When feeding meat, we are referring to muscle meat as these are the providers of proteins and fats in the diet.

Meat types can be broken down into two categories red and white and both play a crucial role in an nutritional diet.

Every wild prey a cat would eat in nature goes under the category of red meat. So, we advise to always have at least half of the ration composed of red meat.

Red meat can be found from the following animals

• Beef
• Lamb
• Duck
• Pork
• Horse
• Goat
• Kangaroo
• Ostrich

White meat can be found from the following animals

• Chicken
• Turkey
• Rabbit
• Quail
• Guineafowl

Additional muscle meats

Heart, gizzards, tongues, and lungs. They are classified as organs in a human diet but all go in the meat category. Specifically, they are classified as red meat, no matter which animal they come from.
As they are generally richer in nutrients than standard muscle meat so we advise that you do not feed more than 1/5 of daily meat ratio.

Bones required characteristics

Bones needs to be:

• Raw: never feed cooked or dehydrated bones, as they will splinter! As a precaution, I would also advise not to feed freeze-dried bones.

• With meat around. Naked bones are dangerous.

• Adapted to the size of a cat. A cat won’t be able to eat bones which are too big and may damage its teeth trying.

• Uncut, except if you cut two separate bones at the level of the joints.

Risk of bones

Feeding bones may sound scary. However, most outdoor cats hunt birds and mice. They often eat them whole, including the bones, without any problem, as it’s their natural food.

Nevertheless, zero risk doesn’t really exist, as with everything else. So, you should always supervise your animal when it is eating bones.

Finally, be aware that feeding too much bones may cause constipation and even an occlusion.

Which types of bones you can feed

So here is a list of bones suitable for a cat:

• Quail bones

• Rabbit ribs

• Young chicken bone (Day old chicks)

• Chicken neck

• Small chicken wings

• Rabbit legs

• Chicken feet

• Small duck neck

Variety in bones

Like for the meat, you should feed a variety of different types of bones.
It is very important not to feed only chicken necks, as they may cause a condition called hyperthyroidism

Offal in a prey model diet are every internal part of the animal which is neither bones or muscles. More precisely, raw feeders consider as organs in a raw diet everything that secretes or filters substances inside an animal’s body.

Types of offal:

• Liver
• Kidney
• Brain
• Pancreas
• Spleen

Liver

The liver is very rich in vitamins and nutrients, and it is the main source of vitamin A in a prey model diet.
Some cats can be very sensitive to livers and too much of it will cause diarrhoea. Moreover, too much liver on the long-term will cause a hypervitaminosis A, examples of symptoms being skeletal pathology, lethargy, featus malformations.
Not enough liver will cause a deficiency in vitamin A, some of the symptoms being weight loss, muscle weakness, reproductive and growth disorder.

Ideally liver should be 5% of a cat daily food intake.

Other organs

All the other organs bring several, important nutrients including the B vitamins and minerals such as iron, copper, zinc and magnesium.

The idea behind a prey model diet is to reconstruct what a cat eating a prey would eat. A prey being composed of meat, bones, and organs. The omega 3s are important as they help making the fur of your cat healthy, soft and shiny.
Small, oily fish are the best to feed, as they have the best ratio omega 3 to heavy metals.

Fish is not mandatory: if you feed pastured-raised animals, the meat will already have enough omega 3s, and you won’t need to feed fish.

Types of fish you can feed?

It is better to feed small fish, as they contain less heavy metals, and can be eaten whole.

• Sprats
• Herring
• Mackerel
• Salmon

How to serve the fish?

Smaller fish like the sardines and sprats can be fed to your cats whole. For bigger fish, such as mackerel you can cut them into chunks