Killing surface germs on meat

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Really? Maybe a low quality food it does.
But then low quality foods don't usually list meal.
I didn't know that. I don't usually bother with the cheap stuff.

Does "meal" really contain beaks, etc.? I don't really know. I have heard it lots of times as well as read it lots of places on the intertubes. I have also read that some of the stuff in commercial pet food comes from China. Again, I don't know. Animal digest, I've read that they can use road kill when making it as long as it hasn't started to decompose as well as the bodies of euthanized animals from shelters, but I don't know.

But, in any case, "meal" sounds over processed to me.
 
Well yes, there is a transition with any food change. But they do have the same stomach acids. I'm not sure how that figures with with your flora and fauna.
I read that they don't produce as strong of stomach acid when they habitually eat cooked food, as when they habitually eat raw food.
 
I don't like the sounds of meal either, it sounds like cereal type stuff to me, but it is what it is. Which is as I explained.
 
Well yes, there is a transition with any food change. But they do have the same stomach acids. I'm not sure how that figures with with your flora and fauna.

Acids have nothing to do with flora/fauna in the gut. Flora and fauna in the gut, while they may be the same species, are not the same when you are talking wild versus domesticated. Domesticated animals are eating the same meat/byproducts of meat that humans eat that have been loaded with ANTIBIOTICS to promote growth/health. Wild animals that eat wild carrion don't get those drugs. Once you introduce antibiotics, there are possible mutations, that's one of the reasons we are seeing so many "superbugs" in medicine now and also why so many people have allergies to antibiotics. There are probably also differences in numbers of bacteria, as well as possibly species.

Why do you think that one of the reasons reputable wild rescue services try to keep wild animals on as natural a diet as possible and get them healthy and back into their habits as fast as possible?

With that said, we had a dog that had digestive problems. Let's just say she could clear a room faster than ..... I don't know what. She'd even get up and leave the room before anybody else knew what was happening, though that never took much longer than a minute or so. Craig called them SBDs (silent but deadly). We used to joke if we could bottle it we could sell it to the military for offensive purposes. She reminded us, in more ways than that, of Pumba from the Lion King. I said something to the vet and he asked what she was being fed. It was Purina Dog Chow at the time. He suggested trying a better quality dog food with less fillers. Yep, that took care of the problem and she was much more pleasant to be around. She also developed colitis later in life and part of the treatment was to go on a rice and chicken diet for a short while.

I did a good bit of research when she developed the colitis and there are a lot of homemade foods that you can make that provide all the nutritional requirements that dogs like better, eat better and digest better than commercial foods. It's just difficult when said dog is 90+ pounds and eats a lot every day to keep up with. We ended up just buyng a very good commercial brand and when she would first start to develop symptoms I would immediately put her on a homemade diet to head off worsening.
 
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Medtran, I agree about the intestinal flora. Heck, people living in different places have different intestinal flora, that's one of the reasons people get traveller's tummy.

The acids in a dog or cat's stomach are very strong. I have read that if the dog or cat has been eating a raw diet, they are strong enough to kill most micro-organisms. If the dog or cat has been eating cooked food, the acid may not be strong enough to kill the microbes.
 
"Meal" can contain beaks, feathers, and other stuff. In principal it might be okay, but the reality...?

I'm just curious why this is a problem for you, since you seem to support the idea of a raw food diet for pets. Cats and dogs in the wild eat pretty much all of their kill, to prevent other animals from finding it, don't they? Including beaks, bones and feathers? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
They tend to leave certain parts, along with the scavengers (crows, vultures). Something killed a turkey last year in my field and the feathers and feet were left. I figured the beak got eaten along with the head in one bite, but it may have been carried off. The feet actually toured the field. I'd see them move daily, so something was interested in them, but not enough to eat them.
And the hide and part of the intestines is left on a woodchuck. The head disappears, but the skull resurfaces. Rabbits don't get their tail eaten, but pretty much everything else is gone.
At least here. I imagine how hungry something is leads to how much is left. Coyotes are the main predator here, along with fox and feral cats.
 
Thanks. So while they may or may not eat everything, depending on circumstances, chances are it's not harmful for them to eat those parts. So their presence in commercial pet foods mimics what they might eat in the wild.
 
I'm just curious why this is a problem for you, since you seem to support the idea of a raw food diet for pets. Cats and dogs in the wild eat pretty much all of their kill, to prevent other animals from finding it, don't they? Including beaks, bones and feathers? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
As Pac wrote, they often leave bits behind.

