Home Made Cat Food

Step 1

Bake (at 350 degrees) the chicken/turkey thighs and liver leaving ~50% of the thigh meat raw. (The time needed varies depending on how thick the thighs are but is usually ~15 minutes, give or take.) The liver will be cooked more than the meat which is fine.

Step 2

Remove from the oven and put in cold water to stop the cooking process.

Step 3

Remove some of the raw meat from the bone for chunking (for the version in the picture, I used a grinder, if you use meat shears or a knife to "chunk" the meat - cutting it into small pieces about the size of a dime, it will look like the second picture). The bigger, the better. Keep in mind that raw meat is more tenacious (and better for teeth) than cooked meat. Make sure that you include the skin and all the fat!

Step 4

If using eggs, make sure you cook the whites (the yolks can be cooked or left raw). Break the egg into small pieces so that it incorporates into the rest of the ingredients.

Step 5

Mix together the meat/liver/skin, egg whites, and fat drippings in one large bowl. Placed mixture in the refrigerator while the supplements are mixed up.

Step 6

Combine the water, egg yolks (if you only cooked the white versus the whole egg), vitamin E, vitamin B-complex, taurine, salt, bone meal, and fish oil with a whisk. Note that it is helpful to put the fish oil capsules in warm water in advance of mixing up the supplement slurry. It takes about 15 minutes for them to dissolve and I use my hand to make sure that all of the oil is squeezed out of each capsule. Some people poke the fish oil capsules with a pin. It is ok to leave the capsules in the water. Most cats readily eat them but if your cat is not fond of fish, then you may want to remove them.

Step 7

Pour the supplement slurry into the meat/skin/liver/egg mixture. Mix very well.

Step 8

Portion into containers and freeze. Leave at least 3/4"​【1.9 cm】 of head space to allow for expansion.

Step 9

Ideally, the food should only be in the refrigerator (in a completely thawed state) for 48 - 72 hours so keep that in mind when choosing your container size. The average cat eats about 3.5-6 ounces​【170 g】 per day. (With three cats, I separated into large yogurt containers and take one out of the freezer about every 3 days.) My cats and I are impatient and won't (yet) eat the meat raw or partially raw, so all of my cat food-warming is done in the microwave. Depending on the level of thawing, I heat it for 30 seconds at a time then stir. I repeat this several times until it's fully cooked, then they eat it once it cools. Ideally, eventually you'll be able to reduce the warming to just 10-15 second increments so that the food is not cooked but is just warmed to 'mouse body temperature'.