Vital Essentials Products

[LindaM]

So today I dropped in to get some extra Stella & Chewys FDR for my ferrets at the 2nd location of the local pet shop I buy at, and was pleasantly surprised at the variety and ranges of products they carried compared to the usual store.

Among the products there, one brand caught my eye, but I do not personally have any experience with the brand, so I'm hoping someone on here would know more about them and their products.

The brand is "Vital Essentials", and they have since increased the types of products they used to sell, they cater to Cats and Dogs, focusing on a Raw approach. The ingredients in all the products seem to be mostly just raw animal parts, with the only really concerning exception being "raw goat's milk" in the Cat series of Entrées, with a varied location in the ingredient list from product to product. This does not get included in the Dog Entrées though.
www.vitalessentialsraw.com

Cats:
Frozen Entrées
Freeze-Dried Entrées
Freeze-Dried Treats

Dogs:
Frozen Entrées
Freeze-Dried Entrées
Freeze-Dried Treats
Freeze-Dried Snacks
Green Tripe
Raw Bar Freeze-Dried

The FDR treats seem pretty sound on both the cat and dog ranges. Mostly containing a single meat, or multiple meat ingredients, eg. "Chicken Hearts" (Chicken Heart), or "Rabbit Bites" (Rabbit, Rabbit Liver, Rabbit Kidney, Rabbit Heart). Looking at the large range they offer for treats, I'm sure there's quite a few my ferrets would love to get. I'm also thinking a bag of FDR Hearts could be useful to have around in the Emergency Box.

The Snacks from the dog range include freeze-dried "Turkey Necks", which I'm curious to know how well those might do with rehydration or if the bone in them would just be too dangerous compared to fresh raw Turkey Necks. The Raw Bar range include freeze-dried Chicken Necks, Duck Necks, Duck Feet, Turkey Wing, Pig Ear, Beef Pizzle, etc.

As for the FDR and Frozen, other than the issue of goat milk in the Cat Entrées, or that a small few of them do not seem to include bone, the overall ingredient lists look good, using muscle, bone, and organs. I would just be concerned with the balance ratios of the product, I can't seem to find that on their site, so I'll try emailing them about it.

Has anyone used this product or have any experience with it? Or know what their balance is?

[abbeytheferret6]

Look up recalls on vital essentials. Some time ago, I looked it up and there was a lot of recalls. Don't know about now.

[LindaM]

abbeytheferret6 I've only come across a Recall on the Tripe in middle 2015 due to possible Listeria. And a recall on some of the Chicken Frozen in early 2016 for possible Salmonella.

[abbeytheferret6]

Natures Variety frozen had problems too---mostly chicken in that time. Anyway, that is why I buy the rabbit for cats in NV only and steer away from their chicken. Anyway chicken is pretty easy to get at stores, and may be handled differently for human consumption---but really don't know about that.

[LindaM]

abbeytheferret6 Luckily, I actually try not to do any FDR or Frozen Raw Commercial Chicken products for my ferrets at all, since their bone-in meals were still a bit chicken heavy, and they get chicken hearts for their heart meal, which is why I'd consider the FDR Chicken Heart treat bag as an emergency backup.

My ferrets get a split diet of Frankenprey, rehydrated FDR, and Frozen Raw, and they get a big variety of proteins overall. But as we know, both Stella & Chewys, and NV Instinct tends to add some indigestibles such as fruit and veggies to their products too, and they add a lot of different meat sources into a single product, eg. "Duck Duck Goose" which contains duck, then mostly turkey, and finally a touch of goose. What I found nice about looking at the VE products, was that they stick to a single meat source per product, eg. the "Duck" doesn't even use chicken eggs, it uses duck eggs, and all meat parts is derived from duck only.

[abbeytheferret6]

That's nice about the products being one source