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This can be the problem with raw organ meats from farm raised animals. Organs like kidneys and livers can contain all manner of toxic or unwanted chemicals the animal was exposed to. That not only includes what was sprayed on their pastures and preservatives or additives put in their food, but also hormones and antibiotics their body was filtering out at the time of their slaughter. The organs of wild prey animals wouldn't likely be contaminated as are those from cattle, poultry and hogs.
Having said that, where are you raw feeders getting your organ meats from? I can find organic meats at Target but only muscle meat, not organs.
It's probably tough, at least at a store. Organic and grass fed would help, don't know what happens there but those animals do have organs too, and SOMETHING must happen to them. It's unclear to me if the organs from those reach the store level though. Someplace like Target, the meat is probably not ever packaged in the store. If you went into Whole Foods say, the in-store meat counter should actually know, although the answer might still be "no" as to whether they have them. If you can find a local butcher or a local farm then you might get to know more about the origin of the food and feed they get and so forth. Local sourcing is of course not a panacea for how the animals and feed have been raised, but it gives you a better chance of knowing.
Or, you have sources like Hare Today which will ship frozen meat. Probably pretty expensive. But you can get things like ground rabbit organs which they raise on their own farm. Just something you're not going to get otherwise most likely. Read the About page, great story: https://www.hare-today.com/about.php (Note I have not ordered from them, just a site that comes up often in discussion) The FAQ page talks about what they raise vs what they source, and some of the other meat is sourced from their neighboring farms, etc. They raise rabbits, guinea pigs and goats. If you go through the product pages, they have links to the actual source of many of the other products, such as where the mice come from, etc.
Yeah, I buy mine from Hare-Today, but they come pre-ground with the muscle meat and bones. I buy two months of food at a time since the shipping cost is similar whether I buy a small order or big order. Works out to be about $30 per cat per month (including the supplements, bought separately). It all could be done cheaper if I hunted around for deals locally and either bought a grinder or got them to eat it in chunks, but time/convenience is an issue right now, and my husband has to feed them sometimes and doesn't want to deal with chunks (they drag them around the house as they eat them, etc). That said, if I was buying locally, I've seen organ meats at varying local groceries and smaller ethnic places.
Yeah, I buy mine from Hare-Today, but they come pre-ground with the muscle meat and bones. I buy two months of food at a time since the shipping cost is similar whether I buy a small order or big order. Works out to be about $30 per cat per month (including the supplements, bought separately). It all could be done cheaper if I hunted around for deals locally and either bought a grinder or got them to eat it in chunks, but time/convenience is an issue right now, and my husband has to feed them sometimes and doesn't want to deal with chunks (they drag them around the house as they eat them, etc). That said, if I was buying locally, I've seen organ meats at varying local groceries and smaller ethnic places.
You can buy stuff from them all different ways it seems, either mixed or separately. There's a whole section of just organ meats if you like.
Also, thinking about it, $30/month per cat is really not a ton in the end. I mean, lessee, it's pretty easy for the cat to eat through $1/day worth of other commercial food. (Many 5.5oz cans cost over $1 even in case lots, and in most scenarios a cat should be eating a can that size per day, or more depending upon how few calories it has.) $30/month seems right in line. I'd be all over that if I thought I had a chance of the cat eating it.
That's really good analysis if you've got it at $30/month per cat. It basically means you can feed a pretty well-sourced raw diet for what for some people could be effectively no extra cost, despite the costs involved in shipping from Hare Today.
FWIW I know the OP is in a fairly rural area so certain types of shops probably won't be easy to come by or at least not close by. I think a local farm or perhaps older fashioned local market with butcher could be more likely, if Walmart hasn't put those all out of business down there.
You can buy stuff from them all different ways it seems, either mixed or separately. There's a whole section of just organ meats if you like.
Also, thinking about it, $30/month per cat is really not a ton in the end. I mean, lessee, it's pretty easy for the cat to eat through $1/day worth of other commercial food. (Many 5.5oz cans cost over $1 even in case lots, and in most scenarios a cat should be eating a can that size per day, or more depending upon how few calories it has.) $30/month seems right in line. I'd be all over that if I thought I had a chance of the cat eating it.
That's really good analysis if you've got it at $30/month per cat. It basically means you can feed a pretty well-sourced raw diet for what for some people could be effectively no extra cost, despite the costs involved in shipping from Hare Today.
FWIW I know the OP is in a fairly rural area so certain types of shops probably won't be easy to come by or at least not close by. I think a local farm or perhaps older fashioned local market with butcher could be more likely, if Walmart hasn't put those all out of business down there.
Yeah, it works out to be $80 a month from Hare Today (8 weeks of meat + shipping/tax, about $160), and then the extra $10 is in eggs and supplements (the supplements last forever so I might even be overestimating that $10). I know I could do it cheaper if I wanted to put the time and effort in though because the chicken is the cheapest meat they sell, and it's slightly over $2.50 a pound for the ground meat/bones/organs. It's not hard to find bone-in chicken for cheaper than that, and organs aren't that expensive (and they're not a substantial part of the recipe to begin with). The cost is also slightly inflated because I usually buy a couple of "chubs" of duck to mix things up week to week, which is quite a bit more expensive than the chicken. I also buy turkey and pork, but they're around the same price as chicken. I used to buy rabbit, but my cats turn up their nose at it, despite having introduced it to them young. I would say though that it would cost a little bit more if someone didn't have the space for all that meat at a given time, since they'd have to order more frequently, which ups the shipping costs.
