About to make my millionth batch of cat food

Hey OP, we cook in a similar fashion for our dog who is sensitive to kibble. Any reason for feeding raw as opposed to cooked? We cook our food batches for our doggo.

This food is not raw at all. It's cooked rare, which is all that is needed for whole chicken because, like steak, bacteria doesn't typically penetrate into the meat from the surface. My cats like it rare. Plus it gets warmed in the microwave for 10-15 seconds before it's served which cooks it slightly again.

The most important part is that you buy a very good grinder that can grind bones. I use a Tasin TS-108 which is $150 and is what the vet at catinfo.org recommends.

Time to mix it up. I use my hands and it's a little gross. I need to add 4 more cups of water, as well as the collected juice scrapings in the peach bowl to the right.

Spend like 5 minutes kneading it to be sure it is all mixed.

>enough for 3 cats to eat for 20 days
With all this food, vitamins (especially), prep effort and cleaning, I seriously doubt this is "much cheaper" than just buying Meow Mix or a bunch of .50 cent cans of Fancy Feast.

OP, I've cooked for my dogs for about 25 years. But, it's 50% kibble, I'd say. I like Cavalier King Charles spaniels, and on my third generation now, and their teeth suck. About 7 years in and they've busted some teeth on kibble that is too hard and crunchy and having decay issues. They also have some mitral valve issues and need to stay lean. I kept my last dog alive an extra 3 years in CHF with viagra and diet. That's how I morphed from table scraps/spoilage to actual cooking for them. The other thing that happened was witnessing a nutritionist+vegan and top CIA grad who cooked for her weimaraners and seeing her dog up against the siblings from the littermates that her family had? Like night and day in the quality of the coat, energy, bright eyes, and personality among the dogs. It was phenomenal how the diet made such a difference in what is a pretty lean and muscular dog.

So, long story short, I haven't taken it to the supplements or special foods route, but when I dogsat for the above person, there was a twice daily mean that included veggies blended, a cup of yogurt, a type of granola mix, some omega oils, and a dinner of same minus the yogurt, but plus 1/2 pound raw beef and some more supplements. I've watched friends slim down dogs by adding a simple cup of mashed steamed veggies to thin out the food.

My dogs get a rotation of beef, chicken, pork, lamb, whatever I'm having, some veggies if they like what I have (adore sweet potatoes and pumpkin, apples, bananas, and anything peanut like in flavor like edamame). They get nuts often. I buy FOCUS dog food, in the small breed kibble, which is like flat squares that are crispy, but I'm careful it is wrapped tightly and stays fresh, so I portion it out into smaller tubs of tupperware when I first open the bag. It's like coffee....air tight until it's used. I brush teeth, and they drink fridge filtered water.

Dog ice cream: fill dixie cups with almond milk, freeze and toss em one.

simmer the bones and skin with another chicken to make your own stock for human consumption? Freeze and have wonderful soup base?

Is there any particular reason that the bones need to be included?

If you want to feed you cat garbage then it's not cheaper, but this is about $50 cheaper per month than Friskies wet food, which made my cats have bad shits and bad breath. Also, in the OP I said "cheaper than fancy food" illiterate retard.

I'm not here to convince anyone, in fact I don't recommend it unless you are serious about cat health. I had to pay $700 to get my old lady cat's teeth removed because of bad diet so this is a very good trade-off from my perspective but I know most people would just have their cat put down.

I save the skin and make schmaltz and gribnes and save the bones for stock.

Absolutely they must be included because they need the calcium, phosphorus, and other essential things. Read the site, I'm not a vet.

Here's the skin and my last batch of schmaltz. I keep the skin in the freezer until I have 3lbs, and the schmaltz stays in the freezer so it won't go rancid.

All mixed up.

I just want to say that dogs are a lot easier to feed than cats because cats are obligate carnivores. I'll reply to the rest in a few when I'm done bagging everything up. :)

looks pretty good

do your cats all eat out of the same bowl or do they each have their own?

These are quart/liter-sized freezer bags ready to go in the freezer.

My cats all have their own bowls, of course.

Bunny likes to eat on her cat tree.

Here's Eggs and Grandma (the one with no teeth) eating in the kitchen. Grandma was a barn cat for 10-12 years before I got her so that's why she is so small, and why she had such bad teeth. She was fed table scraps and the cheapest food possible while being an extremely adept huntress who I once saw jump off a roof and catch bird in-flight.

