? More Homemade Cat Food Questions

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Panic

Panic

Member Since 2019
Me again haha. Still trying to find a steady source of protein in my area - we have only one butcher in town and he has a 3 lb limit on meat! Can you believe that!

Anyway, two questions. As I was poking around my local groceries for turkey sources, I found a few variations. I know ground turkey isn't recommended, and it would ideally be thighs, but what about other parts of the body? Turkey backs? Tenderloin? Others I can't think of? Are other body parts okay or not really? Same for chicken? What are thoughts on pork? Not ideal?

Second question: Dr. Pierson's recommended grinder is discontinued! :eek: I'm not going to be savvy enough to determine an alternative of similar price/quality, so any suggestions, or if you don't use the Tason ts-108, what do you use?

Bonus: Bought some turkey thighs and let the kitties try it out to see if they'd dig raw food. My sweet tomcat got a little pushy with me for not giving it to him fast enough. :woot:
 
Hi Elizabeth, yes I feed a raw diet to my cats. I started when I found Sheba was allergic to some canned foods.
With my latest two cats I feed them a frankenprey diet, which is basically feeding all the parts of the animal that is as close to what their natural diet is....a mouse.
If you are interested I would google frankenprey diets for cats.
I basically feed 80% muscle meat, 10% bone and 10% organ meat.
Muscle meat can be beef, pork, lamb, rabbit, kangaroo, chicken, turkey, heart (lamb, chicken or beef) and probably more things which are available in the US.
Organ meat I use is 5% lamb liver and 5% lamb kidney
10% Bone is chicken wings, chicken frames, chicken necks.

I don't grind my meat. When I buy it I freeze the muscle meat in 30 gram pieces, the liver and kidney in 6 gram pieces and freeze the bone sections in pieces about 40 or 50 gram lots depending what it is.
I freeze it all flat, then bag it for future use.
I then put it in daily portions and cut it up each day. I give them muscle meat and organ meat each day and bone a few times a week.
Harry has 120 grams a day and Clover has 150 grams a day.
If your cats wont eat bone then it can be replaced with egg shell powder which you can make yourself very easily.
I also give them 1/2 raw egg yoke twice a week and sardines once a week.
I also give them a pinch of taurine each day even though I am sure there is plenty of taurine in the raw food.

If you are having trouble sourcing meat, this diet might be too hard for you but you can still do a raw diet if you use a supplement to make it a complete diet. I don't like grinding the meat myself and would much rather cut it up each day.
If I can help further, just let me know.
Panic said:
What are thoughts on pork? Not ideal?
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I use pork and have no issues with it.
Panic said:
but what about other parts of the body? Turkey backs? Tenderloin? Others I can't think of? Are other body parts okay or not really? Same for chicken?
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As long as the turkey has no additives in it, it should be fine.
 
Thank you Bron! Wow!

So, you don't buy supplements, everything in the meat/bones/organs itself suffices? Frankenprey would be really cool but I'm struggling as-is to find basic proteins in my disappointingly rural area. Apparently the stores haven't even had chicken liver in stock since COVID hit. o_O I've priced ordering online but $5-$15 per lb + shipping is a little pricey.

I would love to hear about the egg shell powder recipe - I asked @katiesmom about a homemade recipe and she wasn't sure about any.

So is grinding not really necessary, just more of a preference?

What I would like to do at least, is buy supplements as listed on Dr. Pierson's site (instead of the premixes), eggshell powder, and ideally at least chicken and turkey proteins, since those are the only two that seem like something I can get locally fairly easily. Well the chicken at least, the turkey I need to make a few phone calls about, see if any groceries will order any for me on a regular basis. But if say, I pop in to a store and find lamb or what-not, it's fine to make a batch of pretty much any meat? (sans fish/beef? I guess beef isn't recommended by Dr. Pierson?) I'm probably overthinking it but I don't want to be buying the wrong cut of meat and doing harm. :nailbiting:

I think Chris said most people rotate three proteins but I don't know what my third protein could be. But Michele said she uses only chicken so it must not be mandatory, just preferred? Or maybe I could do a combo of raw and canned. Thinking out loud.

My friend poked fun at me when I mentioned trying homemade cat food, since I feed myself primarily cans of ravioli and frozen pizza. :joyful: I'm not much in the kitchen ... in fact baking chicken for Panic was the first marked time I ever baked meat. :woot:
 
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Grinding is a preference. I prefer to just cut it up each day after I have portioned it all up.
If you are giving all the supplements, just a couple of types of meat should be fine although the more the better as each meat has different minerals/ vitamins.

