home made pet food

I know there's been discussions here on this, and mine is aimed particularly at cat food. And I prefer it to be cooked. I see quite a few recipes out there, but most are for raw and poo poo cooked.

I'm reluctant to give my cats raw at this stage of the game as one is 17 and the other is 11. When I tried raw on the 11 year old about 4 months ago, he started vomiting, so I stopped (I introduced slowly).

So, I'm thinking cooking it is the way to go and wondered if any of you do this and if so, have a good recipe for it.

I don't have a cooked cat food recipe; just wanted to say that we switched our 2 cats to a raw food diet over a year ago when the oldest was then 17. She has had several health issues over the years but even the vet (who was initially opposed to our going raw) admitted she seems to be thriving on her diet. If you have a cat that can't tolerate raw though, I think there are several sites where you can find cooked alternatives. I'll have to go home tonight and dig through some of the research I printed out when I was exploring the options.

I tried raw with my kitties (purchased raw) and my boy was vomiting too much too. He's got a sensitive tummy..... I have to heat his food if its been in the fridge or he throws up.... I have to feed him small amounts several times a day or he throws up... sometimes he just throws up... but he couldn't keep the raw food down at all. He's also got a very sensitive urinary tract.... I tried adding in a bit of new foods (all meat, grain-veggie free) and he started getting fus symptoms.....
Oddly he seems sensitive to poultry - it was after I added chicken/turkey/duck that he started having problems. His current food is venison/lamb/fish based.

So mine get the best cooked food I could find, which is Ziwi Peak. It's all meat, no grains, no veggies (except perhaps what was in the stomachs of the animals that go into it.... every once in a while I swear I see a pea).

No recipes here either. :rolleyes:

I explored the homemade options a few years ago too as my then 1 year old cat was getting obese on a quality dry food. We switched our two to Wellness brand - they only eat chicken. he got so much more playful after the switch and lost two pounds. :D Apparently cats can have issues with wheat.

Hope you find what you need for your babies.

Veronica

I feed raw to all of my cats except the old (15 year old ) cat. My 10 year old, 8 year old and one year old all scarf it down.
The old cat will eat it sometimes, but not always so it's easier to just let her eat what she's used to.

I'm sure if you wanted to take chicken and cut it up (or grind it) and then steam it, it would be great for your cats. Be sure to include bones and organ meats.... my cats LOVE liver

Some info on a cooked diet for cats.
http://www.holisticat.com/cooked.html

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Originally Posted by ccnyc

Some info on a cooked diet for cats.
http://www.holisticat.com/cooked.html

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thank you!

I've found a couple of cooked recipes online, as well. I'll give some of them a try next weekend when my kitty comes back from getting radioactive iodine treatment for his hyperthyroidism.

Holisticat is a great site and the primary one I relied on for switching our cats to a raw food diet. Another site with a lot of info (but no cooked food recipes :o), and written by a vet: http://catinfo.org/.

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Originally Posted by badger

thank you!

I've found a couple of cooked recipes online, as well. I'll give some of them a try next weekend when my kitty comes back from getting radioactive iodine treatment for his hyperthyroidism.

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Hey Badger,
How old is your hyper-T cat? I'm dealing with a 16-yr old hyper-T cat myself. Maybe because of her age, her vet never suggested the radioactive treatment. Now I have to think about whether she'll even survive the drive to the PNW - as the last time I did a x-country drive my fur babies went off their feed.

Beth, our 17 year old kitty is also hyper-T. Last fall, we had her all scheduled to go in for the iodine treatment - they did a complete physical first to make sure they thought she could handle it. What they didn't tell us was that they wouldn't let her have her raw food diet while there. Two weeks off her diet, that she was doing well on, going back to eating crap food for two weeks, the stress of the treatment and two weeks in a strange place ... well, that was enough for us to decide not to go through with it. She gets a daily 1/2 pill instead along with a 1/4 pill for her recently diagnosed high blood pressure! :( We use a "pill popper" to get both pills down at once.

my kitty's 11, so even though it set me back $1700 it's worth it. I wouldn't do it for my 17 year old because, as hard as it is for me to say it, she's not going to live all that long. 11's still young, and I caught his very early so he was a perfect candidate for it (except now I find out he might be asthmatic due to his obesity :\).

I wouldn't give up on your kitty, though. There are things you can still do. My guy didn't do well on Tapazole at all (uncontrollable vomiting, another reason why I felt I had to do this treatment). You can try it, though, most kitties tolerate it well, and it's cheap.

Or, you can try either one of these.

I'm going to the vet tomorrow and am going to discuss raw food with her. Watching Ruthie get fat on "weight control" food is enough of a sign that something's off. She's only 4, we have a long time to go together, and I want to make sure it's quality time. About a month ago I switched her to the Blue Buffalo food, and I really think it's helping her. She was getting very lazy, and I thought "Oh, the kitten phase is finally over!" But now she's getting very frisky again, definitely has more energy. Maybe a raw diet will have a bigger impact and hopefully drop a few pounds.

yeah that dry cat food killed too many of my cats. Interesting, I have a hyper T cat too. She's so much better since they gave her the iodine. and of course, if you look, you can find some really good canned cat foods too.