So I have two dogs and I've considered making them food like this (the catinfo.org vet recommends a book called "Feeding Miss Lilly") but I don't because they are big mutts who don't have any issues with the food I feed them (Fromm's Gold Star). I'm from Wisconsin and so is Fromm's so I'm not sure if they are nationwide. I am extremely satisfied with their food, and my dogs are very healthy.

I do really like CKC Spaniels as well, but they have so many health issues which has kept me on the track of big mutts.

I'll try your doggie ice cream "recipe". My
husband and I actually buy the store bought stuff for special occasions for our dogs. :)

I just slim down my dogs by feeding them less but I'll keep the veggies in mind, too. Although I'm sure it gives them some fierce gas.

Here's my boys. The blue merle is Border Collie × Aus Shepherd and the brindle is, believe it or not, Great Pyrenees × Cane Corso.

Finally this recipe costs me $0.70 per cat, per day, for everything including the vitamins (which actually aren't expensive at all.) It's a good deal cheaper than canned cat food.

If you do decide to do this, read the whole catinfo.org site, don't change the recipe at all, buy a Tasin TS108 grinder, and only use meat that was frozen at the slaughterhouse/butcher, never anything that's not frozen. Making cat food does have a learning curve, but at this point, it only takes my husband and I 30 minutes to make (not including the cooking time.)

Nice pups. You just know they're best friends.

Do you eat your chicken medium rare also?

If you have a husband why are you allowed to own cats?

Obvs a numale suffering from toxoplasmosis

do you ever add anything other than meat and vitamins?

>allowed
This is why you don't have a girlfriend

1 you cats hate you
2 this is only cheap if your time worth nothing

I follow the recipe from the veterinarian at catinfo.org. I don't "add vitamins". The ones used are absolutely essential to cat health namely Taurine, Vitamin B, and Vitamin E. The other "vitamins" are fish oil which is good for cats for whatever reason and iodized lite salt which has a lot of stuff in it. I wouldn't add anything else because I'm not a vet.

You think that rare chicken is bad for cats? Better start giving wild cats butane stoves so they don't get sick.

lol

Go back to if you want to act like an edgy teenager.

So how much is your time worth if you waste it making posts like this?

Any parrot keepers here? What "home made" food you feed your birds?

>2 seconds to make a post is equivalent to HOURS AND HOURS SPENT FEEDING CATS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING

Not that you would ever be in the situation to provide for a family but I'm a housewife. Therefore my time is worth "nothing" and the best use of my time is anything that saves my husband a little money. I get great pleasure out of making cat food, baking bread, cooking all of my meals from scratch, gardening, keeping fit by walking my dogs and housework, and giving my husband the gift of seeing his hard-earned money grow. :) Even though I might only save a few dollars a week making my own bread, everything adds up and my family is quite happy to be shown love by eating something that I worked hard to make.

It's a bait

It's not. I'm still OP. :)

How is she doing after having teeth removed? I've been feeding my old lady cat super $$$ wet food for years and her teeth have to come out next month. I'm freaked out about it.

I'm curious as to how this works out price wise. have you broken down the numbers to see how much it costs per meal?

She is totally fine. Anything is better than dying of a tooth abscess but honestly she's exactly the same as before, only now her breath is tolerable because there's no more rotten teeth.

I did break it down pricewise, and it's $0.70 per day, per cat.

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that.

Omg she's beautiful!

Not saying it's bad, but it's definitely not worth fucking around with. You went to so much effort to make raw chicken. Its just definitely not best practice. Your whole argument is illogical also.

...

sorry, i worded it badly about the "vitamins", i know it's essential for the cat. i just wondered if you added anything else from time to time to make it more varied. i've read the site now and it's very useful, i was actually considering changing my cat's diet too and i think i'm going to do it in the near future.

That's for 20 days worth of food for 3 cats, therefore it's $0.71 per day, per cat.

No, I don't ever add anything. My cats really love the food as is, but the vet recommends bacon fat if your cat doesn't like the taste initially, not tuna because it has a very strong smell that cats come to expect. My cats hated the bacon fat though.

>this is only cheap if your time worth nothing
thisssssssssssss

i don't know what you fags are getting all upset about, op confirmed it in this post

cute catter

catinfo.org shill

:))

>implying catinfo.org needs to shill
user, don't be ridiculous in you assertions about catinfo.org

op is just making a thread about cat food as prepared with a Tasin TS108™ grinder according to catinfo.org. if you don't like the thread and catinfo.org's recipe requiring a Tasin TS108™ grinder, just leave and don't visit catinfo.org

but if you do like the recipe requiring a Tasin TS108™ grinder borrowed from catinfo.org, make sure you don't edit the recipe from catinfo.org or use anything but a Tasin TS108™ grinder you might kill your cat unless you follow the exact recipe posted on catinfo.org while using a Tasin TS108™ grinder

The grinder needs to be able to grind bones, which many cannot. The catinfo vet uses a different one now but the Tasin is pretty cheap for what it does. If anything I'm trying to dissuade people from making their own cat food because it's very precise and has a big learning curve and a moderate initial expense.

kek

And hey man, maybe I am shilling for her but it's only because I really love the recipe, her website, and her recommendations. I'm just a housewife who made a post about making cat food but if she sees any money from this I'll be happy for that, too. She made her knowledge available to me for free and I just made some dumbass post on seekay

i'm not really concerned about my cat liking it, i'm feeding him canned food and dry food plus raw meat every couple of days and he likes the raw meat the most, but i was thinking that he might refuse to eat the same food everyday if i prepare it for him. i'll just have to try though.

Well if your cat is used to variety and you don't think he will be happy eating the same thing every day, you don't need to change how you feed him. Most pet food stores sell pre-made frozen raw cat food in a lot of varieties. Many years ago I bought those for a previous cat of mine. I think I alternated rabbit with duck but I can't recall. So that's always something you can consider, then he wouldn't be eating the same thing every day. If I still only had one cat that's probably the route I would take 2bh.

I wonder if your cats know how lucky they are

well done OP

great OC

Aww thanks guys :)

yeah, the thing is i live in a shithole and there aren't many kinds of cat food available. i think i'll try to drop the dry food first and after that i'll try to prepare his food similiar to your recipe while also giving him canned food from time to time.
also, how many times a day do you feed your cats?

My mom always fed our cats pork hearts, liver and minced meat.

Cats will sleep on the weirdest things

Yeah dry food is basically the worst and vets say that even the cheapest wet food is better than the best dry food because of how cats use water. I feed my cats 3 times per day but previously I fed them 4 smaller meals. It just depends on the cat. Also, I was rereading the cat info site, and I noticed that she has a recipe now that uses bone meal as an alternative to grinding whole bone-on thighs. She seems hesitant to include it, but I'm sure it's fine as long as you're still using whole cuts of meat and grinding/blending them with everything else. The next time I feed my cats I'll take a pic of their bowls before and after I microwave them to give you a better idea about how I feed them.

I know it seems like I'm giving vague answers and I felt the SAME WAY when I started doing this because no one just said something like "give your cat exactly 100g per day". Some cats will eat more per meal and some will want to eat a bunch of small meals. Just start off with something like a little less than 1/4 cup per meal and see how much your cat eats in 10 minutes. Adjust accordingly.

Cats like warm sleeping spots and there's a radiator there.

Ha, I know. She's a freak.

Actually it wasn't on, otherwise I wouldn't have leaned the boxes against it. Good thinking though. :)

i guess i'm going to start with 4 meals a day, because he's used to having a bit of dry food in his bowl all the time, it might be best to give him more smaller meals so he won't get stressed that there's no food.

reading your answers and the site is actually very helpful.
recently i've been reading the ingredients on the cat food and i thought there is something wrong with it, like why would a carnivore eat food with mostly vegetables in it? and it's really frustrating that vets recommend this food.

I agree it is frustrating... but I think it's kind of similar to how medical doctors aren't necessarily dieticians. Typically they give the same canned answers about health like "eat a Mediterranean diet" and I don't think vets are that different. It's not that they want to hurt anyone, it's just that there are probably bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

But yeah. vegetables in cat food = higher profits for cat food companies while making the average person think that it must be good for your cat because "everyone needs more veggies, rite???"

It might take some time for your cat to get used to the flavor (or lack thereof) but the 4 smallish meals a day is probably a good start. Another idea I had was maybe you can buy a couple of skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, bake them at 350 for 15 mins, de-bone them after they are par-baked and then blend or food process them with a bit of water (maybe 1/4 cup per thigh?) until they are a puree. Then you can add a tablespoon or so to your cat's food dish with both his current wet and dry food to get his stomach acclimated to the rare-ish chicken. Make sure you freeze most of it (maybe in a dedicated ice cube tray) and pull out a few each night to thaw in the fridge.

Another tip is to use kitchen shears to debone the chicken easily. That's what I do even though I'm good with knives.

My cat only eats her kibble and completely ignores ham and turkey...I think her hunting instincts are broken

I dont have cats so idk how much cheaper that is but its sounds good, nice job!

OP is not a faggot. I like you, OP.
My cat has joint issues and I feed her Science Diet JD (joint formula). If that weren't the case, I'd consider doing this. But I also work. But someday, perhaps.

To give you an example "Wellness Chicken Formula" costs around $1.67 per can on Amazon (and it's a similar cost in the stores) but only feeds one 6-8 pound cat per day as stated on the back. So for a kitten or a 10-12 pound cat you would need 1.5-2 cans per day which means it would cost over $3 per day, per cat. And Wellness is good cat food but not even close to the "best"!!

My grandma still cooks her cats an individual meal based on their particular taste (i.e. one likes chicken livers, one likes normal chicken, one likes ham) every single day. She sacrifices all of her money on this despite not eating so well herself (mostly meals on wheels). I wish I could convince her to do something like this.

Interesting thread, OP. Good stuff!

Thanks :) Just so you know, this only takes 2-3 hours (mostly inactive) every 20 days... it's not a big time user.

Back when I had a cat with chronic health issues I was considering cooking his food from scratch, but felt pretty overwhelmed at the information (or lack thereof) on the subject. We ended up feeding him rather expensive wet food that seemed to do the trick.

You're cool, OP.

Good on you OP. Most people don't understand the fact that cats are obligate carnivores and NEED animal based protein. They also don't understand just how bad dry food is for cats.

So again good on you for being a good mama to your kitties. I wish my GiGi was still with me, but those 15 years we spent together will stay with me forever. I just wish i knew what I knew now about cat dietary needs back then.

Have a Jazz. Jazz is handsome as fug

I am so thankful that my vet recommended the catinfo site to me. It actually wasn't even for the recipe, but for the list of wet foods that she maintains and judges.

It wasn't until my husband and I were balking at yet another $100 cat food run that I even reread her site and saw the recipe. I read the whole recipe page but it took a few months to convince my husband to take the plunge and invest in the grinder.

I love feeding my cats this food and I hope it keeps them healthy forever.

Jazz is totally adorable btw. :)

I work in the Petfood industry and this thread has been sooooo interesting.
I had no idea people cook their own wet food!

I'll be the devil advocate a bit, as I have vast knowledge about what's going on on the industrial side.
Dry Petfood exist because it is very convenient to store and transport, to use and it's rather inexpensive. Nutrition-wise, every formula is designed by a specialized team using specialized software, even for smaller brands. Not only are these people highly qualified (vets and technicians who do/did investigation on animal nutritions) but there are also guidelines and regulations about the nutritional content of what they can sell. On average I'd say that Petfood are much better products nutrition-wise than human food. Indeed every product launched is designed to be able to sustain an animal feeding only on it.

Of course there are caveats
While dogs can eat vegetables and starch, cats are pure carnivorous. So extruded cereals isn't exactly the best thing for them, even if it's more convenient for the owner. Vegetables in the formulas of dry and wet for cats are here because people are uneducated and look for them because they believe it's good for the pet (they've been told it's good for them.so why not for fluffy), the heat process can make part of it digestible even if not very rich nutritionally.
Very cheap Dry food will indeed let your pet survive but not much more, they have the bare minimum but lack ingredient quality and variety. So your pet won't die or be depleted if it eats it's ration, but don't expect it to live far longer than average or in much better conditions.
It's less of a problem if you have an outdoor cat because it will hunt to complement it's diet.
On average super premium dry food is pretty excellent for pets in general, especially if race or age specific and recommended by a good vet. I'd say it's better than economic wet food and even slightly better than homemade-wet.

dry food isn't bad for cats. my cat lived to be 27 years old and all I ever fed it was dry food.

