Question on Grinding Your own Cat Food.

Status
Not open for further replies.
Sev

Sev

Very Active Member
Recently Shadow experienced a urinary blockage due to the me feeding a combination of Wellness original formula kibble and Signature selects. The foods caused his pH to move into the 7 range.
I since found out that Wellness brand has been linked to urinary problems in cats. Also the Signature select variety is much to high in carbs. It has disappeared from my cats diets entirely now.
Currently Shadow is back to his normal self and both cats have become noticeably sleeker.

Right now Shadow is on Hills s/d Urinary Stress.
Silky is eating Taste of the wild.
Both cats are also eating Fresh Pet. It has 9% carbs and as neither cat is diabetic it should be fine.
I do intend to ween both cats off their respective canned food. The c/d is much to high in carbs and I am concerned about the fish content in the Taste of the Wild and possible carb content.

Recently I started grinding chicken gizzards, heart and beef liver to supplement their diet.
They have really taken to it. I figure a 5.5oz can is costing me about $0.76

I have gone through Doctor Piersons recipe and noticed that aside from heart & beef liver there is no mention of other organ meats. I have been under the impression that organ meats provide substantial nutrient value are a natural part of a felines diet.
Is there a reason why organ meats should be avoided? Or is it just easier in most cases to find the leg and breast meet from fowl?

Thanks guys.
 
There are specific nutrients in heart and liver - ex taurine - which were the reason for their inclusion in the recipe. Other than that, you'd have to read her rational for the recipe, not just the ingredients.
 
BJM said:
There are specific nutrients in heart and liver - ex taurine - which were the reason for their inclusion in the recipe. Other than that, you'd have to read her rational for the recipe, not just the ingredients.
Click to expand...

LOL.

I guess it pays to go to the end of the article. Gizzards are good for dental health and can be add to the meat content. :)
 
To get the good dental effects, don't grind the heart and gizzards, leave them in bigger chunks so they have to chew.I don't think you need to avoid organ meat, but consider the natural balance between organ meat and muscle in prey.

Since you are on the west coast, see if you can find SmallBatch frozen raw food. Even at the boutique pet store where I get it, it costs less per pound than Nature's Variety at PetSmart. Better quality I think, too. The ME data is on the LC/low phos tab on Tess's SS.
 
Last edited:
Ann & Tess said:
To get the good dental effects, don't grind the heart and gizzards, leave them in bigger chunks so they have to chew.I don't think you need to avoid organ meat, but consider the natural balance between organ meat and muscle in prey.

Since you are on the west coast, see if you can find SmallBatch frozen raw food. Even at the boutique pet store where I get it, it costs less per pound than Nature's Variety at PetSmart. Better quality I think, too. The ME data is on the LC/low phos tab on Tess's SS.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ann.
Nice list. I book marked it.
Also like your spread sheet for Tess.
Actually I am in TN. Nice product though is this is who you were suggesting. http://smallbatchpets.com/cats/ No retailers this side of the the Mississippi.
Right now the boys are eating about 4 foods when you factor in what I am feeding raw and what they are catching.
I was going to move them both to Merrick. However from what I have read the quality has dropped and calorie count has risen in the new formulation of Perfect Bistro.
Now I am looking at Weruva 10.5oz cans. Comes out to be about 27 cents an oz online.

What I have been doing is both carving and grinding. Finally found chicken quarters locally. Not sure if I will be par baking the chicken. The cats are eating all sorts of rodents they catch. So I am pretty sure they are getting their fair share of bacteria.
I was thinking of grinding up frozen mice but that just gives me the willies. :D.

I have looked at the frozen raw locally before. Can be pricey depending on the markup.
Instinct does come in 5lb frozen raw chicken for about 35.00 on Amazon. 12lbs of chubs is about $60.00. Though it looks like they are only for dogs now. Odd as there appears to be no additives or %'s bad for cats. Magnesium and phosphorous are both low. Looks like the ingredients are the same except there is no taurine added.
Looking at 7 and 5 dollar a lb respectively. 44 cents and 31 cents an oz. So. that would be about $1.70 for a 5.5oz a can at the lower end if it came that way. Might have to call them for some clarification. They seem to have changed formula. I see a discrepancy on the ingredient list on their site and Wag.
 
