taurine degredation

[Deleted]

Hi all

I just picked up some 500 mg taurine supplements because although i do feed plenty of heart, i worry about meeting my little guys requirements since it is frozen before he gets it.

Does anyone know at what temperature taurine begins to degrade? I looked through the thread on supplements and also on taurine depletion, but havent found anything other than freezing is bad. I'm asking because i give my guy a half of a teaspoon of squash baby food every day (just about ) and was thinking it would be easier to open and mix a few capsules into the jar and feed it that way. I refrigerate the baby food once its open, so if the fridge will be too cold and degrade the taurine, this won't work.

On a totally unrelated side note- i was away for a week and had a friend watching Weasel until i got back. I picked up a bag of frozen stella and chewy's duck duck goose (same as the freeze dried but with more moisture) to feed once or twice during the week to add a bit of variety. My goodness were his poops ENORMOUS . He must have either eaten too much too fast or not digested the undigestables in the patties. Back to frankeprey it is!

Hope everyone is well!

[Sherry]

The taurine degradation occurs over time, not so much the temperature(with freezing). So the refrigerator should be fine. As for the difference in stools, it's because of the non-digestables in the commercial raw. The more there is, the larger the stools.

[katt]

Just think how bad the kibble crunchers have it. ;D

[Deleted]

This was very interesting

[deaves]

Just on this if i can. Got a 2kg bag of chicken hearts today and fed some today, and have the rest in 12 bags in the freezer. So if I feed hearts twice a week that will take 6 weeks until it is all gone. Would you think that is too long so the taurine benefit in the last few bags will be virtually non-existant?

[Sherry]

No, that's fine. When we are referring to the deterioration, yes it does happen, but it's a fairly slow thing. And is affected by thawing/refreezing more than just freezing and leaving it there for a while.
Freezer burn, however, does affect the nutrition of any meat much more. For example, I get slightly freezer burned meats from my clients from time to time. I only feed this, however, a couple times a week. No more than that, simply because it DOES have fewer nutrients.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the input sherry!

@ hurricanekatt: LOL funny story when i first started feeding my guy strictly raw i was convinced he must have had a blockage because of the small amount of poo in the liter box. Little did i know how much i would one day appreciate the decrease!

[deaves]

Cheers Sherry.