Anyone make cat food, not raw though?

Merv987

My cats don't like a raw food diet, i'very tried various one's, both bought and ones i'very done myself, and I can't find any cheap foods that aren'the full of nasties that they'lol eat either, so I was wondering about making some cooked cat food instead.
?

rita-rabbit

Be careful as getting all nutrients cats need can be tricky. I'm feeding Animondy Carny senior in tins to my 2. However I'm keen for them to eat more natural food, cats can be v fussy & its important they eat regularly. So go slowly making changes! My cats used to eat Felix tins & Go-cat biscuits! I changed them to Butchers Classic tins & Burns dried & they were v healthy on that for many years. Now they're elder cats I'm trying purer food, they're not very enthusiastic! I've given them quail & chicken this week & had to cook it. This ended up being a lot of work as I bought fresh & offered it raw cut up. Then had 2 pick up the chunks & cook them! Then hand pick the meat off the bones & hand feed it to them! Do your research - there's lots of articles online. Transition of an adult cat from shop or online pet food to homemade/prepared could take years! 1 article I read said be prepared to try lots of diff meats & prep you offer yr moglet & also to chuck what they won't eat! So in terms of cash & time I reckon it won't be cheap, for me I think its worth it. But I do live an area with a plethora of sources of cheap meat (chinese food stores & independent butchers).

Lil_Dee_2

Hi Merv, Can I suggest you take a look at one of the cheapest foods out there - Butchers Classic - as Rita-Rabbit has already mentioned, as it has no "nasties" in the way others do, as it has no fillers, just "meat". (Just don't pick up the dog food version !)

I'm no expert, but I do know that cooking meat does destroy a lot of the vitamins and minerals that cats need. It also means that they don't get the chew factor of a raw piece of meat, which helps clean their teeth.

One of the main ingredients in my home-made cat food is minced turkey thigh. Have you tried them on this yet ? You can also get turkey thigh pieces, so you could start to transition them with that, and then start to introduce other meat/offal if they take to it.


Good luck with it all !

Teddi

Taurine is necessary in a cats diet as they can't create in their bodies and taurine is massively reduced in cooked food. Cats are harder to make homemade diets for unfortunately.


You could try minced, cooked muscle meat with raw high taurine meat mixed in, such as beef heart, the bulk of cooked meat may mask the raw meat for your cats?


Alternatively, I have had great experience with Animonda Carny for my cat, it is all meat and meat broth plus some sodium carbonate, that's it. Buy in bulk you can get it for around £2 per kilo, probably cheaper than you could do homemade. I buy it on zooplus, where you get points and free stuff for your pets for every order, at the moment they have a deal on 12x800g tins for £17.99 which is £1.87 per kilo, buy 2 sets and you get free delivery, should last most cats about 3 months.

Merv987

Thanks for your reply, they'very even eating butchers for ages, but suddenly gone off it, i'very tried Animonda Carny too, several flavours, but they looked like i'd offered them a lettuce, not happy.
I bought some tourine powder from zooplus a while back to add to raw meat, but they weren't interested, so that why I was thinking of trying cooked. I make bone broth for my kids, I was thinking of adding it to the cats food too though, it makes a lovely meaty jelly, just like the jelly in bought cat food.
I'very given in this week and bought them felix, they love it, lock the bowls clean, I just wish they eat the good stuff like that. :-(

rita-rabbit

thats unfortunate as Felix does contain quite a few nasties! you could mix that with the animondy carni or butchers 50/50?

I've discovered my two prefer the Butchers classic & so am mixing AC & butchers this way. 1 ate beef kidney raw yesterday & the other refused to even eat it cooked - except then I cut it up & mixed with AC!

many cats do not like minced meat as it's been too much exposed to air & apparently even raw this reduces the levels of taurine but increases the levels of bacteria! I'm going to try a turkey leg this week - cut up small! If I can get v fresh chicken hearts that too perhaps. But I'm going to take things v slow as apart from time & expense the vet advised me it was upsetting cats tummy - too much change!

missbiggles1

rita-rabbit wrote: »

Be careful as getting all nutrients cats need can be tricky. I'm feeding Animondy Carny senior in tins to my 2. However I'm keen for them to eat more natural food, cats can be v fussy & its important they eat regularly. So go slowly making changes! My cats used to eat Felix tins & Go-cat biscuits! I changed them to Butchers Classic tins & Burns dried & they were v healthy on that for many years. Now they're elder cats I'm trying purer food, they're not very enthusiastic! I've given them quail & chicken this week & had to cook it. This ended up being a lot of work as I bought fresh & offered it raw cut up. Then had 2 pick up the chunks & cook them! Then hand pick the meat off the bones & hand feed it to them! Do your research - there's lots of articles online. Transition of an adult cat from shop or online pet food to homemade/prepared could take years! 1 article I read said be prepared to try lots of diff meats & prep you offer yr moglet & also to chuck what they won't eat! So in terms of cash & time I reckon it won't be cheap, for me I think its worth it. But I do live an area with a plethora of sources of cheap meat (chinese food stores & independent butchers).

Much easier just to cook a chicken for yourself and give them the leftovers as a treat. I can't imagine having to handfeed mine with chicken, they'd take your fingers off!

rita-rabbit

lol - well mine are very polite moggies!

the mess & times is partly why i went back to tinned & am supplementing with raw & cooked meat