Since my last post on how I make cat meals - following the Frankenprey approach - we have had to make a few adjustments. This will happen from time to time, and for us, it was because we had another cat with her own special dietary needs and preferences, with no further freezer room. It was also because we needed to find the best way to get both cats to eat all the things they needed to eat in the Frankenprey model.
The Frankenprey model 'simulates' real prey composition and suggests:
80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ (usually 5% liver plus 5% other secreting organ). It is also suggests a minimum of 3 animals is used as variety.
And it is important to follow the model, or the diet is unbalanced. For example, a cat could not live (long and healthy) on just meat - the organs are very important, as is calcium from the boney meals. In fact, a cat not getting enough calcium can end up with severe problems, as calcium is needed to keep the heart beating regularly.
Fortunately, both Kato and Ava are good about eating boney meals - which is usually a section of rabbit. Kato will also eat cut-up chicken necks, but not so Ava.
We have actually had a long period of vet-monitored food-trials with Ava, in order to get her over a bad tummy upset. It has taken about 4 months to slowly introduce one protein at a time, feeding the new protein for 3-4 weeks before starting the next. The upshot is we suspect that chicken doesn't always agree with Ava, and she doesn't like it. Strangely, freshly roasted chicken (plain, not cooked with anything else - so it has to be homemade, not a bought hot chook) is fine, and well liked. The other thing that is a bit suspect is fish - she can tolerate a little bit now (and does like it very much), but it had to be excluded entirely for a very long time; I guess as long as it took for her tummy to heal. Thankfully we have good variety now - she can and will eat rabbit, turkey, beef, and lamb liver (as dehydrated treats). So we have sufficient items now for a balanced Frankenprey diet. I will continue to add in new proteins and (hopefully) new organs over time.
The upshot of all this was that my original system of labelling 'liver' 'kidney' and 'bone' types of meals (the labels meaning that that ingredient was included in that tub of meat, not that the tub was full of just that item), didn't work and didn't fit for two cats with two different diets in one small freezer drawer. So we switched labels to 'Kato' 'Ava' and 'Bone'. And I made a specific diet for each cat, putting enough for an entire day into one tub each, with the boney meal placed in sandwich bags to cut space. So I still defrost three things every night, but feed a portion from the tub over the spread of meals for each cat, with a final boney meal at bedtime.
The best thing about adapting to this method, is I have discovered I can now get 17 meals each - so 34 in total - crammed into the freezer drawer. Which means I now prepare fortnightly instead of weekly! (14 meals, plus 3 to cover 3 days of freezing before I can defrost the next prepared batch -you need to freeze for 3 days to eliminate parasites).
If you are interested in a raw Frankenprey model of feeding, these are the resources I used to learn about it:
1. http://catcentric.org/nutrition-and-food/raw-feeding/a-frankenprey-and-whole-prey-feeding-guide/
2. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread
3. http://catinfo.org/
The Frankenprey model 'simulates' real prey composition and suggests:
80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ (usually 5% liver plus 5% other secreting organ). It is also suggests a minimum of 3 animals is used as variety.
And it is important to follow the model, or the diet is unbalanced. For example, a cat could not live (long and healthy) on just meat - the organs are very important, as is calcium from the boney meals. In fact, a cat not getting enough calcium can end up with severe problems, as calcium is needed to keep the heart beating regularly.
Fortunately, both Kato and Ava are good about eating boney meals - which is usually a section of rabbit. Kato will also eat cut-up chicken necks, but not so Ava.
We have actually had a long period of vet-monitored food-trials with Ava, in order to get her over a bad tummy upset. It has taken about 4 months to slowly introduce one protein at a time, feeding the new protein for 3-4 weeks before starting the next. The upshot is we suspect that chicken doesn't always agree with Ava, and she doesn't like it. Strangely, freshly roasted chicken (plain, not cooked with anything else - so it has to be homemade, not a bought hot chook) is fine, and well liked. The other thing that is a bit suspect is fish - she can tolerate a little bit now (and does like it very much), but it had to be excluded entirely for a very long time; I guess as long as it took for her tummy to heal. Thankfully we have good variety now - she can and will eat rabbit, turkey, beef, and lamb liver (as dehydrated treats). So we have sufficient items now for a balanced Frankenprey diet. I will continue to add in new proteins and (hopefully) new organs over time.
The upshot of all this was that my original system of labelling 'liver' 'kidney' and 'bone' types of meals (the labels meaning that that ingredient was included in that tub of meat, not that the tub was full of just that item), didn't work and didn't fit for two cats with two different diets in one small freezer drawer. So we switched labels to 'Kato' 'Ava' and 'Bone'. And I made a specific diet for each cat, putting enough for an entire day into one tub each, with the boney meal placed in sandwich bags to cut space. So I still defrost three things every night, but feed a portion from the tub over the spread of meals for each cat, with a final boney meal at bedtime.
The best thing about adapting to this method, is I have discovered I can now get 17 meals each - so 34 in total - crammed into the freezer drawer. Which means I now prepare fortnightly instead of weekly! (14 meals, plus 3 to cover 3 days of freezing before I can defrost the next prepared batch -you need to freeze for 3 days to eliminate parasites).
If you are interested in a raw Frankenprey model of feeding, these are the resources I used to learn about it:
1. http://catcentric.org/nutrition-and-food/raw-feeding/a-frankenprey-and-whole-prey-feeding-guide/
2. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread
3. http://catinfo.org/