Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I would LOVE to do a home-cooked diet for my cats (I do cook meat for them, but that's for snacking)...I just worry about getting enough nutrients in the recipes, do you add bone meal, taurine, glandulars, etc? With dogs it's so easy, there are usually only 8-10 vitamins/supplements/minerals in the food, but with cat food I've seen as many as 21 . I haven't been able to find a recipe for home-cooked that includes all the supplements with specific measurements...there are plenty of specific recipes for raw diets, but never for cooked . Would you be willing to share some of your recipes ?!
I use finely powdered garlic, just a smidge, spirulina and alfalfa for their joints. All of that should be obtainable at your local health food store.
Mackerel is a really good fish for cats, and they like those soft bones-also good for their joints.
I don't have actual recipes, but I will cook a little chicken liver, spinach and brown rice, add some of the above powders and freeze up to about 6 weeks. You can also add some egg, cooked or not. Mine prefer raw.
No tuna from a can. It's really hard on their tummies.
I use finely powdered garlic, just a smidge, spirulina and alfalfa for their joints. All of that should be obtainable at your local health food store.
Mackerel is a really good fish for cats, and they like those soft bones-also good for their joints.
I don't have actual recipes, but I will cook a little chicken liver, spinach and brown rice, add some of the above powders and freeze up to about 6 weeks. You can also add some egg, cooked or not. Mine prefer raw.
No tuna from a can. It's really hard on their tummies.
Never ever ever ever, for any reason, ever, under any circumstances, give a cat garlic. It is a poison to them. There is nothing in rice, brown or otherwise, that cats need. It is a filler in canned and dry foods and has no nutritional value to them. Cats have no use for grain, and their bodies are not designed to digest it in the same way people digest food. Furthermore, spinach, alfalfa, and spirulina are useful for *people* for their protein content, but if you are feeding a cat a raw or home-made recipe diet, then they are already getting the protein they need and your idea of adding those things is to make you feel good, not the cat. It doesn't do anything useful to the cat.
Grain and various vegetable matter are fillers in canned foods (with certain exceptions such as pumpkin to treat digestive disorders), not nutrients for them. If you're making your own food, then don't ruin the recipe by adding things they don't need.
You -do- need to add taurine. And tuna from a can isn't hard on their tummies. The reason to avoid tuna is because of the potential mercury content. Giving them tuna as a treat right out of the can is fine.
Consider cooking for your cat and storing the little containers in the fridge. There are some good recipes, and I find that just like us, healthy home-cooked food will be way bettr than anything processed. And anything with corn as a base is not good, either.
chicken liver, spinach, brown rice...all great foods for cats!
These are not at all "great foods for cats". Chicken liver is too high in vitamin A for a cat to have very often. Organ meats do need to be part of a balanced home made diet, but liver should be used sparingly. Cats have no need of rice and derive no nutritional benefit from it and spinach is too high in iodine for cats.
Home cooked diets are very dangerous for the health of the cat if proper extensive research and supplementation is not done. Cooking depletes the nutritional value of the meats, so supplementation IS needed.
Quote:
I use finely powdered garlic, just a smidge, spirulina and alfalfa for their joints. All of that should be obtainable at your local health food store.
Mackerel is a really good fish for cats, and they like those soft bones-also good for their joints.
I don't have actual recipes, but I will cook a little chicken liver, spinach and brown rice, add some of the above powders and freeze up to about 6 weeks. You can also add some egg, cooked or not. Mine prefer raw.
No tuna from a can. It's really hard on their tummies.
Garlic is toxic to cats (causes anemia) and fish of any kind is not good for cats, though in very small amounts, once a week maybe, it would probably be okay. Any bones added (and I hope you mean RAW bones, cats should never have cooked bones) have to be balanced with whatever supplementation you are using as there is the danger of too much calcium.
If your home cooked food is your cat's only source of nutrition, it sounds like you need to do additional research about feline nutrition.
I use finely powdered garlic, just a smidge, spirulina and alfalfa for their joints. All of that should be obtainable at your local health food store.
Mackerel is a really good fish for cats, and they like those soft bones-also good for their joints.
I don't have actual recipes, but I will cook a little chicken liver, spinach and brown rice, add some of the above powders and freeze up to about 6 weeks. You can also add some egg, cooked or not. Mine prefer raw.
No tuna from a can. It's really hard on their tummies.
I appreciate the response, thank you...unfortunately (and I don't mean this rudely in any way) this isn't a balanced diet for an obligate carnivore. As catsmom21 pointed out, cooked meat doesn't have the same nutritional value as raw, and even in the raw recipes I've come across, things like taurine, bone meal, glandulars, vitamin E, etc. are called for since these recipes don't call for a whole animal ground up with all the organs, blood and bones. In a cooked diet, the meat itself is lacking nutritionally, so my gander is that even higher percentages of all these supplements would need to be added in order to make it a truly balanced diet for them. This is why I do homecooked meat more as a snack and continue giving them their canned food as their mainstay, because I never have found a recipe that seemed accurate.
Must be coveted information .
Our cats with dietary needs get Science Diet dry. We have a lot of cats, one on a/d for thyroid problems, some on c/d for urinary health and one on w/d for diabetes. They are all doing well.
We had to put our Joey down last week. He was 20 (100 in human years )and was never sick. His heart was strong and his kidneys were good. His bone marrow wasn't producing red blood cells any longer. He was raised on Science Diet.
But I don't think the cat should be on diet, it's good to feel she's fat.
Over weight cats are at a risk for many diseases. Heart disease, diabetes and liver disease to name three. They can have early arthritis, because their little bodies aren't meant to carry so much weight. Breathing problems. Urinary tract problems. Not to mention they just feel like crap all the time.
We had to put our Joey down last week. He was 20 (100 in human years )and was never sick. His heart was strong and his kidneys were good. His bone marrow wasn't producing red blood cells any longer. He was raised on Science Diet.
a fat cat is NOT a healthy cat........ I like to thank Catsmom21 for her time and educated advise........
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. I haven't been able to find a recipe for home-cooked that includes all the supplements with specific measurements...there are plenty of specific recipes for raw diets, but never for cooked 
. Would you be willing to share some of your recipes 
?!
.
