Raw Cat Food Diet for your Cat Information

Here you will learn what to do to make homemade raw cat food that you can use to add to your cats diet.

I used to feed my cats canned food, but made the switch to raw a few years ago. In order to make a nutritionally complete cat food at home, the raw cat food recipe needs to have certain ratios of nutrients. You cannot just look up "raw cat food recipe" online because there are hundreds of them and almost NONE are correct and nutritionally balanced. A commercial raw diet would be better if you aren't going to assure you have the correct information.

Most cat owners know little about cat nutrition. Most people assume that the cat food companies have it all covered. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sadly, the information they get from their vets and pet food providers is lacking in factual knowledge. Nutrition is barely touched upon in most veterinary schools and the nutritional information they do get is usually taught by representatives of the pet food companies. As you can imagine, this is quite misleading and biased.

Cats are obligate carnivores and have no need for the grains that make up the majority of most cat foods. Most canned and dry commercial cat food is so lacking in nutrition, that it can be equated to a human diet subsisting of potato chips and soda. Why feed your cats junk like this?

Feeding a junk food diet to a cat will result in many health problems and higher vet bills. A properly fed kitty is the right weight, and is filled with vibrant good health.

For the most part, commercial cat foods are not the best option for optimal health. I have a lens completely devoted to telling you all about how unhealthy commercial cat foods are to your cat, so I won't repeat myself here. You can view it below if you like.

Cat Food Reviews- Healthiest Natural Cat Food.

I understand that not everyone can feed their cat top of the line cat food, or even knows what foods are best for cats. Some of my other lenses will help you make this distinction. This lens is to help those of you who want to give your cat the best available option when you cannot afford to buy better quality canned cat food. Adding in raw home made cat food to your cats diet generally works out to be much cheaper than top of the line grain free canned foods such as Weruva, Hounds & Gatos or many other fine grain free choices.

I have lots of cats living in my home, and you can imagine what kind of vet bills could occur if they got sick. I believe that an ounce of prevention is cheaper than a pound of cure. It is out of necessity that I make them a home made raw diet.

If you are unfamiliar with the benefits of raw food feeding, please see these links:

Dr. Lisa A. Peirson, DMV. This is one of the best websites I have found for detailed information on a raw food diet for cats.

For an excellent website on Raw Feeding Cats- I have recently found Catcentric to be outstanding. They have a Facebook Page and discussion group as well. The owner is tremendously helpful.

catcentric.org

Raw food is the NATURAL food of cats and dogs. Just because they live in our houses does not mean their insides have changed. Inside they are little wild tigers, and what do tigers and lions eat? Raw meat, of course. Do animals in the wild cook their food, or do you think they eat the way nature intended?

Meat Grinders for Making Raw Cat Food

I bought a heavy duty food grinder from Cabelas, so that I can make my own raw cat food diet mix.

I am not supplying my recipe here, but these are the ingredients I use: Raw Thighs with bone, some boneless thighs or breast meat, chicken liver, turkey heart, gizzards and kidney. A VERY precise and accurate recipe is required to avoid nutritional deficiencies and it is essential you use an 80-10-5-5 ratio, which will be explained on the websites I previously listed.

I use turkey hearts as they are much cheaper for me to source than chicken hearts. The hearts provide a rich source of taurine.

Meat grinders used to make raw cat food

Raw Home made cat food - how I do it

I buy my chicken and gizzards from the local meat market. The chicken usually runs between $1.59 and $1.99 lb. The turkey hearts are purchased in 30lb cases from a meat and poultry supplier in Avon, CT.

I grind everything up together in my Cabelas grinder and mix it well to distribute the various ingredients evenly. I then package this raw mix in 1lb plastic storage containers and freeze them. Each day I take out a container to defrost for use the following day. It takes 24 hours to defrost in the fridge.

Because cats don't generally like cold food, I take the raw cat food mix and place it in a deep metal bowl. I then place this bowl inside a wider metal mixing bowl and fill it with hot water. The hot water bath warms the raw cat food mix in about 15 minutes. At that point, I distribute it to my cats.

I don't know if the raw home made cat food is the reason, but my cats almost never have anything they need to see my veterinarian about. I believe the raw cat food diet supplementation is the key to their continued good health, and when you have this many cats you definitely want to avoid vet bills! Same good benefits go to raw fed dogs as well.

As you can see, I have lined my counter with newspaper to absorb any drips. .

I have dedicated utensils and a cutting board that I ONLY use for my raw cat food. I always bleach my raw cat food bowls and grinder after using to avoid any contamination. I also use a dedicated sponge just for these dishes and NEVER use it on the dishes we eat out of. You can't be too careful with raw meats.

This photo below shows the food coming out of the grinder. I try to throw in alternating items into the hopper, but I still mix it all well when I am done with a large metal spoon. Don't use a wooden one!!!! I use the large grinder plate - the one with the big holes. The meat goes through it better and the larger grind is better for the cats to chew on.

When the food is all ground up I weight it and package it. I use a food scale that goes up to 5 lbs. I measure out my raw cat food into the containers I use to freeze it.

For more information on raw food feeding, there are some wonderful books and online groups.