Check out Felines Pride. You can get their ready made food or just the ingredients to add to your own meat. Bone in or out. Dr. Lisa says it's the closest thing to hr recipe. I used their food for years. I make it myself now, but still use their add on ingredient pack to add to my meat.
https://www.felinespride.com/
 
katiesmom said:
Check out Felines Pride. You can get their ready made food or just the ingredients to add to your own meat. Bone in or out. Dr. Lisa says it's the closest thing to hr recipe. I used their food for years. I make it myself now, but still use their add on ingredient pack to add to my meat.
https://www.felinespride.com/
Click to expand...

Thank you.

I believe that is one of the ones I came across a while back.

Now if I have my figures correct.
The average cost is a $1.91 lb for the chicken & turkey gizzards, hearts, live and beef liver.
I am at about $0.12 per oz. With no added supplements.
About $0.66 cents per 5.5 oz can.
4.8lbs is the equivalent to a case of 12 5.5 oz cans.

So $34.95 including shipping for the Felines Pride.
Makes 32lbs of food.
$1.09 per lb.
$0.07 per oz.

So if I have this correct.
I am looking at $0.19 per oz using the giblets, liver and heart combination.
That brings me up to about 1.o4 a can

I can get chicken quarters for $1.36lb
That is $0.085oz. + $0.07oz = $0.155oz
That would bring the price to $0.85 for a 5.5oz can.

So depending on what my final proportion of meats is. The low to high range should be between $0.85 - $1.04 a 5.5oz can.

Is this about where your are for the price of your home made cat food?
 
I have no idea of the cost...I buy a local chicken, boneless thighs that are a more pricey ($3.99 lb) and use the feline's pride mix. I add liver, eggs, psyillum, gelatin, salmon oil. I would do it no matter what it cost because I believe it's better for them:)

But don't forget you add water to the food! You didn't take into account for that, and that adds volume/weight.

Dr. Lisa's recipe calls for at least 1/3 cup water per pound of meat, more if your cat will eat it with more water. Felines pride says to add 1/2 cup (4 oz) per lb.

I give my girls lots of water, I add a cup of water for each lb. of meat. So that pound of meat w/ the water and ingredients is going to generate at least 24 oz of food or 1.5 lbs of food.

Roughly...just chicken, and felines pride, and water (not including eggs, liver and the couple other ingredients, they aren't expensive and I dont feel like breaking that down..lol) I am spending about $10 for 3 lbs of food. That's about $.21 per ounce. With the other ingredients I omitted, let's say $.25 an ounce.

Katie (she weighs 14.4 lbs) eats 7.5-8 oz a day, Anabelle (weighs 11.8 lbs) eats about 6 oz a day. So it costs me $3.50 a day to feed my girls.
 
katiesmom said:
I have no idea of the cost...I buy a local chicken, boneless thighs that are a more pricey ($3.99 lb) and use the feline's pride mix. I add liver, eggs, psyillum, gelatin, salmon oil. I would do it no matter what it cost because I believe it's better for them:)

But don't forget you add water to the food! You didn't take into account for that, and that adds volume/weight.

Dr. Lisa's recipe calls for at least 1/3 cup water per pound of meat, more if your cat will eat it with more water. Felines pride says to add 1/2 cup (4 oz) per lb.

I give my girls lots of water, I add a cup of water for each lb. of meat. So that pound of meat w/ the water and ingredients is going to generate at least 24 oz of food or 1.5 lbs of food.

Roughly...just chicken, and felines pride, and water (not including eggs, liver and the couple other ingredients, they aren't expensive and I dont feel like breaking that down..lol) I am spending about $10 for 3 lbs of food. That's about $.21 per ounce. With the other ingredients I omitted, let's say $.25 an ounce.

Katie (she weighs 14.4 lbs) eats 7.5-8 oz a day, Anabelle (weighs 11.8 lbs) eats about 6 oz a day. So it costs me $3.50 a day to feed my girls.
Click to expand...