There can easily be a disproportionate amount of feathers and beaks. I would guess that that kind of stuff is a pretty cheap leftover from the processing of food for humans.

Bones, on the other hand have important nutrients such as calcium and phosphorus.
 
That's what I think, based on small case observation. I guess the question would be if they eat them by accident or because they need to. Does an animal eat a bone to get calcium, or because the marrow tastes good?
But typically you will only find these parts (byproducts) in cheaper pet food. They pretty much all get their product from the same rendering houses, it's what they buy that differentiates your "holistic" natural type foods from your grocery store common brands. Not that they all don't cater to what the customer thinks their pet needs.
 
Having seen more coyote poop than I care to remember----- I can attest to the fact that a coyote eats most all of what ever critter it kills. What it's body doesn't need or digested gets pooped out---- hence all the furry coyote poop in the woods. LOL

My cats would always leave a part of a gopher or rat on the doorstep. What part that was I never cared to investigate, but it looked like a gall bladder. The rest was eaten, as is natural for even well fed cats.

Oh, and (Here's a big EW-W factor). Dogs will very often eat their vomit if not dissuaded from doing so. I've even seen cats do that.

EW-w-w----w! Waste not, want not.
 
Cats and dogs in the wild eat pretty much all of their kill, to prevent other animals from finding it, don't they? Including beaks, bones and feathers? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

GG is right about that, although they may be eating it all because they're hungry. :yum:

We may want to believe our cats are sweet little lovie-kins but they have that feral thing going for them, whether we like it or not. BTW---- I love cats. Always had one or two and fed them wet and dry food and they STILL killed mice or birds.


I doubt a dog, turned out into the wild, would fare nearly as well as a cat does.
 
Having seen more coyote poop than I care to remember----- I can attest to the fact that a coyote eats most all of what ever critter it kills. What it's body doesn't need or digested gets pooped out---- hence all the furry coyote poop in the woods. LOL
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But, when it's in commercial pet food, that stuff is ground up so the dog or cat can't just pass it the same way as those coyotes did.
 
GG is right about that, although they may be eating it all because they're hungry. :yum:

We may want to believe our cats are sweet little lovie-kins but they have that feral thing going for them, whether we like it or not. BTW---- I love cats. Always had one or two and fed them wet and dry food and they STILL killed mice or birds.


I doubt a dog, turned out into the wild, would fare nearly as well as a cat does.
Cats are sweet little lovie-kins, and vicious killers. There was a Jethro Tull song, Bungle in the Jungle, back in the '70s. Every time I heard this line, "...and He who made kittens put snakes in the grass." I would think, "I guess you don't know much about kittens." :LOL:
 
But, when it's in commercial pet food, that stuff is ground up so the dog or cat can't just pass it the same way as those coyotes did.

Why not? All animals, including people, pass indigestible material, no matter how small it is. In a healthy digestive system, it all gets collected together and excreted.
 
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Why not? All animals, including people, pass indigestible material, no matter how small it is. In a healthy digestive system, it all gets collected together and excreted.
That's why I wrote "the same way". It's in there as filler and so they can write that there is a higher percentage of protein in the food.

The cat food that I buy doesn't have "meal". At over $12/kg, I want stuff cats are supposed to eat, not grain and artificial flavours and colour. I think over processed food isn't as good as less processed food - for cats and for people.

That's why I want to make my own cat food. I haven't found any acceptable recipes for cooked cat food. I'm afraid that if I use a "raw recipe" and cook it, it will be nutrient deficient, even if I add the recommended (for raw) supplements.
 
You said they *can't pass it* in the same way because it's ground up. That's what I don't understand.
I meant the don't pass it the same way. I don't know if they digest or pass it. It's been treated to be more digestible. I know this is a scientifically valid reason, but I just think it's yuck. BTW, I don't gross out easily. I don't think that feeding cats brains, liver, etc. is yuck. :LOL:
 
You might like this site: Health Information - DrFoxVet.Com

He's a veterinarian and former president of the Humane Society and writes a weekly column on pets that I've been reading for years. He does sell books and pet foods on the site, but he also has recipes for homemade pet food.
Interesting looking site. Thanks for the link. I'm not so sure about that recipe. He says to feed it to the cat three times a week along with regular rations. I don't see any taurine supplement in the recipe, but maybe there is enough taurine in the heart and giblets.
 

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