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Thread: Anyone make their own cat food?

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    God/dess ahmeerah's Avatar
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    Default Anyone make their own cat food?

    As some of you know I'm a health nut BUT I'm at a loss when it comes to what's best for my cats.

    My boy cat is in the hospital now and I feel like i need to start making my cats their own food instead of relying on store bought stuff (even the better brands). Everything boils down to inputs/food SO I think I want to explore preparing food for them.

    Anyone on sw make their own cat food? If so, how do you make it? If not, what brands do you buy?

    Thanks!!!!!!!

  2. #2
    Yekhefah
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    I probably should. I keep meaning to look into it but haven't gotten around to it. So I'm interested in wherever this thread might lead, as well. Thanks for posting it!

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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Easy cat food recipe for cats that need to heal is boiled plain chicken and rice. No flavor and no spice. Its very easy on their stomachs.

    Otherwise I buy Nutromax.
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    God/dess Emily's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    I used to show ferrets and made my own ferret food.

    It's pretty disgusting.

    I'd get rabbits and organic chickens from the farmers market, with extra gizzards and hearts.

    Chop them up in small enough pieces (including bone!) so that it would fit in a meat grinder (it needs to be pretty strong, but you can use a hand crank one too if you like to get a workout.)

    I'd add whole eggs (including shells), honey, nutrical and ferretone (it's an oil)

    Then cook just til 100 degrees so I could kill a lot of the nasties, but the idea is to keep it as raw as possible. Basically, I'd cook it in a huge pot until it slightly turned colors.

    And then I'd store in quart sized plastic freezer bags.

    I had blood and guts all over me and my kitchen after making it, every time. But they did really well on it. I've since switched to kibble.

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    God/dess ahmeerah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Great ideas so far! Thanks for the info and keep it coming!

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    Veteran Member Zia_Abq's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    I found a recipe for it awhile back and tried it but my little one wasn't too nuts about it. I'd suggest just making a small amount and seeing your furbaby will eat it before going through alot of effort or cost.

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    God/dess Emily's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zia_Abq View Post
    I found a recipe for it awhile back and tried it but my little one wasn't too nuts about it. I'd suggest just making a small amount and seeing your furbaby will eat it before going through alot of effort or cost.
    it's hard to make a small batch because there are so many ingredients.

    Most cats like to hunt small animals, so if they like that, they should like this nastiness.

    Speaking of which, I took pictures of mine. They loooooved it. All 11 of them.

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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    The second pic is evil! But your ferret is cute though.
    you live like an ivy vine
    you can only survive by clinging onto trees
    that's your flaw
    put down some roots so you can stand on your own
    -Kenpachi



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    Featured Member teeth_of_the_hydra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Hahaha, Em's ferret is being all like, OMG I CANT GET ENUF OF THIS SHIT.

    Okay, so I happen to know a little bit about making your own cat food. The following information could get dry and boring so brace yourself.

    Cats, as you probably know, are obligate carnivores... that is, they must eat meat, and pretty much only meat, to live. One of the reasons why a vast-majority-of-meat diet is important for a cat is because cats do not synthesize their own taurine, an amino acid:

    http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/taurine.php

    So here's the thing about taurine. Heat denatures it. This doesn't matter for humans because we make your own taurine anyway, so we can eat cooked food, no problem. But kittehs... they need to eat either raw stuff (original taurine intact) or cooked stuff with the taurine replaced (by adding it after cooking).

    So... you can feed your cat raw meat, if he'll eat it, and if you believe doing so is a good idea. Many people balk at the idea of feeding raw, and I don't much blame them, as eating raw meat would probably make a person sick. However, I think cats should be eating raw meat. I believe this unequivocally, and one of the biggest mistakes I made in raising my guyface was letting his vet talk me out of feeding him raw, on the premise that it would like maybe possibly kill him, and me, and everyone else we knew, someday, oh shit, just wait.

    But before I caved and started feeding stupid kibble to my most manful ninjacat, I made food for him. The recipe was loosely based on one I found online, and tinkered with according to how much he seemed to like it and how well he was doing on a given batch. I was, admittedly, a little crazy. I looked at his poop and smelled his breath and monitored how much he was shedding for signs of ill/robust health. And seriously... he was never healthier than he was as a wee catbean in our little studio apartment.

