this to the meat grinding level. I don't even like the WORD carcass! I'm getting stressed out just thinking about it. I was hoping to go to a pet food store and pick something up.

Yes, I give him FortiFlora pretty regularly.

I saw on "Health" that you can grind up chicken and turkey breasts using a food processor and then add some powder to it that contains all the nutrients in it including liver. I may be willing to try that if I can't find a store that sells raw near me.

I could never grind liver either. Even freeze dried liver smells terrible.

 

I liked the quality of the Feline's Pride a lot. It's what I started out using until I decided to grind my own. I don't grind carcasses -- I use a pre-mix that provides the calcium/bone meal. I grind skinless, boneless chicken thigh, breast and liver.

I did not like the look of the Nature's Variety. There were visible chunks of bone and I didn't think the quality was as good as the Feline's Pride. There was also a recent recall of the product.

 

i'm gonna try typing with my left hand & peck 'cause i wanted to toss in my 2 cents.

my vet actually turned me onto raw. i've fed oma's pride, feline's pride, primal, nature's variety, halshans (sp?), and fresh pet as far as commercially prepared raw foods.

the oma's pride and halshans i got from my vet (~ $4-5/lb) and it actually was probably the most expenisve. oma's wasn't complete so i had to add the supplemnts to it. feline's pride was pretty darn expensive too and probably the least preferred by my cats but it was complete. i have to say it had the wieredest texture out of them all though and kinda threw me for a loop.

fresh pet i can get at a local grocery store, albertson's. it's 1.79 for a 5.5 oz tub but my cats usually only eat half a tub at a time. there were coupons a bit ago that were B1G1 so i stockerd up. it's not raw raw, it says gently cooked and in allhonestly made me think of diced ham in a sauce. my petsmart sells the dog variety so far but not the cat variety

oma's, halshans, and nature's variety looks and feels like ground beef or turkey really so no probablems there al6though when i first started with the oma's, i had a problem with serving it up while there were real live rabbits sitting out on my front lawn.

the nature's variety medallions are $20-$25/bag out here. but check this out for a coupon. i got this at the pet expo last weekend. i haven't tried it yet but will now that i'm thinking of it
http://www.naturesvariety.com/getraw

 

Jill and Sienne-

Thanks SO much!

Jill thanks for taking the time to give me those web sites! I am making calls now. I found a store near me that sells raw. I called PetCo and PetSmart and BOTH people who answered the phone sounded appalled at the question...like they had never heard of raw food.

Is the whole ground turkey and chicken form Hare Today Gone Tomorrow gross - I mean does it look or smell weird or scary? Sorry to sound like such a wimp! I thought that if you used a "whole" animal you didn't need to add supplements, no? Sounds like I still need to buy them and add them?

Thanks for your help!!!!!

 

Thanks Cindy - you've given me a lot to research. I wonder if my vet sells raw? i'm betting no, but you never know.

So, you feed rabbit? I never thought of serving rabbit. I guess if he'll eat it and he doesn't puke, I don't care what he eats.

I'm thinking if I have to add supplements to something anyway, then why not just go get turkey or chicken breasts, grind them up and add the powder? Is it necessary to get the whole animal ground up?

I'm gonna be so upset if he's puked while I've been at work.

 

Do Lou likes the primal chicken and salmon nuggets which are nice to try hey have all your vitamins and stuff already added. http://www.primalpetfoods.com/

 

lol! no, it's not gross. it looks and smells like ground up chicken and ground up turkey... just like you'd find in any grocery store. yes, you do have to add supplements as well as water and eggs even when using the "whole bird". dr. lisa has the supplements listed on catinfo.org. you can also buy pre-packaged supplements from hare today, gone tomorrow or feline future instincts: http://www.felinefuture.com/?page_id=26.

 

Traci:

Take a look at the info on raw diets on Dr. Lisa's site. She's got a ton of information on doing it yourself as well as on using pre-mixes, supplements, etc. and the commercially available preparations. She also has info on what raw foods have been recalled. She bases her recipe on the supplements from Feline Future/Instincts (the link Jill provided). Feeding just raw meat isn't a complete diet. You still need certain supplements -- especially taurine -- in order to achieve a balanced diet.

 

Thanks guys for all the information. I have to say, I'm OBSESSED.

On the way home from work I stopped at a place that had Nature's Variety vennison. (thanks Jill) They didn't have chicken. They had lamb. I've never heard of anyone here talking about lamb so I went with Bambi. :lol:

I'm now working on getting him to eat it. It took a while to get him interested in freeze dried chicken treats but he FINALLY likes them. I'm not expecting an easy transition but we'll give it a try.

How long did it take to transition your cats to raw?

 

And this is the link to raw food info. from many Lantus peeps on the back-up board, there are some links, recipes and other helpful hints.

http://lalalalantus.yuku.com/topic/422?page=1

LOL, you think the Petco people were bad, you should have my vet when I told him I was feeding raw to Punk. :lol:

 

i bought it, took it home, they ate it....just like that. no transition time at all for us. but as i've said before, most of my kids are rescues of some sort from the streets and they'll eat anything i set in front of them it seems.

and i could feed nothing but raw to them and they'd be very very happy kitties but raw for so many cats gets reeeeeeeal expensive so they don't get 100% raw unfortunately.

I did have one hold out, my late Spazzie, she never ever ever showed any interest in raw. cook it a little and she ate it but absolutely no bloody stuff for her. she also preferred brussel sprouts and carrots over pork chops though so there had to be something wrong with her pallet :roll: