Cat food experiment, the first

[spinbaby]

First try at making cat food.

I bought a whole roasting chicken for about $9. Put the whole thing, including unwrapped giblets, into the Instantpot with two cups of water and cooked it on high pressure for an hour. After it was cooked, I set the inner pot in a sink full of ice water until the chicken was cool enough to handle.

I picked apart the chicken and separated out all the larger bones, leaving in the tiny ones that had softened. I also took out some white meat to make chicken salad for me. Then I put the rest of the chicken through a meat grinder. I made a thin gravy by cooking the broth with a spoonful of potato starch and a teaspoon of iodized salt. I mixed the gravy, a small mashed cooked sweet potato, and a large spoonful of nutritional yeast into the ground chicken.

The cats loved it. It’s not a complete diet yet, but it’s a start, and certainly nutritious enough that I have no qualms about supplementing their diet with it.

[AltairIV]

1. Bringing out the best!

For such a fierce avatar you really are just a softie at heart!

[japple]

2. My friend who has a cat rescue swears by Solid Gold Sea Meal

I've ordered some for my cats and dog and I think it has really helped the elderly chocolate lab with his digestive issues.I haven't been as diligent about feeding it to the cats because I can't remember to do it. But I need to make a better effort to ensure that my kitties get it daily. I have one male cat with FLUTD and one female with FIV. The others are just getting elderly.

[bamagal62]

3. Don't forget to add taurine.

Cats need taurine to survive. In the wild, they get it from the raw organs of their prey. If the cats diet is not raw with organs, you must add taurine to the mix.

[Shipwack]

4. Interesting... So cooked giblets won't supply Taurine? nt

[bamagal62]

6. I'm not completely sure,

But I do think cooking it is a problem or pet food companies wouldn’t have to add it to their food. I think cooking destroys the taurine. This website has a good bit of info about cat nutrition: https://www.foodfurlife.com
they also sell a supplement to add to your homemade cat food. Lots of people that feed raw use EZComplete to add to their homemade cat food. (I used to feed raw. But, found it too inconvenient for the cat I have now. I do feed my dog a commercial raw diet.)

[slightlv]

5. The taurine need has put me off from

making food for my cats. I'll do chicken, turkey, or ham... the love ham!... once in a while for a single meal. Anything more than that and I'm afraid of hurting them.

[spinbaby]

7. I've been looking into taurine

I have some on order to add, but what seems to be the case, if I’m understanding this correctly, is that this amino acid is highest in muscles that are used more, so the dark meat chicken, as well as the heart, should have a high taurine content.