To make the egg shell powder All you need to do is collect a dozen or so egg shells as you use them. Wash them as you go....leave the membrane in the shell. If it’s hot keep them in the fridge until you have collected enough (12 is enough to start with). Or you can dry them out on a window sill.
Then put them on a tray and put in the oven on about 300 F for 10 or 15 mins to dry out and sterilise. They will go a bit brown around the edges but don’t let them get burnt.
Then you just put them in a blender and grind them to a powder. It will make the blender go a bit cloudy So don’t use anything you don’t want to get a bit marked. Egg Shell dose: 1/8 teaspoon per 100 grams of meat.......so if you are feeding 150 grams a day you mix in 1/8 teaspoon and another half of 1/8 teaspoon into the days food. One of my cats can’t eat bones and she gets ESP.

It doesn’t sound as if you are eating a balanced diet! Do you eat fruit and veg?
 
Good to know! Yes I would love to add variation, just wish there were more local options D:

Oh thank you! Going to write this down. :) Is the egg shell powder something you would add "fresh" daily, not mixed in and frozen? How long is it ideal to keep it, or do you tend to use it up quickly?

Oh I live to eat but I just hate cooking! Making goodies for the cats is apparently the only thing that will keep me in the kitchen. :woot:
 
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I add the ESP daily but I’m sure you can add it to a batch and it would be fine.
I make it up every few months. It depends how many egg shells you use. It is so easy and quick to do. I wouldn’t do too many egg shells ( more than a couple of dozen ) at a time just because of freshness. I store it in the cupboard.
 
Okay @Bron and Sheba (GA) I think I need my hand held for a moment.

In the process of ordering all my supplements and I'm wanting to use your eggshell powder recipe but I'm stuck on the math. I decided it'd be more sensible to mix in the ESP to everything and freeze it so it's already prepared (I don't trust this household to add the right amounts daily LOL). I understand the 100 grams = 1/8 tsp of ESP, but how does that work for making large batches? If we do it by Dr. Pierson's recipe using 3 lbs of meat ... plus 3-4 oz of liver ... I have no idea how much to add. I thought I had it figured out, the feline-nutrition website said something like 3 grams per lb of meat. But I'm afraid of getting mixed up. :nailbiting: Is it going to be something like 2 teaspoons?

If I can't figure it out I'm just going to buy some bone meal powder. :rolleyes: Math is really hard for me to wrap my head around. :oops:
 
I can figure it out. ESP is much better than bone meal. Tell me how much will be your total amount of meat/liver/ heart etc in the batch ?
 
I was thinking I'd keep it simple and just stick with the recipe that uses 3 lbs of meat plus 3-4 oz of chicken liver. And after that I can just double/triple the batch amounts or whatever because I'm not sure how much I plan on making at a time yet.

I really appreciate it ... I'm literally sitting here with a calculator, scraps of paper, and food conversions up in my tabs and I've been at it a couple hours and still stuck. I get different answers every time I try. :facepalm:
 
Thanks a million. :confused: She doesn't have any hearts in the recipe either, just the main protein + liver.
 
3lb 4oz equals 1474 grams
So for every 1.76 lbs (or 800 grams) you use 1 teaspoon ESP

For the 3lb 4 Oz you would give 1.8 teaspoons of ESP
 
You can substitute heart for some of the muscle meat if you like. It is full of nutrients. I would only use say 1/2 lb in a batch. Chicken or lamb heart
 
You made it look so easy. :arghh: Thank you SO much!

That's good to know - I'll have to see if I can find any heart locally then!

I have a standard teaspoon measuring set - anything special I should have?
 
I went through what you are going through when I started! Trying to find the dose of the ESP took ages. The hardest part is getting it all sorted out in the beginning.
If you have the standard teaspoon set you should be ok.
Let me know if I can help further.
 
So it's not just me! I thought everything was fine and dandy until I saw mention that the density of the teaspoon isn't always the same, depending on how finely you grind the shells, so then it felt like everything went out the window!

How exact does that 1.8 need to be? Like eyeballing 8/10th of a teaspoon isn't going to lead to detrimental chaos right?

Thank you, I feel so much better having someone check my math, especially concerning my babies' health. :oops:
 
It does depend on the density of the powder. You need to grind it til it’s a powder almost like Flour but not quite. And it will have flecks because of the colour of the egg shells. I weighed my ESP and it was the correct weight/density for the amount I used.
If you would rather I can give you the weight of ESP per amount of meat.

I eyeball my ESP each day for Clover. She gets 150 grams of meat so I give her 1 1/2 of the 1/8 teaspoon of the ESP.
 
Would 10.2 grams be the correct amount for 3.4 lbs (muscle + liver)? (3.4 lbs x 3 grams)
If not, yes please, that would really help. Though I'll aim to make it the correct density to match.
 
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