Cont
Indeed super premium dry not only has great ingredient quality and even some added active principles (highly bioavailable Omega 3s, small size peptides etc.) But they have a very strixtly controlled process of making + quality control that ensures food safety.
Not to criticizes any of what OP makes, she seems to be fairly good at it and serious, but let's just say that on average food poisoning is more likely to happen in a non controlled domestic environment with untrained professional than in an ISO22000 facility (and even that way there are recalls every years).

But in the end, homemade Petfood like the one described by OP is pretty excellent for your cat and dog, and while I believe there are correct alternatives in the industry, homemade food can be cheaper but more importantly it's a great hobby and an awesome way to bond with your pets.

Thank you all for the discovery, you've filled.my next 20 coffee break conversation at the lab!

it's cheaper and more ethical to just feed your cat a vegan diet. my cat is perfectly fine on lentils and beans.

Do you know a good reliable dry pet food brand? Whats the best, what would you serve your cat if it could only eat one dry food for the rest of it's life

it's disgusting to have a house full of cats

Nice anecdote.

Go home shill, or show us your Veterinary license.

I used to make homemade cat food for my kitties when one had to have a kidney surgery and the vet said it was from poor diet. I followed the vet's recommendations for cooking for my cat - I used chicken, fish, fish bones, egg shells, chicken livers, chicken hearts, fish oil, and salt. Baked the bones and egg shells until dry then ground into dust to mix in with the rest of the food. I baked it in muffin tins and froze them as individual "pucks" of food, laying out to thaw overnight for the next day.

I stopped because of time restraints, I now feed a rather expensive mix of wet and dry food which is all-natural with no by-products. Honestly, my cat likes his fancy dry kibble more than anything else. He'll barely touch the wet stuff and I could hardly get him to even sniff at the homemade stuff. But it did help him through his kidney problems for about half a year, so even though it was a lot of work and stunk up the house, it was worth it.

Thanks for posting pics of your process OP. I might like to get back to homemade cat food once I have space of my own next month.

Can I have a source on the frequency of homemade cat food causing food poisoning? I'd love to see that, thanks. :)

I feed my cat and dogs Royal Canin (race specific) mixed with a generic Petfood that I get to take home from work (let's say equivalent to pedigree or Dog Chow)
Super premium like Hill's, Blue bufallo, Eukanuba, Proplan are always a safe bet but rather expensive.
Not here to promote any brand, especially at it is rather off-topic.
If you don't have the budget you can look at premium brands that are available in supermarkets, they should do the trick. Mixing can also help you reduce costs. Just be careful if throwing some table scraps or wet Petfood in the mix because , especially cats, they can start to refuse eating the kibbles after that

It happened to be exactly 2oz according to my scale. I feed my cats approx 2oz, three times per day.

I'm not the guy you replied to, and I can't tell you the frequency of homemade cat food causing food poisoning, but I do know that the #1 most common USDA recall alert is for pet food.

Here's one I thought was funny from a few days ago:

"On April 13, a retailer in Texas notified us that their customer had presented samples of our 13-ounce-can Cocolicious Beef & Turkey dog food (Lot #0136E15204 04, best by July 2019) and 13-ounce-can Cocolicious Chicken & Beef dog food (Lot #0134E15 237 13, best by August 2019) to a testing lab, and that the results had tested positive for pentobarbital."

Barbiturates in the dog food.

Dude Royal Canin is garbage for people who need to feel like feeding based on breed is smart and love to waste their money on bullshit. Blue Buffalo is "grain-free" but still pumps their cat food full of shitty vegetable carbs like peas and potatoes. In Hill's so-called "science diet" the first ingredient is CHICKEN BY-PRODUCT, then RICE, then WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR.

Check out the Wikipedia on pet food recalls in 2007: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls

Actual good brands are Orijen, Fromm's, etc.

You don't know shit about pet nutrition, so enjoy your factory job.

Yeah, I do know that pet food is CONSTANTLY being recalled. It's insane and terrifying 2bh. I was asking the Petfood factory worker/ shill for a SOURCE since he said that homemade cat food will cause a greater food poisoning risk than factory-made food. I have never seen any source that proves that, although I have read about many, many, many cases recalls.

The Petfood shill just made up some bullshit because he is too stupid to know what it actually means to play devil's advocate. :)