Question about Dr. Lisa's cat food recipe

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kimouette

kimouette

Member Since 2012
Hi everyone!
I would like to follow Dr. Lisa's home made cat food recipe but I have two question:

1- Since I have to buy the raw meaty bones (chicken necks and chicken backs) from one seller and the chicken meat from another seller, can you tell me what percentage of RMB vs meat I should respect? 50% RMB and 50% meat like for dogs?

2- I know she doesn't recommend using kelp, but since I already have some Norwegian Kelp at home, can someone tell me how much of it I should add to the recipe in order to replace the iodized salt?
Here are the infos about that specific brand I am using :
Iodine (whole plant) 750 mcg
From 575 mg of Kelp (Pure milled Norwegian Kelp harvested from kelp beds in the cool water of the North Atlantic) 

Thanks!
Kim
:)
 
Hi Kim,
Here is Dr. Lisa's section on bone to meat ratios.
http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood#With_Bones....or_Without_Bones
Please note that she does not recommend using neck and backs at all.
If you choose to grind up an entire carcass and not 'dilute' the bone with added boneless meat, then I would suggest at least leaving out the back and neck since these are the parts of the chicken/turkey with the highest bone-to-meat ratio.
Click to expand...

That is if you are using the whole chicken. I personally use only thighs, as Dr. Lisa recommends and she even recommends removing 20-25% of the thigh bones.

But all that said, unless you are trying to save money by using whole carcasses, I suggest just using poultry thighs which will lower the bone content of the food since the thigh is the 'meatiest' part of a bird's body that contains a bone. Also, cutting up carcasses is not only an unpleasant task but it is also very time-consuming.
Click to expand...

Can you get just thighs form one of your meat sellers? Then you don't have to worry so much about the bone/meat ratios.

Good luck! I recently started grinding my own cat food and it's a challenge that I feel good about because I know I'm doing something important for my cats.
 
Unfortunately I can't order just thighs. Necks and backs are such a good deal at the place I found! Also I read everywhere (for dog food recipes) that backs and necks are the easiest parts to grind so I really want to use these parts!
Chicken bone is chicken bone right? It's just a matter of knowing what ratio the original recipe is respecting... I don't really want to improvise with this but I can't believe I'm the first one who found a good deal on backs and necks!

I'll wait and see if maybe someone knows the answer to my 2 original question. Cuz I asked Dr Lisa and she wants to charge me to get the answers!

Kim
 
Since my grinder is all plastic I don't do the bones but order the bone marrow powder instead.

If you are using bones I do believe the recipe calls for a higher meat to bone recipe, hence the no neck choice. If you insist on the neck-I would only use the bones of 1 out of every 4 for a 25% ratio. Otherwise using the whole carcass might be the better option.

If you choose to grind up an entire carcass and not 'dilute' the bone with added boneless meat, then I would suggest at least leaving out the back and neck since these are the parts of the chicken/turkey with the highest bone-to-meat ratio.

On a good note, if you do choose to grind up whole poultry carcasses, in considering the bone-to-meat ratio, our commercially raised chickens and turkeys will most likely have a lower bone-to-meat (higher meat-to-bone) ratio than a wild chicken/turkey given that poultry producers do whatever they can to promote 'meaty' birds for human consumption.

http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.ph ... hout_Bones
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So, if you have access to commercially raised chickens and turkeys that is good, for their wilder kin I would leave out some of the bone to make the ratio with more meat- or add more meat that you can buy alone.

As for the kelp... first question that comes to mind is what is the carb content of the kelp. If it has any and you have access to the lite version of the iodine salt I would use the salt. But, basic math- 575/750=~75%. So the kelp has 75% of iodine than the same dose of the iodine plant and you would need to add at least 25% more of the kelp to get the same amount (25-30% really).

Hope this helps.
 
Check this out from the Catster raw food forum

Purred: Wed Jun 6, '12 5:52pm PST

Hi Patricia. Yes, it does matter. A properly constructed raw diet consists of 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% other secreting organ (like kidney). If you buy a commercial raw diet like Nature's Variety medallions, they have ground bone in them along with the other ingredients. If you were to decide to make your own ground raw food, you must either put bone in it or put in a replacement for the calcium like ground eggshells or a commercial raw supplement. If you were to feed a prey model diet, which consists of chunks of meat etc., you must feed raw meaty bones, such as game hen pieces, chicken necks, and rabbit boney pieces to provide calcium.

Small raw bones will not hurt your cat; as previously mention by Merlin, it is cooked bones that you must never feed to a cat or dog as they splinter.

I hope this helps a bit.

Purrs,
Shade
Click to expand...

You might join that forum to get more answers.
 
Thanks to both of you for your answers!
Hmjohnston says 25%
Ann found 10%
I found on the Swiss version of a Barf forum 15%
And based on Dr. Lisa's recipe that says to use only chicken thigh that it should make around 21%
21% is based on the following picture : http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/ ... elcopy.jpg

Still based on the above picture necks are 36% bones, so I'll start from there and try to reach a 20-25% ratio and hope its ok!
If its too much bones will my cat be constipated? Or will I have any way to figure it out?
 
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