And yeah, I did all the calculations when I first settled on raw, and raw pretty much always came out more cheaply than canned. It might be possible to do Friskies or something more cheaply, but that's Friskies.
But yeah, she's had threads that have touched on this before, she doesn't seem to have many options, including no local butchers, which sucks I think shopping through Hare Today might be a good option for people who struggle specifically to find organs, since you could buy a huge order through them of just organs and they'd last someone forever, if they had the freezer space, and there's a little bit of variety in types of protein too.
Between the dogs and the cats, I go through a lot of beef organ mix per month (equal parts heart, kidney and liver.)
I also buy "whole" mixes from there - entire animals or birds, coarsely ground up with all bones and organs, minus gall bladder and lower intestine. Which most animals leave uneaten anyway.
They don't deliver in your area but if you google "raw food for pets + your location" you'll probably find suppliers locally.
It's probably tough, at least at a store. Organic and grass fed would help, don't know what happens there but those animals do have organs too, and SOMETHING must happen to them.
Perhaps they're sold to specialty stores or restaurants. They're not in the local meat counters. Last time I couldn't even find liver! I wish we had butcher shops here like back in NYC. All the meats come to the grocery stores already packaged. And the only ones I can get almost anywhere are chicken gizzards and turkey hearts - not organic.
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It's unclear to me if the organs from those reach the store level though. Someplace like Target, the meat is probably not ever packaged in the store. If you went into Whole Foods say, the in-store meat counter should actually know, although the answer might still be "no" as to whether they have them. If you can find a local butcher or a local farm then you might get to know more about the origin of the food and feed they get and so forth. Local sourcing is of course not a panacea for how the animals and feed have been raised, but it gives you a better chance of knowing.
There are no butchers in the stores here. It's all prepackaged and the teenagers who load the meat cases wouldn't know a chicken liver from a veal cutlet. Plenty of cattle are raised here but I have no idea where they go to the slaughter houses. There are none where I live. Even the old livestock auction barn was torn down a few years ago. The price of beef is so high here we seldom buy it for ourselves. We simply cannot afford $6 lb and up. I do miss those butcher shops back in NYC. I used to buy "scraps" for almost nothing because the butchers had to pay to have their waste/scraps picked up and hauled to the rendering plant in Brooklyn. My cats and dogs thrived on these scraps mixed in with their regular food. For about $2 I went home with a few 5lb bags, all that I could fit in the freezer. The large raw beef bones kept the dog's teeth sparkling clean and the dogs entertained for hours of chewing gnawing pleasure.
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Or, you have sources like Hare Today which will ship frozen meat. Probably pretty expensive. But you can get things like ground rabbit organs which they raise on their own farm. Just something you're not going to get otherwise most likely. Read the About page, great story: https://www.hare-today.com/about.php (Note I have not ordered from them, just a site that comes up often in discussion) The FAQ page talks about what they raise vs what they source, and some of the other meat is sourced from their neighboring farms, etc. They raise rabbits, guinea pigs and goats. If you go through the product pages, they have links to the actual source of many of the other products, such as where the mice come from, etc.
I've already looked into having meat shipped and the costs are much more than what we can afford.
Yeah, I buy mine from Hare-Today, but they come pre-ground with the muscle meat and bones. I buy two months of food at a time since the shipping cost is similar whether I buy a small order or big order. Works out to be about $30 per cat per month (including the supplements, bought separately). It all could be done cheaper if I hunted around for deals locally and either bought a grinder or got them to eat it in chunks, but time/convenience is an issue right now, and my husband has to feed them sometimes and doesn't want to deal with chunks (they drag them around the house as they eat them, etc). That said, if I was buying locally, I've seen organ meats at varying local groceries and smaller ethnic places.
Do you add your own organ meat to the mix or it comes with organs mixed in? Only one of our cats will eat chunks. I have to cut the meat in bite size pieces or they drag it around the house, chew on them and leave them somewhere. We have not one but TWO new Asian stores in a nearby town. Now if I can only find the time to drive down there and check them out..... right now we're down at the lake for a week.
Keep in mind that gizzards and hearts are not considered organs in raw feeding, they are muscle meat and must be balanced with bone or calcium as such, along with the secreting organs.
I buy the chicken liver in the grocery store. I don't have access to any other organ, so they get only liver in their prey model raw meal portions. I have looked into powdered organ supplements to add organ variety but am still on the fence about using them. I buy all their meat for prey model meals at the grocery store.
You raise valid concerns about toxins that may have filtered through the livers of the chickens, but since I have to choose what to worry about, I would worry more about feeding commercial highly processed pet foods, what goes into most of them is worse than any raw chicken livers bought at the grocery store.
I do feed some canned foods still, but the raw foods my cats eat are prey model, with some bone, some egg shell calcium, Stella&Chewy's freeze dried (re-hydrated) and Rad Cat frozen raw (ground food)
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I think shopping through Hare Today might be a good option for people who struggle specifically to find organs, since you could buy a huge order through them of just organs and they'd last someone forever, if they had the freezer space, and there's a little bit of variety in types of protein too.