Nice. :)
Yup I add lots of water when I plate the food for them. I also add some to their canned food. I spritz the Fresh pet they snack on with water as well.
Also both cats are from the wild and still avid hunters. So they are getting plenty of natural nutrition along with packaged.
Based on what you have provided I am def ball park for cost. If I can find quarters on sale that would be a good savings as well.
I'll have to see if my neighbor will give up some of his free range eggs. :)
 
Don't forget when you add eggs, it's just the egg yolks you add. Save the whites and make yourself an omelet. ;)
They will love their food and love you for it!
 
katiesmom said:
Don't forget when you add eggs, it's just the egg yolks you add. Save the whites and make yourself an omelet. ;)
They will love their food and love you for it!
Click to expand...

Good thing you mentioned yolks only. I missed that in my reading.
Thank you. :)
 
Anybody have any recommendations on manual instead of electric meat grinders? I was looking at some #32's on Ebay.
 
Well. I may my first 6lb batch of raw with all the necessary nutrients added. I came up short on the bone as I had to debone.
I am not to concerned as both cats are still clearing the forest of rodents.
I used a 4:1:1 Chicken thighs, beef liver and gibblets+heart. +32oz of water.
I got the, "You're kidding me right?", look from both cats. :facepalm:
However they are coming around to eating it. I think my grind is to fine on the chicken thighs as both really like the chunky cut I did with the liver, Giblets and hearts prior.

A note for our more anal members that might read this. I weighed the "5.5 oz" cans I filled. Total weight is 7.2oz. The cans weight 4 oz. So because you have no filler going into the food you actually 6et 6.8oz of actual food for your little buddies. So every 5 cans is the equivalent of a shade over 6 if you were buying at the store.
 
What grinder did you end up using?
May I ask why you are using beef liver instead of chicken? Do they like it better? I don't know if it makes any difference, but I have always used chicken liver, I didnt see any mention of beef liver in Dr. Pierson's recipe.
 
katiesmom said:
What grinder did you end up using?
May I ask why you are using beef liver instead of chicken? Do they like it better? I don't know if it makes any difference, but I have always used chicken liver, I didnt see any mention of beef liver in Dr. Pierson's recipe.
Click to expand...

All I have is a manual grinder at the moment. I am doing a lot of slicing by hand.
The beef liver is all I see available in the local markets unless they happen to put up turkey organ meats.
Both cats seemed to enjoy the mixture of beef liver and chicken giblets and hearts.
So far from what I have read beef liver contains a variety of nutrients cats need. The only thing I have seen is that the percentage should not be excessive as beef liver has a lot of vitamin A. So I will be cutting back on the percentage in the next batch. Right now both cats are hunting prey and eating store bought as well.
From what I read it has taurine, iron, selenium, manganese, zinc, biotin, B2, B3, B5, B12, choline, inositol, folacin and vitamin C.

However if there is a specific reason not to use it I would like to know as soon as possible. My suspicion would be the GMO, hormones and antibiotics cows may be fed. However chickens are fed those as well.
 
I have no idea about the beef liver.
Take a moment and check out www.hare-today.com
It's a small farm in western PA that sells everything you need for making food. Heart, meat, livers............just about everything. I ordered from them before when I couldnt find chicken liver locally. Their prices are good, Many people making raw source their ingredients from them. They aren't far from you, so the shipping shouldnt be too bad.
 
katiesmom said:
I have no idea about the beef liver.
Take a moment and check out www.hare-today.com
It's a small farm in western PA that sells everything you need for making food. Heart, meat, livers............just about everything. I ordered from them before when I couldnt find chicken liver locally. Their prices are good, Many people making raw source their ingredients from them. They aren't far from you, so the shipping shouldnt be too bad.
Click to expand...

Nice. Thank you.
The price point on some of the products appears to be very good.
I like the supplements.
 
katiesmom said:
I have no idea about the beef liver.
Take a moment and check out www.hare-today.com
It's a small farm in western PA that sells everything you need for making food. Heart, meat, livers............just about everything. I ordered from them before when I couldnt find chicken liver locally. Their prices are good, Many people making raw source their ingredients from them. They aren't far from you, so the shipping shouldnt be too bad.
Click to expand...