    So this is what I included:

    Whole quail, including bones and the organs that came with the quail
    OR
    Pieces of bone-in chicken (always antibiotic & hormone-free, though not always organic; sometimes I could get cheap "in transition to organic" chicken at the farmer's market)
    OR
    Turkey necks
    OR
    Lamb parts, bone included

    Ground up with a small amount of:
    Beef thyroid
    Beef kidney
    Chicken hearts
    Chicken livers
    Chicken gizzards

    And a very tiny amount of:

    Flax seeds
    Wheatgrass
    Psyllium husk

    I didn't include raw eggs because for some reason my cat hates eggs. Other cats I've known will like, slurp up an egg if you drop it on the floor. My guy would ignore his food if eggs were included, so I eliminated those pretty quickly. But most raw recipes will include eggs. You can check out these links for more information, I referred to most of them, but ultimately created my own recipe because I believe that eating is more intuitive than scientific, and also, my pet would let me know if something was wrong.

    http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm
    http://www.catnutrition.org/recipes.php

    I hope this helped. I should also mention that adult cats fed a diet of kibble are frequently "junk food addicts" who don't take well to raw food. I mean, I think you could eventually change their minds, but it won't be easy. At this point in his life, my two-year-old impossible catguy will waste away before touching raw food, but as a kitten he would stand under the meat grinder and lap the raw poultry juice off the tile as it leaked. He'd be covered in turkey drippage by the end of a food making session and I'd have to bathe him. I wish he spoke English so I could remind him of how much he used to like good food.
    Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
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    God/dess ahmeerah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    ^^^^ Wow. This is AWESOME!

    I was sometimes letting my cats eat raw eggs. They begged me for them!

    Teeth of Hydra:
    Do you put all the ingredients in a blender/processor? Or can you wash it up with a knife and fork?
    Last edited by ahmeerah; 08-15-2008 at 07:59 PM.

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    Featured Member teeth_of_the_hydra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    ^^^Heehee, my parents' cat will swat unguarded eggs off the counter so they'll break open on the floor. You turn around for 2 seconds and SPLAT! And then there's nothing but a cluster of eggshell and a smug and sticky tabby licking her chops. She's ruthless like that.
    Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
    For mixers, my love, you'd poured--what?--even the rain.

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    God/dess ahmeerah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    ^^^ gotta love cats. sneaky bastards. and so determined.

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    Featured Member teeth_of_the_hydra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Quote Originally Posted by ahmeerah View Post
    Do you put all the ingredients in a blender/processor? Or can you wash it up with a knife and fork?
    I forgot to mention that I used a meat grinder. I happened upon an old iron turn-crank one at a garage sale for like $5, and it was a godsend. Prior to that, I had been chopping by hand, but it's slow work. A food processor is probably not tough enough, because it's not made to grind bones (and raw bones are really, really hard). A blender would break instantly. When I used turkey or lamb, I'd pre-chop the bigger pieces of bone into thinner (not smaller or squarer, but thinner) pieces... like, if I was using a turkey neck, I'd put a few slices in it and wrench it apart. If I was using a large hunk of lamb, I'd often grind the central bone down till some of it was pulverized, but I couldn't always crush all of it. Lamb shanks are pretty good because the central bone is long and thin. My guy loved the crap out of lamb when he wasn't a junk food cat.
    Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
    For mixers, my love, you'd poured--what?--even the rain.

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    God/dess Emily's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    yes, you have to use a meat grinder. You are chopping up raw meat and bones. A blender does nothing.

    I was using the cast iron thinggy that TOTH uses, but I bought an electric meat grinder after awhile. It's hard work!

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    Senior Member punkpixie001's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Emily i can't imagine doing that, but you seem like such a great and sweet mom to your pets!!

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    God/dess ahmeerah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Quote Originally Posted by Emily View Post
    yes, you have to use a meat grinder. You are chopping up raw meat and bones. A blender does nothing.

    I was using the cast iron thinggy that TOTH uses, but I bought an electric meat grinder after awhile. It's hard work!
    Hm, a meat grinder? I'll look into that. I can't wait to get started on this.

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    God/dess threlayer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    The experts are normally the breeders. You can probably find a few breeder websites where they compare notes of making cat food.
    Last edited by threlayer; 08-17-2008 at 09:18 AM.
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    For brands I love, love, love Wellness by Old Mother Hubbard. Love it. I also like Wysong and Solid Gold.

    I never made cat food, but I used to make dog food. I used to worry a great deal about it, but then just relaxed and fed them whatever, honestly. But I still have my copy of Dr. Pitcairn, so if you want I can copy the recipes out for you. Or rather, scan them and email them.
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    God/dess ahmeerah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone make their own cat food?

    Quote Originally Posted by threlayer View Post
    The experts are normally the breeders. You can probably find a few breeder websites where the cmpart notes of making cat food.
    Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

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