Preparing Beef Meals for Cats
 

I hope someone can shed some light on this.

I just purchased stew beef, pork ribs and a boneless steak to see if my 3 cats would like the taste of beef. They have been on a partial raw diet for a month or so, supplemented with Wellness. Since they sometimes turn away from the raw, I was thinking they were getting tired of chicken, so I bought beef and pork to try.

I gave some stew beef chunks to 2 of my cats and they LOVED it! The 3rd one needs some coaxing.

I don't have all the ingredients to make a balanced meal yet. I can't grind beef bones in my grinder (can I? -- I do chicken bones) and I don't have beef bones anyway right now. I don't have beef liver or beef organs. I sent away for bone meal powder and liver powder, but it won't arrive for a few days.

My question is (or questions--I seem to have many):

1. Do I freeze the beef, thaw it when the ingredients come, mix the batch and freeze again? Or...

2. Should I freeze the pieces in small packets and just thaw and give pieces to them as a treat until I use this up?

3. Has anyone ever tried grinding beef bones? Has anyone ever used liver powder and bone meal with beef or pork to make meals? If not the powdered ingredients, what do you use?

My ultimate goal is to find some variety to just the chicken meals, and see if the cats like one meat better than another.

Thanks for any help you can give me!!

[QUOTE=SnooperBlabber;583200]
My question is (or questions--I seem to have many):

1. Do I freeze the beef, thaw it when the ingredients come, mix the batch and freeze again? Or...[/quote]

You can freeze and then partially thaw the meat for mixing, then freeze again in meal-size portions.

[QUOTE=SnooperBlabber;583200]2. Should I freeze the pieces in small packets and just thaw and give pieces to them as a treat until I use this up?[/quote]

That's certainly a good option. Make sure the treats don't make up more than 10-15% of their daily diet since they aren't balanced.

[QUOTE=SnooperBlabber;583200]3. Has anyone ever tried grinding beef bones? [/quote]

Depends on your grinder, but beef bones do tend to be too much to handle for most grinders.

[QUOTE=SnooperBlabber;583200]Has anyone ever used liver powder and bone meal with beef or pork to make meals? If not the powdered ingredients, what do you use?[/quote]

If not using actual bones, I prefer to balance the phosphorus with either egg shells or calcium carbonate. The problem is that bone meal has phosphorus as well as calcium, so the calculations of how much to add to balance the phosphorus in the muscle meat gets tricky. The proper calcium-phosphorus ratio for cats should be between 1.2-1.4:1.

Also, are you adding taurine? And you might want to consider a cat multi-vitamin to CYA. It can be a bit tricky making food for cats because they have a fairly narrow range of nutrient requirements, so it's important to get the balance just right. There isn't as much leeway with the feline diet as there is with canines. Have you seen Dr. Lisa Pierson's recipe? [url]http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm[/url] It might give you some good guidelines for proportions.

[QUOTE=SnooperBlabber;583200]My ultimate goal is to find some variety to just the chicken meals, and see if the cats like one meat better than another.[/QUOTE]

Have you thought of rabbit? Many cats like that one, and you should be able to grind the bones as well. There's also other poultry options like duck or quail. Check out your local farmer's market and see what's available.

Happy feeding!! And good for you for wanting to provide your cats with a good diet.

My cats have their own diet tho it is not raw so I cannot help you there exactly. Pls do not feed her rabbit (sigh!) B=I would freeze the beef and then cook it a but and there are many great recipes for beef for cats. Chicken is better though. I am still a bit concerned about the BSE issue admittedly and have seen and heard of too many cases of the human kind (in medicine) to feed my cats too much beef unless I know exactly where it is coming from, ie organic beef.

for the record 'organic' beef does not always mean 'beef without BSE' and BSE is not always rendered harmless by cooking 'well done'.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy[/url]

(not that i find Wiki a better source than the medical field!!! im convinced there are more undiagnosed cases of vCJD in the US than is reporting!!!)

-ashley

Thank you for your answers and information! I knew this thread would prove helpful!

I started my 3 cats on raw in February when I learned that my neighbor's cat was diagnosed with Diabetes and had many of the same symptoms that my previous cats had before they died. Doing research, I found that dry kibble was the biggest cause of this and many other diseases. 2 of my cats had been overweight for years and the Vet told me to cut out wet food completely because it had too many calories. I cut it way down, but did not eliminate it, and they still did not lose any weight (5 years at least). Now both cats have lost 1 lb each and they are more active, friendlier, and dandruff has disappeared from their coats.

I started them on the Dr. Lisa Pierson recipe, using 4 whole chickens, making a very large batch. They are still in transition, and are not sure about the consistency. Chunks surprise them. Sometimes they turn away. So I thought I needed more variety in their diet.

That's why I bought the beef and pork yesterday. I decided to freeze it in small batches so I could either eat it myself if I couldn't refreaze it when my other ingredients come in, or give it to them as a treat or mix it in with their usual slurry.

I'm glad to hear I can make a new slurry with it and re-freeze it in small batches.

I am also looking into the whole prey method but have questions about getting the extra nutrition in. Perhaps feeding a whole chicken with bone, unground in small batches over a week will supply all the nutrition the cat needs, but I'm wondering if I need to supplement with the slurry (which has all the vitamins included). I am not going to feed vegetables.

Today the cats had a breakthrough--just like a lightbulb going off in their heads! For their morning feeding I gave the reluctant cat beef cubes mixed with a small portion of 9-Lives Tuna, and gave the other two beef cubes with a small portion of tuna next to the beef. Everybody ate everything and wanted more! So I put chunks of chicken breast in their dishes, and the reluctant cat wouldn't eat it until I sprinkled on a dehydrated chicken piece. Down it went and then they all wanted more!

So I took out their raw chicken slurry, put it in their bowls, and they ate it all!

I have raw food medallions and patties of beef, chicken and turkey coming from an online store this week. I ordered it to see if they will like other types of meat. I know these have some veggies in them, and it's expensive, so I won't be doing this very often. It will be a convenience for me when I serve that if they like it.

Optimally, I'd like to give them a chicken wing or drumstick, a spare rib, a piece of steak, or whatever I can with a bone in it, and hope they like it. Do you think if that happens, I should sprinkle on salmon oil, vitamin B complex, Vitamin E, taurine, salt, etc... -- the ingredients from the slurry recipe, or is the whole food enough? The cats are not fond of liver, so that may be a problem.

I think success is around the corner... Thanks for listening.