Suppliments of Minerals required in a homemade raw-whole-broiler-chicken Barf diet?
Image by Cowgirl Jules
My meat birds, a type of red broiler called Freedom Ranger. They’re only five weeks old, and halfway to slaughter weight.
Question by ajnaabi: Suppliments of Minerals required in a homemade raw-whole-broiler-chicken Barf diet?
Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Just answered your previous question.
As long as the cat is getting the bones as I assume she is (barf = bones and raw food) in addition to the meat and organs of the chicken she should be getting enough of the required minerals.
If she were not getting bones she could quickly develop a Calcium deficiency.
If you ever do need to use supplemental calcium be careful. The reason is that the supplements for human bone health generally contain a lot of magnesium. We need a lot of magnesium, cats need little, so a human supplement could be harmful.
It occurred to me that you could also prepare some of her meals with goat meat, bones, and organs. In the United States almost no one eats goat (except people from India!) so I did not think of that.
If you are concerned with trace minerals, some people who feed homemade add kelp as a supplement. Ordinarily, they should be present in the chicken though.
Your cat had anemia. Did you manage to get some testing done? Is she improving? Hope so.
When you post questions, make sure you say where you are otherwise people are going to tell you to go to the vet ( I recall you said the vet was 1000 miles from you) or buy some brand of cat food available only here.
Good luck with your cat.
susan n
June 30, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Ask the vet how the dog is supposed to cook it!!
Dogs have different gastric levels to us, and have evolved differently. The are not designed to eat cooked food, and raw is natural to them.
All my dogs regularly get raw chicken, beef bones etc. Just remember what is natural to them and generally you cant go wrong. My dogs also love carrots and will occasionally steal potatoes.
rahul
June 30, 2012 at 3:38 pm