Found fresh chicken liver this week at the grocery store. Might be a few cents less than the beef. There is a lot of liquid in the container. I scale it to see.

Also I dont like the way the ground food separates after being frozen with the added water. I am going to mix w/o water and add it at feeding.
 
I'm curious, are you adding plain water or are you using the leftover, unused parts to make a broth with?

When I make the raw food, I take all the unused parts including all skin and bones not used, add lots of water and boil it for a couple hours. Then I let it cool, skim the yuck off the top and put into containers to freeze. I save it to use for the next batch of raw food.

But if you are planning to add the water later, you could use this broth idea and add it instead. Not only will it add flavor to the food, it will also give the extra nutrients that are in the bones, etc that you didn't use.

Just something else to try.
 
Hillary & Maui (GA) said:
I'm curious, are you adding plain water or are you using the leftover, unused parts to make a broth with?

When I make the raw food, I take all the unused parts including all skin and bones not used, add lots of water and boil it for a couple hours. Then I let it cool, skim the yuck off the top and put into containers to freeze. I save it to use for the next batch of raw food.

But if you are planning to add the water later, you could use this broth idea and add it instead. Not only will it add flavor to the food, it will also give the extra nutrients that are in the bones, etc that you didn't use.

Just something else to try.
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention that.
I was considering making bone broth.
In the batch I made today I par cooked the chicken. Then added the liquid back in. I carved all the meat by hand. And course ground the connective tissues and skin.
I am starting to think the cats dont like the chicken meat as much as they like the gizzard, heart and liver.
We also just had a third cat adopt us as well. He appears to have survived the feline ritual hazing and has been accepted as an outside resident. All three cats are hanging out without and fighting now.
He's diving in with gusto. Hungry little bugger. Also a Manx. :)

Working on getting him in a crate and to the vets for shots and tests. Appears to have been neutered already.
 
Critter Mom said:
Oh dear! :(
Click to expand...
I think it was the par baking and putting the oil back in.
They def like the giblets, heart and liver alone. I'll go back to mostly that and ease the raw chicken in.

On the bright side. The latest cat to arrive on its own could care less. I packed 31 3oz cans for him. Hopefully he wont suddenly get finicky.
I had a few cans of Wellness left and tried to feed him that. NOPE. Smart cat. :)
 
Critter Mom said:
Smart kitty indeed! :) Maybe the other cats might eventually follow his example.
Click to expand...
I had 2 cans of the previous grind left. Thawed one out. Plated it. Not problems. I guess par cooking is out.

Also just won a #12 manual meat grinder off ebay for $4.82. :D
I had been using a #1.
 
Wow you are using a manual grinder. I can't imagine grinding bone that way. I bought the Tasin that Dr. Lisa recommended and it sure makes it a whole lot easier to grind everything.

At least you have one that likes your experimental cooking and isn't complaining. Now you know how to cook for the others and guess you need to get to it.

And pics please of your new resident. I too have a new (old) resident - posted it on community pages.
 
BJM said:
If it is manual, your arms are going to get quite a workout!
Click to expand...
Nah. I am a contractor by trade. Used to the physical work out. :)
Besides.
The grinder is a bolt down style. I already have plans on making a platform that will allow me to attach my Bosch 32 volt cordless drill to the grinder. :).
 
Critter Mom said:
What a cutie! (The cat, not the grinder!):)
Click to expand...
You should hear him when I come out with food. He walks around on his hind legs and everything. We have gotten lucky you so far that neither Silky or Shadow gorge themselves on food. They eat what they need and walk away. I am hoping this one will be the same once he gets completely acclimated. Right now I have some doubts. He really eats with gusto. LOL.
 
Well I made a 3lb batch on food last night. Made it about 50-50 giblets & hearts and chicken thighs + about 7 oz of beef liver.
No probs with Silky eating it. Shadow is being a bit obstinate at the moment. I believe he will come back around.
I left the egg out just in case that was part of the problem as well.
I am fairly confident it was the par cooking. Even I could smell the difference in the food.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top