Felines have been eating raw meat for thousands of years. Even if your kitty has been tamed, it continues to hunt mice, rats, and other rodents. This means that in order to stay healthy, it still needs raw meat in its diet. If you are tired of buying expensive cans of industrial cat food, then you can consider making your furry friend's meals yourself, using raw meat. While some prep work is required, this solution keeps the cat healthy and happy.
Ingrediants
- 2 kg of raw muscle with bone.
- 420 g of raw heart, preferably from the same animal from which the meat comes. If the heart is not available, you need to take a 4000mg taurine supplement.
- 200 g of raw liver, preferably from the same animal from which the meat comes. If you can't find liver, you can replace it with 40,000 IU Vitamin A and 1,600 IU Vitamin D, but try to get offal rather than rely on supplements.
- More muscle meat, if you have replaced offal with vitamin and taurine supplements. For example, if you didn't find the heart, add another 420 of meat with bones.
- 480 ml of water.
- 4 raw egg yolks (preferably from free-range hens that do not undergo treatment with antibiotics).
- 4 capsules of glandular supplement.
- 4000 mg of salmon oil.
- 200 mg of B-complex vitamins.
- 800 IU of vitamin E; the powder formulation is the easiest to use, but you can also find oil-filled capsules.
- 1 g of laminaria seaweed and 1 g of powdered palmaria algae (optional).
- 20g psyllium powder or 40g whole psyllium (optional).
Steps
Part 1 of 2: Prepare Raw Meat Food
Step 1. Get your cat for a vet visit
You need to be sure that it is completely healthy before feeding it a home diet. Take your furry friend to the vet's office for a thorough check-up. You should also show the diet plan and recipe to a veterinary dietician, to be sure the food provides all the nutritional foods you need.
Your vet will help you find a dietician in your region or you can do a search online
Step 2. Be prepared to purchase supplements
When you grind and freeze raw cat meat, the amount of taurine available is reduced. You will therefore need to supplement this amino acid to avoid serious eye and heart problems for your cat. Remember that taurine deficiency is not immediately symptomatic. It takes a few years, but eventually the damage will be irreversible.
Ask your veterinary dietician to recommend the right dosage for your specimen
Step 3. Handle food safely
Whenever you touch raw meat, you need to wash your hands very often and it is important to store it properly. This detail is essential to avoid salmonella poisoning. Always use very fresh meat and do not buy what appears to have deteriorated, as this will increase the risk of disease.
- Be aware that a pregnant woman's handling of raw meat increases her risk of contracting toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease. Wash your hands often or wear gloves when you need to come into contact with raw meat.
- If you have any doubts about the nutritional value of raw food, know that no nutrients are lost during preparation, unlike with cooking.
Step 4. Buy the meat
Depending on the type you have chosen to use, you may have some difficulty in procuring high quality ones. While it's pretty easy to find whole chicken at the grocery store, you should check with your local farmer or local butcher for offal. If you only found whole chicken, then grind and offer the cat only the small bones. In any case, if there are large bones in the food, the cat will simply ignore them; just be careful not to cook them, as they can chip and damage the animal's digestive system.
Luckily, you can find pre-minced and mixed meat in the refrigerated and frozen section of pet stores. All you need to do is thaw the product and add the supplements
Part 2 of 2: Mix the Ingredients
Step 1. Prepare the meat
Cut the carcass and separate the muscles from the bones. Then cut the meat into small pieces or grind it in a mincer using an accessory with very large holes. If you leave bites whole, allow the cat to chew, which will preserve the health of the teeth and gums. Set aside the bones with the meat residues attached and return the muscle part to the refrigerator.
If you have chosen chicken, try to remove as much skin as possible. Chicken neck is a good cut to use, as it is mostly made of cartilage, which is easy for you to cut and easy for your cat to digest. You can also buy rabbit meat or dark chicken and turkey meat
Step 2. Process the offal
Once you've prepared the muscle meat, weigh the organs. Grind them with a blender or meat grinder and return them to the refrigerator as you proceed with the other ingredients.
At this point you can also remove the partially covered bones from the fridge and grind them. In this case, do not use the blender, as it will most likely not be able to break them
Step 3. Make a blend of supplements by mixing with a whisk
Pour the salmon oil, glandular supplement, laminaria and palmaria palmata, vitamin E, vitamin B complex, egg yolks and water into a bowl and whisk until smooth. they will be well combined. If you have decided to use psyllium as well, add it last and mix again.
You can discard the egg whites or save them for another use
Step 4. Combine the meat with the supplement blend
Put the hand-cut muscle meat, ground beef and bones in a large bowl and mix to combine the ingredients. Add the supplement blend and mix again to make sure it gets well distributed.
Step 5. Pack and store the food
Transfer the meat to easier-to-handle containers, such as bags or single-serving containers for the freezer. Avoid overfilling the bags and always leave 1.5 cm of space at the top edge. This way the food can expand during freezing. Before placing everything in the freezer, label each container with the type of meat contained and the date.
Airtight jars with a wide opening keep food longer and in better condition; however, you need to be sure you are buying jars that are suitable for freezing and not just for preserves
Step 6. Offer the cat food
Take it out of the freezer and heat it while it's still in the bag. If you have food in the refrigerator, you still need to warm it up a bit before giving it to the cat. Some specimens vomit raw food that is too cold when it reaches the stomach.
To heat the packages, place them under hot tap water until they reach room temperature or a little more. Never use the microwave for this purpose, especially if the food contains bones because these, once cooked, splinter and become a serious danger for your furry friend. Raw bones, on the other hand, are soft and easy to digest
Advice
- It is important to vary the diet a little if you want to keep a pet cat interested in food. You can consider rabbit, chicken (even small farmed), turkey or guinea fowl meat. Some cats like beef and lamb, but not all cats used to eating industrial food can digest these meats well at first.
- If you do not use the food immediately and freeze it for more than a week or two, then add another 4000 mg of taurine to restore the nutritional properties lost during storage. You can also sprinkle the meat with taurine in capsules for two or three meals a week, to make sure your feline friend is getting this all-important amino acid.
- You can offer this food to both puppies and adult specimens; however, be sure to gradually introduce it into their diet.
Warnings
- An exclusively carnivorous diet can quickly become unbalanced. Unless you are a feline feeding expert, you must follow the recipe without altering or modifying any ingredients.
- Do not try to "persuade" the cat to eat raw food with very tasty foods. If you use very strong tasting ingredients, such as tuna preservative liquid, the cat will eventually refuse to eat the milder tasting foods that have not been "enriched".
- Intestinal parasites are a problem. These can form cysts in the muscle tissue of cattle and transfer to the cat's body. Consider having your pet undergo preventive prophylaxis in collaboration with your veterinarian.
- Some vitamins are water-soluble, which means there is no risk of poisoning your cat if you use them at the correct dosages, as any excess will be excreted in the urine. On the other hand, an "overdose" of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) is definitely dangerous, because the body is unable to get rid of them. Hypervitaminosis A is toxic to cats and manifests itself as muscle aches. Eliminating the excess vitamin A solves the problem.
