imafan26
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

pet food recipes anyone?

It seems the price of everything including pet food is going up. Not only is the price increasing, but I have had to amazon canned cat food because I could not find locally,a particular type. If you have cats you know what I mean, they won't just eat anything.

To make matters worse, I recently confirmed that the cans now are actually smaller and my cats have been complaining that they are not getting enough to eat. They won't eat another whole can and they don't eat leftovers. I have been giving them some dry cat food when they start nagging. I don't like to give them dry food because I learned a few years ago that a dry food diet shortens their life by bringing on kidney failure earlier. Cats get their water mainly from their food, so they need to have a wet diet. Dry food and canned food for that matter, both have a lot of carbohydrates and cats are obligate carnivores.

I occasionally do buy the cats fish (cooked), and the breast meat from a costco rotisserie chicken.

When I was younger, and had a dog, I would cook up beef hearts and kidneys. The cat liked the gravy and the dog got the hearts mixed in with her food. My brother came home hungry once and ate the cat food that was cooling on the stove. He thought it was good. Now, it is hard to even find beef hearts and kidneys anywhere.

This morning I got up early to get lost finding a hardware store in Kapolei. I rarely go there. I still got there before the store opened at 7 a.m. After that, I went to a Filipino super market for breakfast. I had to wait a few minutes for that store to open too. I got the breakfast special. eggs, garlic fried rice, and tocino, plus pancit palabok. I also got raw shrimp for later and cooked garlic shrimp and a fried pompano (fish). The garlic shrimp is for dinner, but I will split the pompano with the cats. I try to eat more fish but I really don't like it. Pompano is mild but I can only eat a little of it.

I bought some chicken hearts for the cats to make some supplemental cat food. It has been so long that I forgot how I cooked it before. It will not contain all of the vitamins and taurine cats need but it will be used to supplement their cat food. I know not to put salt, garlic or onions in the food. Garlic and Onions are toxic and cats cannot taste salt or sweet and like people, it isn't good for them either. I don't want to give it to the cats raw but how do I cook them?

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applestar
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I’m not a fan of commercial pet food. I haven’t had the opportunity to buy “exotic” stuff like chicken hearts for the kitties in a while, but I used to get a pint of hearts and a pint of livers at the Amish market, and just stew them in a bit of water (cover the bottom of pan, and tiniest bit of sea salt (or more often a piece of konbu/kelp) with veggies that they like — any combo on hand of green peas, carrots, green beans, cucumber or squash, lettuce, broccoli, cut corn off the cob (peas and corn could be frozen veg) — and a tiny bit of cooked brown rice, then drizzled some not roasted sesame oil or cod liver oil. (My “proportions” were usually based on imagined prey and what they would have in their bellies).

They would get scraps of meat plus the special mix. Or if I didn’t have time, bake the hearts and livers with just enough water in a small casserole dish to keep from burning/sticking in low oven like 325°F then freeze spread out on a sheet to stay individual then freezer bag — to feed like a heart and lump of liver each in addition to meat and veg.

I tend to choose cat prey meat subs like bird (chicken, turkey, duck, eggs), fish (share our mostly smaller fish or river fish or salmon… or more typically, I would give them the little dashi fishies after making the broth) and occasionally lamb or pork. I did once or twice get them rabbit, but I got creeped out. One time for the winter holiday, they got a cornish hen to share between them while we had turkey (no I don’t give them cooked bones) — but they preferred the turkey scraps to the cornish hens :lol: (They do like turkey and duck more than chicken)

They occasionally get a little (a teaspoon at most) yogurt, kefir, or whey. I give them cat multi-vitamin/mineral supplements with taurine, etc. to make up for the missing organ meats which are hard to obtain in good quality sometimes, and anything else I missed.

——

HOWEVER, this all changed when I turned over the feeding to my daughters — they prefer the “convenience” of canned cat food. So the girls get as good quality as they think appropriate. I can’t decide if in their old age — 13 going on 14 — the kitties are not as versatile in digesting and prefer and digest the canned “pâté” better… or this is when more than ever they should be getting hand crafted food….

But they are THEIR cats and I want them to take on the full responsibility. So that’s how it’s being handled now.

imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It is easy to get chicken hearts, liver, or gizzards. I would have preferred the chicken liver, but it had more bile in than I would like. Beef liver has been hard to find fresh. It is usually frozen if it is around at all. Pork liver is also available, but I have never tried to eat or cook that. There are also chicken feet, but that is too much work. I haven't seen kidneys of any kind for awhile. There are bones to make broth, but I do draw a line there. Unless I am making pork ribs, I don't make broth. The pork broth is a byproduct of preparing the pork ribs for BBQ. I haven't made any of that in a while.

I thought about adding bouillon, but I don't know if the cats would like the herbs in herb ox and the beef and chicken bouillon has a lot of salt. I did not think about dashi or dashi konbu, Dashi konbu has some salt but not as much as dashi powder. I do have bonito flakes and can use that instead. It still has salt. Dashi has aji which will definitely not be good for the cats either.

I made fried rice with my frozen peas. I do have some carrots, tomatoes, beans, okra, kale,daikon, and semposai. I might be able to use some of these to make a gravy for the cats. I have lemons and limes too, but I know the cats don't like that.

Walmart sells chubs of raw pet food, but I am not into that and I would have to repackage it since there is more than one meal.

I'll try stewing the hearts in a little bit of water with some steamed carrots, beans and maybe some kale. I'll see how they like it. If I can find my bonito flakes, I might throw some of that in too.

Tonight they had half the pampano for dinner. There were no complaints. They were messy though leaving piece of fish on the floor.

I got less than half of the fish, but that was enough for me. I ate it with the pancit palabok which actually has ground fish in it. It is a great appetite killer.

imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I sauteed the chicken hearts in a little unsalted butter and there was a lot of water that came out of the chicken so I did not have to add much more liquid. I gave each cat one heart with their regular meal. I did have to chop it up for them. It was a little too chewy whole, but they did like it. I have bagged 6-8 hearts in separate bags and frozen them for future meals. I should get about 3 weeks of supplements for their canned food this way.



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