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I doubt I will ever make it to prey model or frankenprey (one is whole, one is ground, right, but I don't know which is which) mainly for the fear of messing my girls up.
It takes many weeks, even months, for a nutritional deficiency to become acute enough to cause harm, and it's very easy to ensure you don't get to that pass, so you can put your minds to rest on that note.
As for the difference between prey model raw (PMR) and frankeprey - there is none. They are one and the same.
They are not, however, either ground or whole prey. Ground diets are processed using some type of grinder, while whole prey diets consist of whole animals such as mice, rats, quail, chicks and guinea pigs. PMR / frankenprey diets are composed of a variety of meats, organs and bone-in meals fed in such a way that at the end of a set period of time - usually a week, but it can also be per meal or per day - they have eaten the same, or very nearly the same, as if they had consumed whole animals. This is done using the 80/10/5/5 guideline: that’s 80%-87% meat, fat, skin, sinew, connective tissue and heart, 5%-10% edible bone, 3%-5% liver, and 5% other secreting organ.
My goal is to add more variety to the diet of the two who have limited tolerance to canned commercial foods. My struvite kitty is so messed up from all those years on c/d kibble I wonder if she will every fully recover. I want her on another protein so badly, I am praying she will eat the Rad Cat lamb even though it is not "natural" for a cat to eat lamb. I am going to try the chicken and turkey too, since I have gathered, after reading AC and FMM's helpful knowledgeable posts, that raw chicken and raw turkey could really be considered completely different proteins than the highly processed canned varieties.
Most definitely is there a difference between canned and kibble products and fresh, whole meats! Even if you disregard the near-total destruction of nutrients by their processing methods, there is the fact that none of the ingredients found in canned and kibble come even close in wholesomeness or nutrient profits to fresh, whole meats.
First, all ingredients in pet foods are waste products from the human food and agricultural industries; you can be assured there are no chicken breasts or beef chunks in those foods. Second, FDA regulations allow a HUGE latitude in "naming" pet foods. If a product contains the following words (or similar): “Dinner,” “Platter,” “Entree,” “Nuggets” or “Formula,” then the total of the ingredients named in the title must be
greater than 25% but less than 95% of the product on a dry matter basis. Any ingredient proceeded by the word “with” need only comprise
3% DMB of the product.
Third, in their efforts to increase their own profits, the pet food industry uses the cheapest ingredients it can, while at the same time, the human food and agricultural industries seek to gain profits even from their waste products. The ties between these industries are complex and benefit everyone
except those consuming their products.
For instance, at AAFCO's 2011 annual meeting, the rendering industry requested assistance in creating an animal feed/pet food name for grocery store waste and expired food products, and the examples they provided were left over pizzas and expired Hot Pockets.
Said one of the AAFCO members, "We'll have to come up with a term that the consumer will buy or a renderer won't be able to sell it."
Although canned products don't cause the horrendous level of damage as does kibble, it's not anything I'll ever feed my cats again... and it's absolutely NOTHING on par with a diet of fresh, whole meats, organs and bone-in meals.
AC
