Choosing and preparing meat for Raw Meow Mix.
Raw Meow Mix handles the nutritional balancing. Your job is the meat. Here is how to do it well.
Start with good quality meat
Human grade meat from a supermarket or butcher is the first choice. If you are using pet grade meat, it needs to be preservative free, single protein, and free from added bone or secreting organs. Check the label. Do not assume.
On pre-minced meat
Minced meat has more surface area than whole cuts, which means bacteria multiply faster. If you are buying pre-minced, freshness matters more. Better still, buy whole cuts and mince or dice at home, or ask your butcher to mince it fresh. Whole chunks of meat also give your cat something to chew, which is good for teeth and jaw development.
Variety
Feed at least three different proteins across the week, more where possible. Rotating proteins provides broader nutritional coverage and reduces the risk of your cat developing a sensitivity to a single protein over time. It also prevents fixation on one meat, which becomes a problem of its own.
What meats to use
Primary muscle meats: chicken, turkey, pork, goat, lamb, beef, kangaroo, duck.
Secondary options that can make up around 10% of the meat portion: tongue (high in taurine), heart (also taurine-rich), chicken gizzard (adds texture and encourages chewing). These are muscle meats, not secreting organs, so they work within a Raw Meow batch.
Do not add liver or other secreting organs. The mix already supplies those.
Freezing
All raw meat must be frozen before feeding to reduce parasite risk, including toxoplasmosis. Standard meat needs a minimum of three days in the freezer. Pork and wild-caught meats need at least three weeks.
This applies regardless of where the meat came from. Freeze it first.