Homemade cat food

freezspirit

13 year old cat has become very fussy over food, to be fair she has always been fussy but its got to the point where she is wasting food and money from my pocket.

She gets daily either:

*2 pouches of mon petit plus biscuits
*1 tin of senior pate and 1 pouch of mon petit plus cat biscuits

sometimes she will get a treat of a tin that has shredded chicken and pumpkin or real tuna and prawn etc

Problem is she will eat the first half of the tin but if you plate up the rest of the tin a couple of hours later as tea she wont eat it.

She has expensive taste tried her on cheap brands of biscuits doesn't touch them, if mixed with another she will pick them out. So several boxes/bags have gone to cat charities. Currently giving her canagan biscuits especially likes the game flavour.

Its not that she not hungry as she will come and eat some of the left over meat from my meal or cod from my takeaway.

So getting back to the original question has anyone prepared homemade cat food. Gone out today and got some small containers that are suitable for freezer, microwave and dishwasher.

I'm thinking of making a small batch and was wondering what other ingredients I will need and how to cook it (cat will not eat raw meat):
*chicken
*pumpkin
*rice

GwylimT

Cats don't need pumpkin or rice, they are carnivores.

Find a raw complete recipe and just alter it to cooked meat and increase the amount of taurine you add as heat denatures it.

krlyr

Have you tried any of the brands from Zooplus? I don't have cats, but have heard they're good (and often higher meat content at a better price)

The issue with a homemade diet would be taurine - it is vital to a cat (a deficiency will be fatal) but as they don't produce it themselves, they need the right levels in their diet. You can buy taurine supplements - powders, pastes, high-taurine treats etc. (again, Zooplus seem to do a good range) but you would want to know how much they're getting from their diet to know how much extra you may need to supplement.

Again, not all that clued up as I don't have cats, but I know in raw diets it's essential to get the right balance of meat, bone and offal. I imagine you need to replicate this with a homecooked diet, though being cautious of bone (cooked bone is too brittle - you'd want to feed bonemeal or minced bone) and bearing in mind that cooking can deplete nutrients.

My suggestion would be to find a group, e.g. on Facebook, aimed at homemade diets and do a lot of research before you switch. Otherwise you risk doing permanent damage with an unbalanced diet.

Mrs_Z

How about prawns? Our elderly cat is rather fussy herself but there are 3 things that she abolutely loves:
1) prawns
2) raw chicken or turkey breast (cut into small chunks or cubes)
3) raw fillet of pollock

I buy the prawns and pollock from Sainsburys frozne, their own economy range and the chicken/turkey breast when I see them in the super market discounted. I then cut them into pieces, bag them into portion size freezer bags and freeze them. Then take a bag out once a week. So she gets about 3 raw meals a week altered with the normal wet food and cat biscuits. Seems to work well.

oldandhappy

we buy the pollock frozen in Lidls here in France just as we did in the UK...defrost and microwave for 2 mins approx for two fillets.Our Cats have this for there evening meal and a few quality crunkies before bed. Wet cat food from the supermarket in the mornings to make sure of the taurine required. regards Dianne

GwylimT

oldandhappy wrote: »

we buy the pollock frozen in Lidls here in France just as we did in the UK...defrost and microwave for 2 mins approx for two fillets.Our Cats have this for there evening meal and a few quality crunkies before bed. Wet cat food from the supermarket in the mornings to make sure of the taurine required. regards Dianne

Complementary food eg a fish fillet should only make up 10-15% of a cats diet, otherwise they aren't getting a balanced diet. Really if you do this you need to add something like felini. They would need lots of wet food in the morning to get adequate taurine as most supermarket foods don't contain enough.

rita-rabbit

cats should not be fed raw fish

GwylimT

rita-rabbit wrote: »

cats should not be fed raw fish

Raw fish is perfectly fine for cats (and humans), just like with anything you feed sensible amounts.

Feral_Moon

rita-rabbit wrote: »

cats should not be fed raw fish

Only fish containing thiaminase, very few of which you'd commonly feed to a cat anyway, apart from possibly mackerel and tuna. But, as GwylimT says, in moderation they won't cause any harm, e.g. less than 20% of overall diet.