? Using beef in raw diets?

My two cats have been eating a raw diet of Dr. Pierson's recipe for a couple months now. I've been unable to find a local/affordable source of rabbit so they usually just get chicken or turkey. My kitten seems a bit bored of poultry though and prefers the commercial wet food my mom's cats get.

I would like to make due with what I can access locally to add to their sources - beef, and maybe lamb and pork? But I am not sure how to adjust the recipes for the different protein, I am assuming the ratios would need to be different. I also don't know what cuts of meat is recommended for them.

I'm open to totally new recipes if anyone knows of any (feline nutrition website just mentions rabbit/chicken/turkey). Below is what a batch normally consists of.

3 lb boneless chicken or turkey thighs
4 oz chicken liver
1 cup water
2 eggs
5-10,000 mg fish oil
400 IU Vitamin E
50 mg Vitamin B-Complex
2,000 mg Taurine
1 teaspoon Morton Lite Salt
3 grams eggshell powder per lb of meat

 

Hi Elizabeth,
Yes beef is a good muscle meat for cats. I also use pork, lamb and kangaroo and a small portion of chicken or lamb hearts (all muscle meat)
It looks like you are using 3 lbs of muscle meat in the recipe so you can substitute what ever portion you like of that 3 lb with another muscle meat. So as long as the total is 3 lb you are OK.
If you are introducing a new meat, I would trial it first before adding it to a batch just to make sure
1. They will eat it
2 it agrees with them.

Just give them a small portion on the side for a few days to see how they go.

 

Hi Bron, thanks for chiming in!
I did find chicken hearts mixed with gizzards at the store recently but it only ended up having like 4 hearts in it so it was mostly gizzards :/ I wish I could source them a little easier.
So I wouldn't need to alter my supplements any for the different proteins? I was reading a copy of Raising Cats Naturally and she had a chart of how different each protein was in terms of taurine etc so I wasn't sure if things needed to be adjusted depending.

Does it matter what cut of meat it is, or do you have a preference for each protein? Or does it not matter as long as its muscle meat?

Good reminder, thank you!

 

No you don’t need to change the supplements at all
It’s true that different cuts of meat have different amounts of taurine in them. Taurine is increased in the muscle meats that are used more. For example a chicken breast has less taurine than a chicken thigh. The cut of meat that has the most taurine is the heart is an animal.
But that won’t change your supplements. Any excess taurine is just peed out.
I would use a variety of meats and cuts of meat as they all have slightly different amounts of vitamins and minerals in them.

What do you call gizzards in the US? Is it the collection of all the innards of the chicken?
In Australia the gizzard is the tough muscular part of the stomach that grinds the food. I also use those.

You may be able to source some lamb hearts instead of chicken hearts. I rotate both for variety and feed about 15 grams daily..

I feed my cats a frankenprey diet so I need to use a good variety of cuts of meats to get all the vitamins and minerals. They get an egg yoke each a week, sardines once a week for omega 3, liver, a secreting organ such as kidney and feed chicken wings or frames (when I can get them) for calcium. One of the cats can’t eat bones so I give her egg shell powder. I also add some taurine and vitamin E daily. I’m sure they get enough taurine as it’s a fresh raw diet but I add it to make sure.

 

Oh that's great to know, thank you!

Yes, gizzards are the part that grind the food for us too. So I could replace some thighs with gizzards then?

I wonder if I can find some lamb hearts, hadn't thought to look.

Thank you so much for the insight Bron, I wish I had enough variety locally to try frankenprey. We don't even have a butcher or asian grocery store here.

 

I meant to say that we call the gizzards giblets! I would not add more than about 10% of the overall muscle meat as giblets (gizzards).
Do you cut up the meat or grind it?
Here is a photo of what we call giblets so there is no confusion!

 

AH got you! Yes those are "gizzards" to us! Thanks for the percentage, writing that down for reference.

I chunk up about a third by hand and grind the rest.

 

Giblets: the liver, heart, gizzard, and neck of a chicken or other fowl, usually removed before the bird is cooked, and often used to make gravy, stuffing, or soup.
Gizzard: Chicken gizzards are cut from the digestive tract of a chicken. Similar to a stomach, the gizzard is used to grind up the foods the bird eats.

 

@Larry and Kitties we call the gizzards...giblets in Australia.