As most of you know, I am the founder/director of Wild About Cats and house wild exotic cats here.  In zoos, there is a huge demand for a proper, balanced, raw meat diet for feline, canine, and bird of prey carnivores.  Also omnivores (bears, etc).  Zoos, sanctuaries, nature centers, rehabbers, we all use the same products.  There are a few that compete on a commercial level, I use one called Nebraska.  These diets are made of horse meat.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am a horse lover and owner myself.  But wild carnivores hunt game for their natural diet and beef is domestically raised to be high in fat (for juicey flavor) and it can make wildlife sick.  And since nobody is raising game diets and you cannot buy venison legally in many states, horse meat is very similar.  And it keeps all the 100's of 1000's of rare and endangered captive wildlife healthy.   However, they do provide a beef diet at Nebraska too.  I have never used it.

http://www.nebr.....abrand.com  For complete nutritional info.  I feed the Classic Carnivore for Felines and we also have used the Canine diet for our cheetahs (they are different from cats and have more of a need similar to dogs).  They have a Premium Diet also, it costs more and I don't know the difference, so I've never switched.  Classic comes in a 5lb frozen tube with a hamburger consitency.  It is muscle, organ, bone, all ground in a balance of nutrition for that species.  Carnivores don't only eat the muscle!  We also feed whole chicken with the bones (and skin and feathers when donated as game birds) for a consistency that cleans the teeth and enrichment for them to rip and tear it apart.  🙂  As long as it is raw, the bones don't splinter.  Do not cook them!  I have been using this diet for decades and have never had a sick animal.

There are 8- 5# tubes in a 40# case.  It comes to around $1 a pound.  Not much more than dry kibble!  I have been mixing it with cooked rice and eggs (I have hens, so lots available), since Raven's more used to a higher fiber diet of kibble his whole life.  But, he's doing just great with it and he loves it.  🙂

The way you buy this meat is:  They ship it nationwide to large cold storage houses where it is held locally.  Since zoos use it on a large scale level, they usually just make runs to the cold storage and buy what they need at a time.  The nearest one to me is 100 miles away, so I pick up a lot at a time and have a chest freezer.  Call Nebraska and ask the nearest one to you that they drop ship to.  Ask for Marvin, he's very nice and knowledgable.  They probably are not accustomed to selling to people for their pets, but with the kibble food scares and raw diets becoming more popular, maybe they are seeing a demand for this.  The price varies depending on the amount that your local area uses for wildlife facilities and the cold storage fee.

It's definitely an affordable, healthy alternative for our dogs!

Dawn